Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has affirmed what some analysts and unnamed news sources were saying for some time: she doesn’t plan to serve another term as Secretary of State and doesn’t intend to run for President in 2012, either.
The CNN transcript:
Q- If the president is reelected, do you want to serve a second term as secretary of state?
No
Q- Would you like to serve as secretary of defense?
No
Q- Would you like to be vice president of the United States?
No
Q- Would you like to be president of the United States?
No
Q- Why not?
Because I have the best job I could ever have. This is a moment in history where it is almost hard to catch your breath. There are both the tragedies and disasters that we have seen from Haiti to Japan and there are the extraordinary opportunities and challenges that we see right here in Egypt and in the rest of the region. So I want to be part of helping to represent the United States at this critical moment in time, to do everything I can in support of the president and our government and the people of our country to stand for our values and our ideals, to stand up for our security, which has to remain first and foremost in my mind and to advance America’s interests. And there isn’t anything that I can imagine doing after this that would be as demanding, as challenging or rewarding.
Q- President of the United States?
You know, I had a wonderful experience running and I am very proud of the support I had and very grateful for the opportunity, but I’m going to be, you know, moving on.
Of course, now the speculation will be whether she’ll run in 2016 or 2020. Here’s the video of the CNN interview:
Look for some to try to get Hillary Clinton to run in 2012. But unless Barack Obama is clearly an impossible-to-elect commodity and has greatly angered non-progressive-wing Democrats and independents, don’t hold your breath.
A sign of how times have changed: just a few years ago people were speculating that the first woman President would be Hillary Clinton. Now some speculate (increasingly less so) that it could be Sarah Palin or (brace yourself) Michele Bachmann. How times (and standards) have changed.
She gives some explanation about her reasons for not running for president again (which we expected), but I’m curious to hear more about her decisions not to take a second term (full interview will air on The Situation Room at 5 pm EST). I’ll admit I’m disappointed — she has been a really strong force as Secretary of State, but I’m also hopeful of what’s to come from her; it’s hard to believe this would be the end of her political career.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.