Say it ain’t so, Hillary

Hillary, Hillary, Hillary …

Your former campaign aide, Mark Penn, says he thinks you’re going to run for president a third time in 2020.

I’m going to implore you to put the kibosh on this talk right now. You keep saying you have “no intention” to run, yet you say “I want to be president.”

Understand this: I marked my ballot for “Hillary Rodham Clinton” with pride and conviction in 2016. I would do so again in 2020 if you manage to win the Democratic Party presidential nomination. I would have not a single qualm about doing so were it to be you vs. Donald J. Trump.

Here’s the problem, Hillary. I fear a repeat of 2016. Trump made mincemeat out of you in the closing days of that campaign. Your campaign disserved you and the nation by keeping you away from Wisconsin during the general election effort. Your loss in that state by a fraction of a percentage point contributed to Trump’s shocking victory. You know that already.

Yeah, I know you wouldn’t make the same mistake.

That’s not the point, though. As much as I admire all you’ve done throughout your time in the public arena, I hear the same rumbling you have heard: the public has developed a case of Clinton Fatigue.

Barack Obama’s derisive “You’re likable enough, Hillary” putdown in 2008 set the table for what happened to you in 2016. As profoundly unqualified and unfit Donald Trump was to seek the presidency — let alone actually be president — he managed to reveal the perception of your unlikability to just enough voters in key states to win a race he had no business winning.

I am one American who doesn’t want to see a repeat of that travesty.

My request is a simple one: Issue a statement that declares, “I am not going to run for president of the United States ever again. I have had my time in the arena. It is time for me to step aside and turn this fight over to the young Turks within my party.”

Do it. Please.