Though President Barack Obama easily won two presidential elections, it doesn’t mean he coasted into the White House. Perhaps his biggest political challenge came before he ran for president in 2008, when he fought Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination for president. Now that Obama’s time as president is coming to an end, speculation has begun that Clinton will again attempt to gain the Democratic nomination for president, which many Democrats believe she should have gotten five years ago.
With that history in mind, it isn’t surprising that former President Bill Clinton is beginning to field questions about Hillary’s plans for 2016. It’s also not surprising that the former president is already sick of those questions.
According to a Washington Post report, Bill rebuffed questions about Hillary’s future at a fiscal summit this week. He stated that Hillary is writing books, working with the Clinton foundation, and “having a little fun being a private citizen for the first time in 20 years.” Bill also stated that speculation about a Hillary 2016 campaign is “the worst expenditure of our time.”
In many ways, Hillary Clinton is the shoe-in for the 2016 Democratic nomination for president. Her candidacy in 2008 was supported by nearly half of Democrats, and it’s easy to imagine the entire party falling in line behind the Clinton name once again. In addition to her experience as a Senator, Hillary now has years of diplomatic experience as U.S. Secretary of State to run on. Also, while Republicans have begun frantically searching for a party spokesperson who can connect with mainstream U.S. voters, no Democratic stars seem to have appeared to challenge current party orthodoxy, and certainly none that could beat Hillary in a Democratic primary. A PPP poll just weeks ago showed that Hillary might enjoy over two-thirds of primary votes in New Hampshire, with Vice President Joe Biden coming a distant second.