Usually when a politician gets defeated as thoroughly as Hillary Clinton did last November, said candidate would withdraw someone quiet and try to understand the reason for the debacle. Clinton may well have done that, but according to AP she is done hiding and has come out with a speech before a group of businesswomen in San Francisco to lambast President Donald Trump for the sin of sexism.
By all accounts, the defeated presidential candidate seemed more jovial than she was during election night when she is said to have cursed, thrown things, and wept.
She seemed more spirited than she was on the campaign trail when she seemed to be robotic, scripted, and more than a little fake. Perhaps the reason is that Clinton is not running for anything (for now) and thus can say what she wants without fear of consequences.
Unfortunately, while the “I am woman hear me roar” act likely was appreciated by her audience, it was the same strategy that alienated a lot of voters who eventually turned to Donald Trump, many voting for a Republican for the first time. Clinton ran, primarily, on the notion that she would be the first woman president of the United States, much as Barack Obama played up the first African American president meme during the “hope and change” election of 2008.
In her case, the gambit just became annoying. People wanted a problem solver who was going to shake things up, even if he was as rude, crude, and socially unacceptable as Donald Trump was.
Will Hillary Clinton run again? Rumors abound about her running for mayor of New York against Bill de Blasio. Some of her acolytes even hope she will challenge Donald Trump again in 2020.
Of course, she will be in her 70s and rumored ill-health. But the Democratic bench is so thin and filled with other seniors such as Joe Biden and the feeling that Clinton has cheated of her birthright thanks to the machinations of Vladimir Putin that a third run is not entirely outside the realm of the possible. She likely won’t win. She can no more wipe out the wicked things she has done in 2020 as she was in 2016. She will have to deal with defeat a third time if she goes for it.
