Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave her supporters another piece of meat to sink their teeth into last week, following her claim that she is still indeed considering a run for the White House. According to CNN Politics, when asked whether or not Clinton would be running for president come 2016, she responded with, “I am thinking about it;” keeping the “Hillary 2016” fire burning bright. While this answer may not be exactly what her supporters had been hoping for, every day seems to bring us closer and closer to seeing another Clinton-filled campaign trail.
Clinton stated back in December that she would make her final decision by the end of this year, but the rest of the country didn’t seem willing to wait that long. “Ready for Hillary,” a super PAC formed in 2013 with the aims of gathering money for a potential campaign, has already raised $5.7 million dollars even without an actual candidate to support.
Various Washington notables including Sen. Chuck Schumer, Sen. Claire McCaskill and former army general and CIA director David Petraeus have already shown support for Clinton. For a woman that hasn’t even announced her candidacy yet, Clinton certainly has been the talk of the town, and the reasons for this are actually not too surprising.
With all due respect to Clinton’s policies on issues like healthcare and homeland security, what has really propelled her to the top of practically every major poll is familiarity.
Americans have followed Hillary since her husband was president; they’ve watched her grow from a highly-experienced First Lady to a political force all her own as senator and then watched her climb to her highest peak as secretary of state.
At a time where no major frontrunners on either side have emerged, the well-known Clinton certainly comes off as an appealing option to the American people.
It’s hard to forget Clinton’s 2008 campaign, a tooth-and-nail battle for the Democratic nomination that ultimately saw her lose to Sen. Barack Obama. Rather than fall back into the shadows and maintain a position of general irrelevance from that point on, Clinton rose to the occasion and spent the following four years working admirably as the secretary of state, proving that she was an exemplary public servant worthy of leading the country at the highest possible level.
It also doesn’t hurt that Clinton’s image has changed substantially since she was branded as cold and uncompromising during her 2008 campaign. There’s footage of her cheerfully dancing at a gala in South Africa, there’s her constant quick wit that not even shoe-throwers can unsettle, there’s countless photos of her being embraced by public leaders around the world – she left the position of secretary of state with a fantastic 69 percent approval rating. This all speaks volumes to the progress that Clinton has made in recent years.
With all of this in mind, it’s no surprise that the public has taken to the idea of a Clinton 2016 campaign so strongly. We may have a long way to go until Election Day, but from where we stand now, things are definitely looking good for Mrs. Hillary Rodham Clinton.