Hillary R. Clinton has never been absent, for the last 30 years or so, from the national and international political scene. And this starting from a modest angle as First Lady of Arkansas, wife of the then Governor Bill Clinton, she would be like saying First Lady of Lucania, or Valle d'Aosta. More than Lucania. But also from there with enormous ambition, a distant eye, and great skills.
He trod the scene from 2009 to 2013 as Secretary of State and before, as well as a defeated candidate in the 2008 primaries, as a Senator for one and a half terms of the State of New York, a senator who therefore counts, and before that as national First Lady since 92. But coming to the presidency at 69, if she were to be (very probable) the Democratic candidate for the 2016 presidential elections and the next president (more than possible, but difficult to say today), hers would still be the story of a very long rather atypical run-up in American presidential history. There have been some, just think of Ronald Reagan and Franklin Roosevelt himself. But they weren't so long and tenacious and played out in party conventions much more than in full national political limelight. Where Hillary is only missing the highest seat.
In fact, however, Hillary too, like Nixon who returned in 1968 and was renamed Nixon redux, is a veteran. Not only because she is the wife of a former president, and therefore her would be a return to the White House, where unlike various previous ladies she not only oversaw the kitchens and furnishings. But because she is too well known. She likes it, in part. But she does not inspire. Her husband did it. And he also managed to bend to the wind which was strongly conservative in the 94 legislatives, for example, and Bill followed, after a very "leftist" campaign in 1992, delivering with satisfaction in 96 the biggest cuts ever inflicted on American welfare, something that in Europe often forgotten, but in America they remember. He was lucky, with the economy of the 90s. You are less so. And therefore her victory depends on who will face her in 2016 among the Republicans (the internal struggle for the Democratic nomination seems less difficult this time, unlike Obama's 2008), and on the general situation of the country in 15 months, economy above all.
The strength of the candidacy is first of all in the fact that both on her own and as a partner of the unfaithful and loyal Bill, Hillary is the other face of that Clinton brand that a certain democratic electorate really likes, let's say 30% of those who always and in any case vote Democrat, in the presidential elections, or rather do not vote. This is about 20 million voters out of the 65 million who, for example, voted Democrat in 2012. The sympathy for the Clinton brand is partly due to the fact that it was Bill Clinton in 1992 who brought the Democrats back to the White House after more than 20 years of Republican rule, interrupted in 1976 for a single term by that atypical Democrat Jimmy Carter.
The topic of clintonites is that the electorate has changed, whites were 88% of voters in 1980, 72% in 2012 and will be 70% in 2016. With minorities Hillary has more appeal than any Republican. It offers experience and character. Others point out that in 2014, in the legislatures, the Republicans emerged as dominant as ever in local government, assemblies and state governors. And therefore, if as soon as they manage to find a decent candidate (not easy, for now they have a crowded but not very significant scene), they start out as favorites especially if the economy continues to progress between good and bad. Obama remains unpopular according to the polls, below 5 points according to the RCP (Real Clear Politics) average even if it has recently improved, and it is not easy for a president with negative polls to leave the country after two terms for a man of his own party. Coolidge, FD Roosevelt and Reagan did it in the 900s. But they were very popular when they went out of business.
But Hillary is a woman and that could mean something. Veteran as she is, she would be new. Her campaign, she tells herself, will be as a lawyer (she has been by profession, and successful) of the impoverished middle class. But you are a very wealthy middle class, and this could also work if you were able to show off, together with understanding and participation, "that touch of class that appeals to the masses". It remains to be seen what kind of climate it would create, in a year's time, and how it would act on the mood of the country, if two surnames, Clinton (Hillary) and Bush (Jeb), more than known and used, confront each other.
