Yes, Hillary Clinton really may run for president again.
Former Clinton pollster Mark Penn told Fox News this morning there are a number of scenarios that may lead to a third Hillary candidacy.
After defending Clinton’s credentials as “one of the most experienced politicians around,” Penn went on to say of the reported recent confabs between Hillary and declared candidates, “Those meetings are going to be somewhat awkward because she hasn’t declared that she’s not definitely running, and she, in fact, at the same time is looking over the field and I think will make a decision later in the year whether or not to run herself.
Penn said the chances of Hillary running depends on how the field shapes up.
“If the party looks too far to the left and there’s no front runner, she’ll get in,” he said.
“I think if Joe Biden gets in, that probably means she won’t run if he gets in. If he doesn’t get in, I think the field will be open for her,” Penn said.
He went on to indicate Clinton has long despised the year before the election year, so that may underscore the point she will wait as long as she can to declare her candidacy.
Reuters indicates there are serious worries about the field moving left, which could leave room for a more moderate candidate:
Liberal Democratic presidential contenders’ rush to embrace the left’s most ambitious proposals has some Democrats worried there could be a price to pay when they try to defeat President Donald Trump next year.
Party activists have been energized as Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris and other candidates endorsed plans to provide Medicare coverage to every American, some form of tuition-free college, a national $15 minimum wage and the so-called “Green New Deal” advocated by U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
But Trump and his allies in the Republican Party have seized on those stances to attack the Democratic 2020 field as outside the American political mainstream — a claim the president plans to make throughout his re-election campaign, according to sources with knowledge of his strategy.
Some Democrats fear the argument has potency. They worry the primary may produce a nominee who will not appeal to centrist working and middle-class voters who voted for Trump in 2016 but whom Democrats believe they can win back.
“The big progressive programs are popular in a caucus or primary electorate, but probably don’t move the needle among voters who want to find someone who will change Washington by tilting the system to favor people in the middle — not the very rich or the very poor,” Jeff Link, an Iowa Democrat, tells Rueters.
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