Hillary Clinton Says No Second Term, No Second Cabinet Position

Hillary Clinton sounds for all the world like a woman who intends to leave the public stage come January 2013:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer she does not want to serve a second term as secretary of state or run for president of the United States.

Blitzer sat down with the former 2008 presidential candidate in Cairo.

Full 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, this doesn’t meant that Clinton wouldn’t stay on if President Obama asked her to, much like Robert Gates has stayed on for two years after the President who first nominated him for Secretary of Defense left office, but that does strike me as a rather emphatic answer. Also, there will be those who will simply refuse to believe that she, and her. husband, will simply leave electoral p0litics and I’m sure we’ll see a nice healthy dose of “Hillary in 2016” speculation four years from now. However, as I’ve noted before, Clinton will be 69 years old in 2016 and she may not be in the mood for what would be another open race for the Democratic nomination.

 

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Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. Shena says:

    May be she got tired with the on going politics.

  2. bandit says:

    Give Mrs. Clinton credit for never letting her persistent failures to slow her down.

  3. Rick Collins says:

    Hillary is having her own melt down retire the old biddy let her move to some nice country with plenty of beaches and sunshine. She’s nothing but a puppet anyway.