Hillary Clinton: Future President of the United States

The current secretary of state is rooting for Barack Obama in 2012; but for 2016, she is already at the starting line.

She has already confirmed that she will not attend the Democratic Convention in September, held in Charlotte, N.C., where Obama will officially be named the party’s 2012 candidate. There is no need for her to go, needled New York editorialist Maureen Dowd, “Evidently, she’s going to wait for her own.” For several months now, Hillary Clinton has enjoyed a “honeymoon period” with American public opinion.

A natural situation has caused her to forget that she promised – vowed – that after the 2012 election she would leave politics. But there is nothing that pulls in the political animals quite like her on the podium. Yet, what do they gain by reviving a former presidential candidate who was crushed in 2008 by the popularity of a young black senator named Obama, and who subsequently agreed to loyally serve him in a truly prestigious position, that of foreign ambassador for her country?

With a 65 percent approval rating, Clinton effectively surpasses all potential democratic presidential candidates for 2016, including Joe Biden, the current vice president. And it is not the choice of a just few electors who seek to cultivate their future champion in order to pull the rug from under her potential opponents: She not only has the overwhelming support of 58 percent of Americans who identify as “liberal” (in France, they would be “progressives”), but also 56 percent of those who declare themselves “moderate,” 60 percent of women, 50 percent of men, 59 percent of whites, 54 percent of African Americans and 51 percent of Latinos. Finally, although she is attractive to seniors (64 percent), she doesn’t have the support of the younger crowd (44 percent).

A Strong Woman

It is surely too much, too soon. With four years of another presidential administration, and even before this year’s election has even been decided, it is surely imprudent to draw such detailed conclusions. As far as Obama’s election goes, Clinton has remained outside the political games, outside the tea party movement’s war against institutions and the presidency, outside the skirmishes of the Democratic Party with which the former New York senator did not wish to involve herself.

She preferred instead to be the untiring ambassador of American diplomacy, not missing a single important meeting, present for all the big issues, from Libya and Iran, to China and Syria. And this visibility has paid off. American voters are grateful that she has often shown resoluteness that some believe is missing in the president. For those who still doubt that Clinton is a strong woman: having surmounted the rather grotesque evidence of her presidential husband’s infidelity before his impeachment by the Senate, and having lead a calamitous presidential campaign before swallowing her pride once more to loyally serve her former opponent, should perhaps suffice to convince them.

It is not certain that she will enter the White House in 2016, but with such a high popularity rating some of the incertitude is removed. Even if Obama begged on his knees, it is less than likely that she would accept the post of vice president for the next four years to replace Biden. There is too much risk that her popularity would suffer if the president were to leave office beaten.