Hillary Clinton is guaranteed to run again in 2020, according to former Clinton aide Mark Penn.
Penn, who served as pollster during Bill Clinton’s presidency and Hillary Clinton’s presidential run in 2008, says that Clinton will “reinvent herself as a liberal firebrand” and “easily capture the 2020 nomination” on the Democratic side.
Penn calls this “Hillary Clinton 4.0”—a fourth iteration, after her role as a liberal healthcare crusader in the early 1990s, her reputation as a “moderate” when she ran for Senate in New York, and her attempts to be a “progressive” in 2016.
“Mrs. Clinton has a 75% approval rating among Democrats, an unfinished mission to be the first female president, and a personal grievance against Mr. Trump, whose supporters pilloried her with chants of ‘Lock her up!’” said Penn. “This must be avenged.”
“Expect Hillary 4.0 to come out swinging,” he added. “She has decisively to win those Iowa caucus-goers who have never warmed up to her. They will see her now as strong, partisan, left-leaning and all-Democrat—the one with the guts, experience and steely-eyed determination to defeat Mr. Trump. She has had two years to go over what she did wrong and how to take him on again.”
When addressing what’s expected to be a crowded Democratic primary in 2016—and the fact that Clinton will inevitably clash with the next generation of Democratic leader—Penn expected no problem.
“She will trounce them,” he said. “Just as Mr. Trump cleared the field, Mrs. Clinton will take down rising Democratic stars like bowling pins. Mike Bloomberg will support her rather than run, and Joe Biden will never be able to take her on.”
