Here She Is Again

Just two days after the game-changing mid-term elections, I heard from a familiar name: Hillary Clinton.

It had been some weeks since I had seen anything from her Forward Together PAC. Suddenly, there she was again.

There's a reason. MSNBC's election coverage made a very big deal about the fact that the Democrats swamped the Republicans in Congressional races in districts that Clinton won in 2016. In no small way, anyone could take those victories altogether as a validation of her tragically doomed candidacy. After all, whatever coalitions that have formed have not only held up, they've strengthened themselves.

Besides, the Rust Belt Democrats showed up Tuesday night:

• Minnesota: Both U.S. Senate spots and the governor's race, all three holds.
• Wisconsin: The U.S. Senate and governor's races, and flipping the governor's spot.
• Michigan: Ditto Wisconsin.
• Pennsylvania: Winning the Senate and governor's races, both holds.
• Illinois: Flipping the governor.
• Iowa: Winning 3 of 4 House races.
• Ohio: Holding the U.S. Senate seat, and winning two state supreme court races.

The Rust Belt is, ostensibly, where Clinton's benign neglect cost her the White House. It's quite transparent, then, that she might be thinking about running a make-it-right campaign in 2020. Besides, she's been quoted as saying that she'd like to be president. She hadn't said those words, at least not publicly, since her defeat.

So, with things far more woke than two years ago, she's clearly thinking about starting up her engine again. But there are new barriers:

1. Many more potential candidates. These include women who have utilized the intervening time to distinguish themselves: names like Klochubar, Harris, Warren and Gillibrand, who have gained valuable political experience on a national stage. The field, potentially at least, has grown to about 20, and there are good male candidates as well. Nobody's going to stand aside any longer.
2. She's damaged goods. Not many have come back from close defeats to gain the big prize: Nixon has, and to a lesser extent, Johnson, Kennedy and Reagan, too. It isn't unheard of. Neither is the smart money favoring it. She could be the comeback Clinton, mirroring her husband. Or she could be Adlai Stevenson.
3. Her demonization, like it or not, would be like riding a bike for you-know-who. 45 still can't get over her, and the Democrats might be very well advised to help him do that by not honoring any Clinton effort to get back into the fight. No, the whole thing wasn't fair, and neither was swiftboating for Kerry, but there it was. Yes, the Electoral College is a ridiculous way to elect a president. But it's there, probably forever, since it would take a constitutional amendment to remove it, or a constitutional run-around sufficiently complex (needing state legislatures to get onboard) to probably keep it from becoming moot by 2020. The Rust Belt looks winnable again, but it does for any other Democrat as well.
4. There's the image thing. Her we-got-this attitude of ultra-entitlement did not wash well, to say the least. In fact, it may have been the one thing that allowed 45 to seep through the back door. She would need to keep the white pantsuits in the closet, get out dungarees and denim tops, and get with the folks much more than before. Selling that might take some heavy lifting.
5. What about Bill? Her husband has become The Overlooked, Available Prom Date. Nobody begged him to get back out on the road. It might have been Father Time, or MeToo 2.0, from which he got caught in the backwash. Nevertheless, the old-and-tired-of-them specter looms large.

What would be left for her? For one, advising the women running, and being the quiet force behind the scenes, so as to prevent attachment or labeling that would blur genuine candidacies, policy dovetailing notwithstanding. She could also be an important foreign policy advisor for someone's candidacy; that experience might be extremely vital in new messaging that would potentially make a Democratic nominee look very wise and professional next to 45's horrible lurchings with international leaders. That may very well push the woman president over the top--what sweet irony that would be--but it won't, and can't, be her.

If the successes of the mid-terms can be replicated in the Big Game of 2020, first and foremost, the Democrats have to come back out with the same force with which they forged the successes of Tuesday night--because the Republicans, emotionally addicted as they are, are likely to do so, too. A new Clinton candidacy, indeed a nomination, might easily cause enough eye-rolling to negate the effects of the GOTV efforts that has at least brought us to this point, precarious as it still is but at least a counterforce to the awfulness that we've had to endure.

The tragedy of Hillary Clinton is still there for all to see. But her legacy is also strong, if tarnished. A line can be drawn between Susan B. Anthony to Ida Wells to Jeanette Rankin to Frances Perkins to Margaret Chase Smith to Shirley Chisholm to Barbara Jordan to Geraldine Ferraro to Janet Reno to Nancy Pelosi to Madeline Albright to Condoleeza Rice, directly to her. That she came tantalizingly close to the much desired, ultimate ceiling, being held back by a Series of Unfortunate Events, will be the stuff of many books, films, and ruminations in the yet-to-come history of the republic. Her contribution to it cannot be denied (though Texas's Board of Education, in a pique of smallness, turned back references to her in its history books--a glitch that will be repaired, it says here). As we drift toward the future, it will grow exponentially.