This blog post is for you, Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The media are reporting that you haven’t shut the door on a possible campaign for the presidency in 2020. Oh, my. How can I say this delicately? I won’t.
Don’t run for president! You have had two chances to win the highest office. But you know that already.
Look, Mme. Secretary, I was proud to have supported your 2016 candidacy. You had my vote in Randall County, Texas, one of the most staunchly Republican counties in all of America. My vote was among the damn few you got in the county where I lived. I get that you did better in Texas than Barack Obama did in his two runs for the presidency, but it still wasn’t nearly good enough to win my state’s electoral votes.
I would likely vote for you again in 2020 were you to be nominated by the Democratic Party to run against Donald J. Trump.
My problem isn’t so much with you as a candidate. My problem lies with your chances of defeating Trump were you and he to run against each other a second time.
My goodness, he made mincemeat of you in 2016, even though you collected more votes than he did. You made some egregious tactical errors. You didn’t go to Wisconsin, one of those three states that Trump picked off to win enough Electoral College votes to be elected president. Are you any smarter this time around? I would hope so.
I want Trump out of office as much as you do. I maintain my belief that Democrats’ best chance of defeating this individual is to nominate a fresh face. I’m sure you heard that Sen. Kamala Harris announced she is running for POTUS in 2020. Someone such as Sen. Harris would be much more to my liking than a political re-tread . . . and I mean no personal disrespect to you by referring to you in that manner.
I am going to insist the same thing of other “veteran pols” such as former Vice President Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders. Yes, I would vote for either of them, too, if Republicans are dumb enough to nominate the president. I just don’t want them to be the nominee any more than I want it to be you.
Stay out of it. Leave the fight to a newcomer. Let those with the new names and the fresh faces make their case.