Woman, Grandmother, President

Hillary Clinton will be 69 years old in 2016, the next election year in the United States. Reagan was 69 years old when he won the Republican primaries. His age was not an obstacle for a two-term presidency, which made him one of the best presidents in history. About 57 percent of American citizens would like to have another senior citizen as president, a statistic that bodes well for the planet’s current demographic evolution.

Sex and age, disadvantages in other circumstances, are now attractive elements by which the current secretary of state may become the Democratic candidate in the 2016 presidential elections. Grandmothers are a class of responsible and active citizens in Western democracies, more willing and better prepared to drive public issues than men and even young women, who may be occupied with their families and professions.

Clinton was the First Lady of the United States for eight years and senator of New York for eight more. She was defeated by Obama in the Democratic primaries and is now the secretary of state, a position in which she has shone more brightly than the president himself more than once, and a position held by strong personalities in the 20th century who have had a profound impact in shaping the history of the world. The list is impressive: Dean Acheson, Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, James Baker, Madeleine Albright, Colin Powell, and Condoleezza Rice, among others.

Hillary Clinton is going to leave her current position in January. She is already well positioned in the list of greatest secretaries of state, after four years by Barack Obama’s side, forming a team of rivals, an expression used by historian Doris Kearns Goodwin in a book that was bedside reading for President Obama upon arriving at the White House (“Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln”).

Clinton’s current work culminates a career that does not need to reach the presidency to deserve the utmost respect. However, if she wants to achieve it, she now appears to have all of the qualities of a good candidate. There is not a single politician in office in the world with more experience, better knowledge of other countries and their governments, better world contacts or a better image in his or her country and in the world as a whole. Furthermore, no one is better accompanied and advised by those with exceptional political intelligence and ability, beginning with her husband, former President Bill Clinton.

If Hillary Clinton becomes president, it will be the first time that someone lives in the White House first as a spouse and then as president, circumstances that would apply to her husband, Bill, in the opposite order. It is likely that the dynastic perfume of this option is something that Americans would also enjoy.