Clinton Says She’s “Not Running,” But Is That The Whole Story?

In an interview with a local New York television station on Monday, Hillary Clinton finally made it clear that she had no intention of throwing her hat into the presidential ring for 2020.

“I’m not running, but I’m going to keep on working and speaking and standing up for what I believe,” Clinton said. “What’s at stake in our country, the kind of things that are happening right now are deeply troubling to me. And I’m also thinking hard about how do we start talking and listening to each other again? We’ve just gotten so polarized. We’ve gotten into really opposing camps unlike anything I’ve ever seen in my adult life.”

While we were immediately skeptical about Clinton’s ability to be the person who brought the country out of its polarized corners, it turns out we should have been skeptical about her decision not to run for president as well. According to the New York Times’ Maggie Haberman, Clinton did not mean to say that she wasn’t GOING to run for president…merely that she wasn’t CURRENTLY running for president!

“Spoke to someone close with Clinton in contact with her today. They say she wasn’t trying to be emphatic and close the door on running when she spoke to a local reporter yesterday, and that she was surprised by how definitively it played,” Haberman tweeted. “The person also says she is extremely unlikely to run, but that she remains bothered that she’s expected to close the door on it when, say, John Kerry isn’t. She has told her team she is waiting at least to see the Mueller report.”

Uhhh, okay? Not sure that anyone is biting their nails wondering if John Kerry is going to run for president this time around, but maybe Clinton hangs out in different circles than we do. In any event, we’re not sure how she could have thought a statement like, “I’m not running” would be taken as anything other than definitive.

At this point, we would be pretty surprised if Hillary tried to join the 2020 circus. The Democratic Party couldn’t be moving in a clearer direction away from the Clintons if they made it an official part of their platform. The polls seem to have it as Bernie Sanders’ race to lose, and if his “bros” were upset at the Clinton machine rolling over them in 2016, they will be apoplectic if she jumps in this time around. There just doesn’t seem to be any enthusiasm about a third Hillary Clinton run…from anywhere.

Rest assured, if she sees an opening she will take it. We’re just not sure there is one.