Hillary 2024?

I think we can safely say that Hillary Clinton is eyeing a run for the presidency in 2024. Dick Morris, a sometime Clinton intimate, is making the case:

Morris said Sunday that if Democrats lose control of Congress in the 2022 midterm elections, President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will be toast — paving the way for a second Hillary bid, with husband Bill playing an architect to her strategy.

“There’s a good chance of it,” said Morris, referring to a Hillary-Trump rematch, to John Catsimatidis on the radio host’s WABC show.

“Hillary has set up a brilliant strategy that nobody else is able to do,” Morris added. “Knowing the people around her, I believe there is only one person capable of that level of thinking — and that’s her husband, Bill.

. . . ​”She has set up a zero-sum game where the worse [Biden] does, the better she does, because she’s positioned herself as the Democratic alternative to Biden. Not just to Biden, but to the extreme left in the Democratic Party,” Morris said.

I think Morris is in something of an alternate universe here. As far as anyone can tell, both the Clintons now appear to be old beyond their septuagenarian years, and they're both sick. What on earth did Bill do to contract sepsis from a urinary tract infection? My bet is that Bill was just being Bill and paid the price -- over my working life, I knew lots of guys who came back from Vegas with UTIs. And by 2024, on her current pace, Hillary will look like a cross between Angela Merkel and Golda Meir.

I've already speculated here that Hillary's best chance is to be the candidate to replace Kamala Harris as vice president under the 25th Amendment if Harris resigns. Then she can either step in for Biden before 2024 if Biden resigns or is incapacitated, or she can try for the nomination then if Biden is still in office.

The problem with that is that the Democrats have moved to the left even since 2016, but beyond that, Hillary isn't really credible as a moderate alternative to Biden or Trump. Biden, after all, was supposed to be the Clinton-style modrate himself, but the story of his presidency so far is that he's caved consistently to Pelosi and the Squad. How would Hillary be different? And to move in as vice president under the 25th Amendment, she would need a majority in both houses of congress.

Up to November of this year, this means she'd need the approval of the Squad. After November, it's likely one or both houses would be under Republican control, and Republican majorities likely wouldn't approve a candidate who'd use the post to campaign in 2024. They'd probably want a non-controversial figure, possibly even a moderate Republican, who wouldn't be a serious 2024 contender. A difficulty there is that many potential names, like Colin Powell, are no longer available.

A Trump-style Republican who runs in 2024, Trump himself or someone like DeSantis, would probably use a "fool us once" strategy against any Democrat who claims to be a moderate, which Hillary is not in any case. They'd simply say you voted for Biden thinking he wasn't what he turned out to be. How can you trust anyone else who needs the support of the far-left Democrat base?

I don't see it. Actually, I thought Dick Morris was smarter.