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Okay, before I go any further, let me state unequivocally for the record that I believe Hillary Clinton ran one of the worst campaigns in modern political history. Her management was inept, her messaging misguided, and her character terribly flawed. Lets put this into proper perspective: she lost to Donald Trump, for fucks sake! A colossal joke of a candidate who by all accounts shouldve lost to a chair. As the saying goes, the election was Clintons to lose... and she lost it. So why on Earth would I want her to run again in 2020?

The answer is rather simple: I remain committed to the belief that Clinton would be an incredible president. And I believe she not only will run again, as her recent and outspoken re-launch onto the public stage indicates, but that she will also win. No, Im not crazy. I just believe that history repeats itself. And for that we simply need to look to Richard Nixon.

It was 1960. The first televised presidential debate. Nixon refused make-up. John F. Kennedy, well, he was JFK. The battle pitted the young, charismatic Democratic upstart with the movie-star looks against the nervous, sweaty, 5 oclock-shadowed, beady-eyed, prematurely-aged Republican. The rest is history. As is Nixons startling comeback eight years later to win not one but two presidential elections. Times change. Situations change. People change. Can Hillary? My moneys on yes.

Clinton is perhaps the most qualified candidate in history. A prestigious legal career, eight years as First Lady, another eight as U.S. Senator from New York and four years as Secretary of State. A die-hard progressive who voted 93 percent of the time with Sen. Bernie Sanders when both served together. And, shes a woman... and its fucking time America is led by a woman.

The key to the 2020 election is that Trump will no longer be a political outsider who can lie through his teeth 24/7. No more outlandish positions and pie-in-the-sky promises. That con-game can only work once. Next time hell be running on his record, not Clintons or Barack Obamas, or his own bloviating, self-aggrandizing uber-hype.

Voters will judge him on whether he delivered or not. Did they get their wall, and did Mexico pay for it? Did he fix immigration and extreme vetting? Did he rid the world of ISIS as hes already declared hes doing? Did he prevent terror attacks on U.S. soil? Did he keep China, North Korea, Russia and Syria in check? Did he and Boy Wonder Jared Kushner achieve Israeli/Arab peace? Did he favorably renegotiate, or terminate, NAFTA? Did he get our NATO allies to pay their fair share? Did he bring back the factory and coal jobs? Did he give the poor and middle class their big tax cuts? Did he give them better and cheaper healthcare? Did the economy grow 3 percent+ annually? Did he reduce the debt and deficit? Did he create as many if not more jobs as Obama? Did he drain the swamp or fill his cabinet with it? Did all the tough talk and bluster translate to action and results? In short, did he make their America great again?

To be sure, Trumps biggest asset during the campaign was his masterful manipulation of his base through an endless barrage of big promises, lies and political rope-a-dope. But now these same qualities are his biggest liability. As Aaron Burr reminds Hamilton in the Broadway musical, Winning was easy, governings harder. Its a lot more fun to promise the world as a candidate than to defend against having accomplished nothing after four years as president.

Plus, a weakened Trump will more than likely be primaried by a slew of retreads like Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker and John Kasich, as well as new challengers such as Nikki Haley, Paul Ryan, Sen. Ben Sasse (NE) or even another outsider billionaire like Marc Cuban. All of whom would do much of Clintons bidding for her.

But if Trump succeeds in fulfilling his campaign promises and, more so, improves the lives of his voters, then he would likely win again. But his MAGA crowdthe sleeping beast who he roused off the couch and motivated, often with sexist, racist rhetoric, to vote for himwont have the same drive, passion and commitment for him if they end up disappointed and feeling conned. Some of them, like Kraig Moss, who I wrote about earlier in the week, have already jumped ship. Many millions more could follow. It could get very, very ugly for the man who, according to a new CNN/ORC Poll, already has the lowest approval rating (44 percent) in modern presidential history.

Lets keep in mind that Clinton won the popular vote by 3 million. Nothing to sneeze at, and certainly a strong foundation from which to build even further support these next three years, especially if Trump continues to struggle. And its not like Trump gave her a Reagan-like trouncing with his electoral college total either. While he loves to brag at how massive his win was, he snagged the presidency with just 306 electoral votes, among the lowest in modern history. Factor in FBI Director James Comeys unprecedented last-minute politically-based clusterfuck, and Russias hack and overall influence in the election, and its not hard to understand how the Democrats heretofore rock-solid blue wall (PA, MI, WI, MN) was lost by the thinnest of margins, giving Trump a squeaker of a victory.

If Clinton runs the first thing shell need to do is assemble a kick-ass team. No more Robby Mook, with his millennial naivete and obsession with useless data, or Huma Abedin, whos saddled with Anthony Weiners humiliating legacy.

Clinton needs to do whatevers humanly possible, including begging, to get Bills old band back together: Paul Begala, James Carville and George Stephanopoulos. And throw in Obamas brain, David Axelrod, for good measure. She also needs a few truly sharp, aggressive young strategic soldiers, such as Bakari Sellers for example, to assist with media and messaging. She also needs a War Room, like the one Bill had, to deftly and swiftly address each attack... and therell be plenty of them again.

The next thing Clinton will need to do is study Trump like shes never done before. Every tick. Every tell. Every position. His speeches, his rhythms, his overall appeal. She must painstakingly study what he did to connect so powerfully with the Trump Democrats, a constituency that should rightfully be hers.

Lastly, she must look within. She must do an honest and forensic review of her many gaffes and flaws. She needs to successfully address the perceptions and criticisms that shes entitled, disconnected, unlikable and shrill. She needs to relate. Needs to win over more women. And, for Gods sake, more men. And Southerners. And those in the Heartland. They all used to vote Democrat, and they can do so again. Like the man said... its the economy, stupid. Still is.

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Making The Case For 2020 Hillary Clinton - Huffington Post

April 28, 2017 9:04 AM By Chris Stigall

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) The authors of the new book, Shattered: Inside Hillary Clintons Doomed Campaign, Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, talked with Chris Stigall on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT, revealing some of the behind the scenes details from Clintons stunning defeat to Donald Trump and laying the responsibility at her feet.

Parnes said, looking back, that the outcome of the 2016 presidential election is still a bit surprising.

She had a definite advantage, within just knowledge of how to run a presidential campaign and the infrastructure and the financial backing and the star power. When you saw Donald Trump, especially towards the end, post Access Hollywood tape, he didnt have many surrogates. Here, Hillary Clinton was with President Obama and Michelle Obama and her husbandHow are they going to lose? She has all these people behind her and they seemed to be doing well. I dont think it was so much that the media chose to close its eyes. It just seemed like the obvious thing.

Allen divulged that on the inside, there were cracks in the facade that Clintons team could never fully come to grips with.

People werent willing to raise problems internally and they werent able to raise problems externally, through the press, which means she was only hearing some of the problems that were going on in her campaign. She wasnt able to fully judge where things were. Its as if there were two different campaign worlds, the one we all thought we were living in and the real one where Hillary Clinton was in deep trouble and Donald Trump was in position to win.

Ultimately, he stated that he reason Clinton is not President today stems from mistakes she made along the way.

You do have to place most of the blame on the candidate when the campaign fails. I think this book sees Hillary Clinton as a fully three dimensional character. There are positives and negatives. Its not really a value judgement about her personality but it does lay the majority of the blame at her feet. The basic analysis of the failure of this campaign is Hillary Clintons failure to come up with a message, her inexplicable use of a private server, her speeches to Wall Street banks, all of those things set the stage for her to lose a campaign that was certainly winnable.

Parnes believes there is something in the book for everyone, regardless of where they sit on the political spectrum.

For Democrats, we wanted it to be, partly, therapy and, partly, how do we pick up the pieces and move on from here. For Republicans, I think, theyre interested in learning what happened. I think a lot of people didnt expect to win and, clearly, Donald Trump pulled out this victory and they were curious about how it all went down.

Weekdays: 5:30 a.m. - 9 a.m. Chris Stigall brings a contemporary brand of opinionated talk and humor to mornings on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT. Prior to his arrival in Philadelphia, Chriss radio career began in Kansas City where he worked on-air ...

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Authors Detail Hillary Clinton's Stunning Defeat in 'Shattered - CBS Philly

posted at 10:01 am on April 28, 2017 by Ed Morrissey

Did Hillary Clinton become the target of a federal grand jury investigation while running for president?Judicial Watch reported last night that new documents provided in response to a FOIA lawsuit shows that the FBI got subpoenas from a grand jury to seize records of the former Secretary of States communications. It didnt turn up much, but the existence of the grand jury is a new development:

Judicial Watch today released new State Department documents including a declaration from FBI Special Agent E.W. Priestap, the supervisor of the agencys investigation into Hillary Clintons email activities, stating that the former secretary of state was the subject of a grand jury investigation related to her BlackBerry email accounts.

The declaration was produced in response to Judicial Watchslawsuitseeking to force Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to take steps to recover emails of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other U.S. Department of State employees (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. Rex Tillerson(No. 1:15-cv-00785)). The lawsuit was originally filed against then-Secretary of State John Kerry. The Trump State Department filing includes details of the agencys continuing refusal to refer the Clinton email issue to the Justice Department, as the law requires.

According to this new information, however, the DoJ did take some action. The FBI got subpoenas from a grand jury to get records from Hillarys Blackberry accounts at some time in 2016, which JWs release claims was specifically investigating Hillary. However, those subpoenas turned up nothing new:

In the filing Priestap declares under penalty of perjury that the FBI obtained Grand Jury subpoenas related to the Blackberry e-mail accounts, which produced no responsive materials, as the requested data was outside the retention time utilized by those providers.

As recently as last November, critics of the DoJs actions regarding the Clinton administration cited a refusal to empanel a grand jury as one of the-Attorney General Loretta Lynchsmajor failings (although hardly the only one). If Judicial Watch accurately reports the data in these documents (not included in the press release), then it appears that either the DoJdid take its case to a grand jury, or that they had another reason to have a grand jury look into Hillarys activities.

Tom Fitton asks in the press release, Why is this information only being released now? There may be less to that than one imagines, however. If a grand jury was impaneled and found nothing, there would be no reason to publicize that; the DoJnormally does not confirm or deny investigations unless it results in an indictment. James Comey got forced into discussing the Hillary probe publicly because the hidden e-mail scandal got blown up publicly before the FBI even knew anything about it, and it happened in the course of a political campaign. Also, theres a possibility that a grand-jury investigation might still be underway, in which case the DoJ wouldnt discuss it at all although one might think that would be enough for a judge to withhold that FBI statement about the subpoenas if that were the case.

But did a grand jury exist at all? Politicos Josh Gerstein recalls Comeys testimony to Congress last fall, which now looks cagey in retrospect:

Why not impanel an investigative grand jury whereby you have reasonable suspicion that a crime may have been committed, and then you have the ability to get warrants, subpoenasinformation, subpoena witnesses before the grand jury under oath? asked Rep. Tom Marino (R-Penn.), a former U.S. attorney.

Comey responded by explaining why a subpoena wouldnt have been an efficient approach, although he remained cagey about whether a grand jury had been used at all in the Clinton probe.

Its a reasonable question, the FBI director said. I dont want to talk about grand jury in connection with this case.We know were never supposed to talk about grand jury publicly.

Why did you not decide to go to an investigative grand jury? It would have been cleaner. It would have been much simpler, Marino replied.

I need to steer clear of talking about grand jury use in a particular matter, Comey said again. In general, in my experience, you can often do things faster with informal agreements, especially when youre interacting with lawyers.

What does this tell us about the Hillary probe? The DoJ and the FBI may have taken it more seriously than first thought. If the grand jury returned no indictments, that could either mean that federal prosecutors wound up with nothing, or some might argue that they madesure they wound up with nothing. If the latter was the case, though, Lynch and Comey would likely have cited that as a better reason not to proceed to prosecution than the reasons Comey ended up giving last July assuming that any potential grand jury probe has ended. Now that the cats out of the bag, perhaps the DoJ will clarify this matter a little more, but if its still active, they almost certainly wont.

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Judicial Watch: FBI got subpoenas from grand jury targeting Hillary Clinton - Hot Air

Last weekend, The New York Times published a long piece about the effect the FBI had on the outcome of the 2016 presidential campaign. As we all know, Donald Trump won a comfortable victory in the Electoral College while falling about 3 million votes behind Hillary Clinton in the popular vote.

I believe that Clinton was a deeply flawed candidate who failed to energize the Democratic Party base and who failed to deliver to the electorate a principled reason to vote for her. Yet when the Times reporters asked her why she believes she lost the race, she gave several answers, the first of which was the involvement of the FBI. She may be right.

Here is the back story.

In 2015, a committee of the House of Representatives that was investigating the deaths of four Americans at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, learned that the State Department had no copies of any emails sent or received by Clinton during her four years as secretary of state. When committee investigators pursued this -- at the same time that attorneys involved with civil lawsuits brought against the State Department seeking the Clinton emails were pursuing it -- it was revealed that Clinton had used her own home servers for her emails and bypassed the State Department servers.

Because many of her emails obviously contained government secrets and because the removal of government secrets to any non-secure venue constitutes espionage, the House Select Committee on Benghazi sent a criminal referral to the Department of Justice, which passed it on to the FBI. A congressionally issued criminal referral means that some members of Congress who have seen some evidence think that some crime may have been committed. The DOJ is free to reject the referral, yet it accepted this one.

It directed the FBI to investigate the facts in the referral and to refer to the investigation as a matter, not as a criminal investigation. The FBI cringed a bit, but Director James Comey followed orders and used the word "matter." This led to some agents mockingly referring to him as the director of the Federal Bureau of Matters. It would not be the last time agents mocked or derided him in the Clinton investigation.

He should not have referred to it by any name, because under DOJ and FBI regulations, the existence of an FBI investigation should not be revealed publicly unless and until it results in some public courtroom activity, such as the release of an indictment. These rules and procedures have been in place for generations to protect those never charged. Because of the role that the FBI has played in our law enforcement history -- articulated in books and movies and manifested in our culture -- many folks assume that if a person is being investigated by the FBI, she must have done something wrong.

In early July 2016, Clinton was personally interviewed in secret for about four hours by a team of FBI agents who had been working on her case for a year. During that interview, she professed great memory loss and blamed it on a head injury she said she had suffered in her Washington, D.C., home. Some of the agents who interrogated her disbelieved her testimony about the injury and, over the Fourth of July holiday weekend, asked Comey for permission to subpoena her medical records.

When Comey denied his agents the permission they sought, some of them attempted to obtain the records from the intelligence community. Because Clintons medical records had been digitally recorded by her physicians and because the FBI agents knew that the National Security Agency has digital copies of all keystrokes on all computers used in the U.S. since 2005, they sought Clintons records from their NSA colleagues. Lying to the FBI is a felony, and these agents believed they had just witnessed a series of lies.

When Comey learned what his creative agents were up to, he jumped the gun by holding a news conference on July 5, 2016, during which he announced that the FBI was recommending to the DOJ that it not seek Clintons indictment because no reasonable prosecutor" would take the case. He then did the unthinkable. He outlined all of the damning evidence of guilt that the FBI had amassed against her.

This double-edged sword -- we wont charge her, but we have much evidence of her guilt -- was unprecedented and unheard of in the midst of a presidential election campaign. Both Republicans and Democrats found some joy in Comeys words. Yet his many agents who believed that Clinton was guilty of both espionage and lying were furious -- furious that Comey had revealed so much, furious that he had demeaned their work, furious that he had stopped an investigation before it was completed.

While all this was going on, former Rep. Anthony Weiner, the estranged husband of Clintons closest aide, Huma Abedin, was being investigated for using a computer to send sexually explicit materials to a minor. When the FBI asked for his computer -- he had shared it with his wife -- he surrendered it. When FBI agents examined the Weiner/Abedin laptop, they found about 650,000 stored emails, many from Clinton to Abedin, that they thought they had not seen before.

Rather than silently examine the laptop, Comey again violated DOJ and FBI regulations by announcing publicly the discovery of the laptop and revealing that his team suspected that it contained hundreds of thousands of Clinton emails; and he announced the reopening of the Clinton investigation. This announcement was made two weeks before Election Day and was greeted by the Trump campaign with great glee. A week later, Comey announced that the laptop was fruitless, and the investigation was closed, again.

At about the same time that the House Benghazi Committee sent its criminal referral to the DOJ, American and British intelligence became interested in a potential connection between the Trump presidential campaign and intelligence agents of the Russian government. This interest resulted in the now infamous year-plus-long electronic surveillance of Trump and many of his associates and colleagues. This also produced a criminal referral from the intelligence community to the DOJ, which sent it to the FBI.

Yet this referral and the existence of this investigation was kept -- quite properly -- from the press and the public. When Comey was asked about it, he -- quite properly -- declined to answer. When he was asked under oath whether he knew of any surveillance of Trump before Trump became president, Comey denied that he knew of it.

What was going on with the FBI?

How could Comey justify the public revelation of a criminal investigation and a summary of evidence of guilt about one candidate for president and remain silent about the existence of a criminal investigation of the campaign of another? How could he deny knowledge of surveillance that was well-known in the intelligence community, even among his own agents? Why would the FBI director inject his agents, who have prided themselves on professional political neutrality, into a bitterly contested campaign having been warned it might affect the outcome? Why did he reject the laws just commands of silence in favor of putting his thumb on political scales?

I dont know the answers to those questions. But the American public, and Hillary Clinton, is entitled to them.

Andrew P. Napolitano, a former judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, is the senior judicial analyst at Fox News Channel.

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Andrew Napolitano: Hillary Clinton and the FBI...again - Fox News

As the end of President Trump's first 100 days nears, some are speculating about what rival Hillary Clinton may have ended up achieving during the period had she won the election.

Some of the highlights outlined by Politico's Matt Latimer include nominating former Vice President Joe Biden to be Secretary of State and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham as Defense Secretary on day two.

Meanwhile, husband and former President Bill Clinton would officially be called "The First Gentleman" and daughter Chelsea Clinton would emerge as the head a White House Women's Empowerment Office and as a senior adviser to her motherwith minimal controversy.

On the Supreme Court front, a similar partisan battle would play out the way it did with Neil Gorsuch, only with Democrats pulling the nuclear option to confirm Senator Cory Booker to replace late Justice Antonin Scalia.

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During Clinton's actual campaign, strategists did indicate that one of her first priorities in office would have been filling the vacant Supreme Court seat, notes The Hill.

She had also given a speech about job creation and indicated an interest in renewable energy, voting rights protections, tighter restrictions on the health care system, immigration, and infrastructure, among others.

Her objectives were quite varied, with Democratic strategist Jamal Simmon saying at the time that "the biggest challenge for her campaign has always been the lack of a clear message, a policy agenda."

Since her defeat, Clinton has slowly re-emerged into the public spotlight including addressing women's groups and declining calls to run for mayor of New York City, notes NBC News.

She has since spoken up on behalf of issues she has supported in the past like a tuition-free college program and LGBT rights.

More from AOL.com: Mark Cuban grades President Trump's first 100 days Trump has spent a quarter of his first 100 days at Mar-a-Lago Public gives Trump low marks for first 100 days: NBC News/WSJ poll

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What Hillary Clinton's first 100 days may have looked like as president - AOL