Comments

1
Crime is way down since Mayor de Blasio (no relation) took over. I think he's still popular enough to beat Hillary.
2
Clinton should run for governor of New York state, not mayor of New York City. New York has had too many conservative governors, including its current one.

Actually, I kinda wish Obama would run for governor of Illinois.
3
No, Mrs. Clinton should proceed with a dignified retirement above politics.

Can you imagine her misery if she ran for mayor or governor, and lost!
4
As a former New Yorker I'm cool with either.

Manhattan is no longer a hip liberal city, just a condo enclave for billionaires.

Upstate.New York can be conservative.
5
@4 is conservative. You can probably count the out-and-prouds in Rochester on one hand.
6
Why does Hillary need to remain relevant? Al Gore didn't remain relevant.
7
Donations to the Clinton Foundation (mysteriously) went way down once it became clear there were going to be no more Clintons in positions of influence and power.

Unless Chelsea is going into politics, Hillary basically has to run for something, unless Bill wants to dust himself off, but I have a feeling he is enjoying dicking bimbos outside of the limelight.
8
While I like the idea of Mayor - or Governor - Clinton giving a big "fuck you!" to President Trump, and continuing to be a thorn in his side from either Albany or Gracie Mansion, OTOH I wouldn't blame her for not wanting to stick her head into the slime-encrusted meat grinder that is our political system. She's been a tireless, devoted public servant for most of her adult life - she's earned a well-deserved rest.
9
More myth peddling by Mudede about "centrists" who also happen to be neoliberals and hawks.
11
@8 a devoted public servants who made 10's of millions of dollars thanks to her ties with plutocrats? it doesn't compute.
12
Hillary Clinton ran a corrupt campaign against Bernie Sanders during the primary. She received access to debate questions prior to the debate fed to her by Gwen Ifil. She Falsely claimed Universal Single Payer would turn control of healthcare over to state governors. She violated campaign finance laws by taking donations 130 times greater than the maximum limit. Her campaign smeared him for his supposed atheism. She falsely described the National Nurses Union as a SuperPAC in a cynical attempt to make it look like Sanders had a SuperPAC. She falsely characterized his supporters as misogynistic.

Mrs Clinton behaved similarly in the primary against Obama in 2008.

The Clintons are political thugs who will stoop to any level. They encouraged the GOP to nominate Trump, whom they believed anyone could defeat. Instead, this blew up int heir (and everyone's) faces, and now we're stuck with a half-orangutan President-elect.

The best thing this political family could do for America is to retire from politics.
13
Go - go away, Hillary.
14
As a former Upstate New Yorker...please no. She did OK as a Senator, bur very few people like her and a lot of people resented her carpetbagging into New York politics. She drives down voter turnout, I hope the Democratic Party has figured that out.
15
This is not gonna happen. Dumb idea from the first instant.
16
@3 That would be hilarious.
17
Bill Clinton running for mayor would have made a certain amount of sense in 2001 or especially 2005: he needed something useful to do, he was relatively popular in the city, and NYC had a moderate republican (and then later independent) mayor who was not particularly popular after the disaster of the RNC.

Hillary running against DeBlasio now would be (correctly) seen as nothing but a payoff to Cuomo and the rest of the NY Democratic establishment in Albany, all of whom cheerfully loathe DeBlasio and the feeling is mutual. She's only popular in NYC to the extent that Donald Trump is loathed, and I suspect DeBlasio would clean her clock.
18
@1 De Blasio has been a massive disappointment as mayor. He's not popular and if he wins a second term it'll be because local Dems make a deal amongst themselves not to compete, but the reality is he's extremely vulnerable in the primaries.
19
Al Gore is exactly the reason Hillary should keep fighting, and run for the highest profile office she can. Gore's unjustified low profile helped legitimize Bush and the worst of his administration. If Gore hadn't been afraid to criticize the Bush administration, he might have even shamed them into defending the country against terrorism before 9/11.

In office or out, Hillary Clinton should speak out at every opportunity, and make an opportunity when one doesn't present itself.

The nation asked for Gore and got Bush. They asked for Clinton and got Trump. But even without winning the popular vote, there's absolutely no reason to hang your head. Any hint of that is taken by Trump and his toadies as proof of a non-existent mandate. Collaborating with foreign leaders against the sitting president, broadcasting contradictory messages to other governments to undermine the current administration is very close to treason, if not actual treason. But a leader who happens to be out of office has every right to use their voice in a domestic context, and to serve in office as part of the loyal opposition. They can and should criticize foreign policy; not in the anti-American way of Trump, but the way we've always done.

The concern trolls can get fucked. If any of the nasty shit they accuse Clinton of were true, if they really believed it, then her keeping a high profile would help their weakling leader Trump. Their desperation to see the last of her is all the evidence you need that they don't believe their own propaganda, and they very much fear what she can do to them.
20
@19- "The nation asked for Gore and got Bush. They asked for Clinton and got Trump. "

Half the nation didn't bother showing up, about a quarter asked for Clinton (and not with a huge amount of enthusiasm) and slightly less than that asked for Trump (with more enthusiasm). That's about 3/4s that didn't ask for Clinton.

She's not a popular figure. She's a burden to progressive causes. Maybe she ought not to be, maybe 3/4s of America (plus the "hold your nose for Hillary" types like me) are just wrong about Clinton. Doesn't matter, that's the reality and it's not changing.

Hillary's retirement is due. She can consult for the banks or whatever, I'm sure they'll give her some consolation gigs that'll keep the lights on.
21
@11:

Name a national political figure at her level who HASN'T made tens of millions of dollars - assuming they weren't already millionaires to begin with. I'll be you can't come up with more than a handful. Hell, even far-Left icon Elizabeth Warren's net worth was calculated in 2012 to be about $14.5mm.
22
@6,

Well, he didn't remain relevant other than he won an Oscar and the Nobel Peace Prize. But yes, politically he's basically stayed out.
23
If she's not a popular figure, then what are you so worried about? First you tell me she doesn't have much support, then the next words out of your mouth are that she's so popular she has the power to hold back progress.

Progressive causes are their own worst enemy. Their ideological intolerance is the only thing keeping progressives on the fringe. The fact that they spend more energy attacking Clinton than Trump is all the evidence you need of that. They spent Bush's entire first term defending Ralph Nader when they should have been on every nightly news program answering back to the Bush agenda.

Regardless of where she lands on the political spectrum, she has as high a profile and name recognition as anybody, anywhere. That's a power base far outside Trump that weakens Trump, if she keeps her head high. By legitimizing a point of view outside the administration, she raises the profile of views further to the left of herself. Take her out of the picture and you have 2001, 2002, 2003: nobody even discussing alternatives to Bush's agenda in the mainstream media.
25
It's almost as if the Democratic party has learned absolutely fucking nothing in the past year.
26
@23 I'm more concerned that if she stays in the limelight for the next 4 years, people will continue to tie her with the democratic party. That won't help us in the next general election. We need to be the opposite party of the billionaires club that is now the Republicans and having Hillary still around won't help that image.
27
@23 Democrats better move neoliberals out of the way now or it is the end of the road for their party as millennials will abandon them in drove

@21 Warren and her husband didn't make money peddling political influence but by being outstanding academic and lawyer before her becoming a politician. Qualifying Warren as being "far left" because she believes in effective regulations and a strong middle class is quite loony although certainly in agreement with inside the beltway wisdom
28
@23- I didn't say she wasn't powerful. I said she's unpopular. That two terms aren't mutually exclusive. Mrs. Clinton has the power to drive down voter turnout for the Democrats. Progressives didn't spend more time attacking Clinton than Trump, Clintonites spent all their time attacking progressives and Trump and never managed to present a convincing case why anyone should vote for Clinton aside from "You've heard of her." I've also heard of Snookie, you need to come up with more than name recognition, which is the only positive you've named for Clinton so far.

And I remember W's first term very well, a non-stop wave of capitulation from the Democrats who kept blaming their failures on Nader. I remember Ms. Clinton voting for the Iraq War, I remember it all. Do you? Because you seem to have a very distorted idea of what happened. Failing to see what was coming this election makes you, Clinton, Savage and the whole moderate leadership of the Democratic Party completely unqualified to do what you continue to do, which is run the Left into the ground.

29
@2: As an Illinoisan, I'd say no. Being Governor of Illinois means dealing with a whole bunch of political machine stuff, which isn't really the President's strength. It'd tarnish Obama's image, he wouldn't be much better than a generic Democrat, and he'd get bogged down in minutiae. Better to have him organizing for the Democratic Party at state and national levels and working on redistricting/recruitment initiatives.
30
Except voter turnout was not down in 2016. If she didn't present a convincing case, how come she got more votes? Absolutely, a less unpopular Democrat would have had the cushion to have won the handful of states that swung the electoral college to Trump, but your claims such as depressing turnout are false. Look at the data.

The other Democrat who I very much hope keeps a high profile is Barack Obama. A Democratic centrist, with policies almost indistinguishable from Clinton, he too has the power to shift the weight away from Trump.

I'm not saying Sanders or Elizabeth Edward have to step back and give all the limelight to Clinton so she can lead the party. By all means, they should give it all they got. If they can earn the leadership of the Democrats, then great.

The far left is only interested in attacking Democrats. Look at http://www.counterpunch.org/ right now. Every story looks like a Trump position paper. Democracy Now? Same shit. They seriously can't find anything better to do today than attack Hillary Clinton, or attack Trump's critics. Fucking useless.

Hillary is *not* giving a speech every day. She is *not* holding rallies. She hasn't tweeted since November 9. Even in the face of total radio silence, this is what these fucks think they should be working on, full time.

But you fantasize that if Hillary just goes away they will build a real opposition? I don't expect them to do anything except what they always do, which is attack Democrats. That's fine. They're not Democrats. But Hillary Clinton is a real Democrat and she has every right to act like one. A bunch of non-Democrats aren't going to step up and do it.
31
@27:

So, we'll put her in the "already a multi-millionaire before being elected to Congress" column...
32
@30 "If she didn't present a convincing case, how come she got more votes?"

Wiki says Hillary got 65,844,954 and Obama got 65,915,795. Obama got more votes. Quit making up your own votes. It should also be mentioned that Trump got 62,979,879 and Romney got 60,933,504. Perhaps we should be analyzing that as well.

My synopsis: had Hillary held onto Obama voters, she would have won by a significantly small percentage in swing states. Because, as we all know, 60,000 votes do matter.

I personally think it's a good idea to analyze how we did, why we lost, and evaluate what we can do better next time. Even if that means burying the person who gave us Trump as president. Hillary alienates people from the party. She doesn't belong in the 21st century. I mean, the woman chose a white guy that happens to speak Spanish to do outreach with the Hispanic community!

Can we all just agree that she sucks? Like, not even a hard level of suckiness. I mean, just place her on the same suckiness level as a high school teacher who you don't like.

Then we could just move on.
33
@19 "The concern trolls can get fucked. If any of the nasty shit they accuse Clinton of were true, if they really believed it, then her keeping a high profile would help their weakling leader Trump."

Those of us who didn't want Trump in the first place are worried for this exact reason.

Sure, though, let her become mayor of NYC. I don't live there. Wouldn't really effect me. Let them decide who they want. It will be like how we elected Mayor Compromise instead of Mayor McSchwinn.
34
Fucking go away. You've done enough damage, HRC.
35
@30- As @32 points out the voting population got larger and Hillary got less votes. The Left is opposed to Hillary playing a big role in in the Democratic party because they want to win elections and get things done. If Hillary is a "real Democrat" then it definitely is time for the fake Democrats to take over because the real ones are literally losers.
36
@3ll5 Mind you, we had million more votes in 2008 than the total of this year.

The point is that millennials, like myself, are an untapped resource. And those who grew up under Obama will be an even greater powerhouse than any previous generation (and I don't count them as millennial).

By gawd, need the only person who represents all these groups to run in 2020. The first, and most important, #pbw to win the White House.L
37
"millennials, like myself, are an untapped resource"

Every generation is an untapped resource, during most of their 20s at least. Eventually they stop waiting around for somebody to come along and tap them, and get to work.
38
It makes way more sense for her to be a Senator again. Being a mayor or governor means you have to deal with day to day bullshit, and make big compromises all the time. She is probably tired as hell of making compromises. Being in the Senate means she can simply move to the left and vote that way. Make symbolic votes and statements as the party of opposition.

But she is probably tired of running for office, too. So running for the Senate wouldn't happen for at least four years -- assuming a Democrat gets elected and one of New York's Senators gets an appointment for something. It is a long shot. The situation is dramatically different than when her husband left office or when Obama leaves office. Obama is 55. Hillary Clinton is 69. Chances are she won't hold a political office ever again.

Besides, I don't see anything gained from a political standpoint if she holds office. I really like her, but America doesn't give a shit about experience. Quite the opposite. America loves people who haven't done anything. The last three elections that didn't involve an incumbent went to the less experienced candidate (Bush beat Gore, Obama beat McCain, Trump beat Clinton). I have no doubt that if Clinton had won the nomination 16 years ago, she would have beat McCain as well. America wants a fresh face, and the Democrats should give them one. If anything, the most disappointing part of this article is that De Blasio (at least at this point) isn't it. Too bad. He has a lot going for him (tall, white, Italian ancestry, married to a black woman). But it isn't easy being mayor of New York.
39
@13, @25 & @34: Go-- go far, far away, you and all Idiot trolls.
40
Christ, Mudede, can't you spot such obvious trolling by now? This is the New York Times wishing they would still have a Clinton to kick around going forward, and projecting that wish into a thinly sourced nonsense story. Be smarter, don't take such pathetically obvious bait.

Please wait...

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