Will she or won’t she run for president? Hillary Clinton may have tipped her hand on Sunday during a reception in Scotland, telling a small gathering that ‘I’m minded to do it.’
Scotland’s Sunday Herald caught the former secretary of state’s hint-dropping after she received an honorary degree from St. Andrew’s University.
Asked if she was running for the U.S. presidency in 2016, she initially said, ‘I haven’t made up my mind yet.’ But when guests joked that her answer wasn’t ‘satisfactory,’ she replied, ‘Yes, it is unsatisfactory,’ adding, ‘I’m minded to do it.’
The conversation happened on September 13, but was only reported six days ago.
Clinton is already making news on a near-daily basis as speculation swirls around her possible candidacy.
A report emerged Thursday in a new book that President Obama asked her to keep her job as secretary of state for an extra year after he won re-election in 2012.
Clinton had previously told the president that she intended to leave public office soon after he won a second term, but Obama couldn’t bear the thought of losing her and his Pentagon chief, Leon Panetta, at the same time.
‘Would you reconsider, perhaps stay another year? Obama asked,’ reads an excerpt from the book HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton, according to The Hill.
‘No, Hillary said. It was time for her to leave public office.
‘Even though he had refused repeatedly to take no for an answer in getting her to take the job in the first place, Obama pressed just once more, lightly, asking if she might stay just a little longer. That didn’t suit her, either. Obama gave up.’
The book is a collaboration between reporters from The Hill and Politico, released Thursday.Clinton’s departure from the Obama administration freed her to join her family’s foundation, led by her husband, the former president.
She also claimed several years of time to reflect on whether to make a bid for the White House in 2016.
A variety of Democratic constituencies have urged her to take the plunge, including the party’s female senators.
‘All of the Senate Democratic women have written her a letter encouraging her to run,’ Sen. Kay Hagan of North Carolina let slip on Monday at a meeting of a liberal women’s advocacy group in New York.
That disclosure was unintentional, or at least unauthorized. Hagen’s office later apologized to several of the letter’s signers.
‘It’s hard for me to imagine her not doing it,’ said Rep. Allyson Schwartz of Pennsylvania, who is running for governor in 2014, according to a report from Capital New York.
Clinton has kept her oar in politics, stumping for Virginia gubernatorial candidate and longtime Clinton insider Terry McAulife, a prolific fundraiser for former president Bill Clinton.
McAuliffe loaned the Clintons $1.35 million to buy their home in New York state after their eight years in the White House were up in early 2001.
Read more: DailyMail
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