Senator Clinton was feeling fairly cold in January of 2008, and not simply because there was snow on the ground. Having long had her sights set on the Presidency, it was bittersweet attending John Edwards’ nomination. Sure, the party had won back the White House, but the New York Senator had repeatedly told her personal friends and Hillaryland High Command that she felt Edwards was an empty suit, too inept to be President, and that the only reason he had won the Oval Office was because the Republicans and Fred Thompson had screwed the pooch during their time in power. Clinton had also felt betrayed by the entire Democratic Primary. She had been laying the ground work for her own run since shortly after Al Gore had conceded in 2004. As a former First Lady, a Senator from a populous state, and more importantly as a Clinton, Hillary believed she deserved the nomination, and was better equipped than any of the other potential candidates to not only win, but actually get things done once she sat behind the Resolute Desk. Her only real competition, she and her husband surmised, would be Edwards, maybe Joe Biden and John Kerry, whom she would likely dispatch by New Hampshire or South Carolina. But then former Vice President Jeanne Shaheen, who had privately told Clinton that she had no desire to run for President in April of 2005, had reversed course, announced her campaign for the presidency before Clinton was ready, stole her donors, much of her base, and what seemed to be Hillary’s best chance to become President of the United States.
But then the unexpected had happened. Edwards defeated Shaheen, to which the Clinton’s chalked up to a combination of the former V.P.’s own ineptitude and the media’s unfair treatment of the New Hampshirite. He defeated Fred Thompson, whom the Clinton’s greatly respected, meaning that Hillary would be unable to run in four, possibly eight years. Adding to what she considered to be her humiliation, the New York Senator was passed over for both the position of Vice President and Secretary of State. The Clinton’s conceded that Napolitano was a good attack dog, but would likely not put the increasingly Republican state of Arizona into play, and would add little to the incoming administration. Bill and Hillary were also close to Edwards’ eventual pick for Foggy Bottom, Joe Biden. But the idea of the gaffe-prone Delawarean representing America on the world stage, and crafting the new administration’s foreign policy struck Bill Clinton as nightmarish, especially when his wife was an option. But Edwards didn’t much care for either of the Clinton’s, believing them to be the epitome of arrogance and what was wrong with politics, and refused to even have her seriously vetted for any position in his administration.
Fast forward to the early months of 2011 and, once again, events had unfolded unexpectedly. Scandal-plagued John Edwards, after losing the midterms and his wife, had resigned, and Janet Napolitano had beaten Clinton to becoming the nation’s first ever female President. Calls began flooding in to Hillaryland from her donors and loyalists telling them that if their boss still ached to be Commander-in-Chief, this was her best, and likely last, opportunity to do so. They argued that Clinton’s political appeal was manifest. She was experienced, untainted by the scandals that had engulfed the White House, remained a popular two-term Senator from New York, and still enjoyed the fundraising networked amassed by her centrist husband and her own years of work. President Napolitano was still unknown to a large number of Americans, despite having basically stepped in for Edwards during the worsening of his wife’s health and subsequent withdrawal from the public eye. A one-two punch in Iowa and New Hampshire, where voters indicated they were open to a potential challenge, and it would be a cakewalk to the nomination. The only question left to answer by Hillarylanders was; did their boss want to take on a sitting President for the nomination of their party? Especially when it was a fellow woman? The last serious challenge to a sitting President came in the 1980’s, when President Jimmy Carter had been challenged by Democratic icon and Senator from Massachusetts, Teddy Kennedy. If, going off that example, history wasn’t exactly on Hillary’s side.
Hillary asked loyalists like James Carville, Solis Doyle, Evelyn Lieberman, Cheryl Mills, Mark Penn, and countless others from her failed ’08 bid what she should do. Some advised caution. Challenging a sitting President wasn’t an easy task, it was less than a year before the Iowa caucus, it would likely take a lot of money, a lot of resources, a lot of volunteers, probably a convention vote, and would increase her negative ratings with voters, not to mention reinforce the notion that the Clinton’s were willing to do anything for power. Others, especially her husband, warned that if she didn’t challenge Napolitano, she would be leaving the nomination to someone whom she felt wasn’t as qualified as her, and someone who, at least according to the polls, was likely to lose to one of the Republican frontrunners, be it Romney, Barbour, Bush, or Huckabee. In the end, the argument was simple. Despite all the challenges, did Hillary Clinton want to let the Republicans take back the White House against a weak candidate, or throw her hat into the ring and save the Democratic Party from itself? More importantly, was she prepared to sit around in the senate until 2016, when she might be past her best before date.
The dilemma ate at her. Supporters wanted her to run. Adversaries in her party feared her potential candidacy, as did the Republicans. As she sat in her office up in Chappapua, she wondered if this was her Bobby Kennedy moment – in which the Democrats, burdened with a terrible war, an increasingly polarized electorate, and an unpopular administration presented a historic opportunity to help heal the country.
Hillary decided that the answer was yes, and began writing her announcement address. She was in it to win it.