During a March 4 interview on News 12 New Jersey, the Democratic Party’s 2016 presidential nominee, former senator and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, ruled out becoming her party’s standard bearer in 2020, saying: “I’m not running, but I’m going to keep on working and speaking and standing up.”
A March 5 article in US News noted that last fall, Clinton indicated she would like to be president and an article in The New American last July studied speculations from several sources, including Matt Latimer, a former speechwriter for George W. Bush, who began a piece in Politico this way: “Hillary Clinton will run for president. Again.”
The writer of that article, R. Cort Kirkwood, observed one deterrent to another Clinton run, however:
What none of the pundits mentioned, however, is Clinton’s precarious health. Repeated and apparently serious health concerns, such as falling and coughing fits, followed her through the last campaign. Some observers speculated that Clinton suffered stress-induced seizures caused by a concussion and blood clot after a dangerous fall in 2012.
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It is entirely possible that health and age (she will turn 72 in October) are both factors that might have caused Clinton to shy away from the grueling rigors of another presidential campaign.
A February 2 article in the New York Times, which came out before Clinton made her non-candidacy official, quoted several people who said she is not running. But the headline of the article made an important statement about Clinton’s role in the next presidential campaign: “Hillary Clinton Is Not a Candidate. She Looms Over 2020 Anyway.”
The article quoted Nick Merrill, a spokesman for Clinton, who said, “She’s been meeting with our 2020 candidates and telling them one thing: They can count on her to help get the 65 million-plus Americans who voted for her to vote for our nominee.”
The article also cited John Podesta, Clinton’s 2016 campaign manager, who said weeks ago that she was not running.
As the Times headline suggested, however, the real story is not that Clinton isn’t running; it is that her influence as an elder mentor for other candidates seeking the Democratic nomination is expected to be significant.
The article quoted John Hickenlooper, who served as the Democratic governor of Colorado from 2011 to 2019 and who interviewed to be Clinton’s running mate in 2016. He had dinner with her last year, as he prepared for a possible presidential bid of his own.
“She knows almost everybody who’s running, and with most of the people she has a close relationship,” said Hickenlooper, “You talk about divided affections. She’s got it.”
The Times observed that in conversations with those who have spoken with her, Clinton has suggested that she has no plans to endorse someone in the primaries, but is eager to help the eventual Democratic nominee. “She will certainly not insert herself,” said Minyon Moore, a strategist who has advised Clinton for decades.
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