In retrospect, it may have been a mistake for Hillary to be the Secretary of State in 2009

[Yavin4]

Hindsight is 20/20, but if her plan was to succeed Obama in 2016, it may have made more political sense for her to run for NY Governor in 2010.

Being a governor gives you a stronger base of support for a presidential run. She would have had her own record and accomplishments to base her presidential run on. In America, being the Secretary of State does not buy you much domestic political clout.

And, as governor in 2016, she could have had Trump investigated which would have shuttered his presidential ambitions.

I dunno. Maybe I'm wrong. What do you all think?

[Aristus]

1. In 2009, I don't think anyone with a functioning brain would have given much cache to the idea

that Trump would ever get within Adderall nose-flecks' reach of the Oval Office.

Without counting on a dedicated effort on the part of Vladimir Putin to egregiously affect the U.S. election process, such a tawdry outcome could scarcely be imagined.

George W. Bush was bad enough. But he came from a family with measurable, and occasionally sincere, service to their country. Baby Bush was abysmally incompetent, but at least he had a record of political incompetence to run on. He pointed more toward his tenure as governor of Texas than his business failures as reason to vote for him.

[FakeNoose]

2. Good insight

However my only reservation would be that New Yorkers expect their governors to stick around for at least 2 terms. If they really love you, they'll want you to stay longer. Hill would have had to skip out on the 2nd term if she did that. Also there's no guarantee that she would have gotten the nomination on her first attempt. Although it's a good bet that she would have won.

[Yavin4]

4. She won 2 statewide senate races. She was beloved in NY.

She would have easily won the govenorship in 2010, and most NYers would have wanted her to run for president in 2016. They would have expected it.

[demmiblue]

3. I think I don't care. This is pointless (no offense). n/t

[MontanaMama]

5. Oh FFS.

Why do we keep having to micromanage history for HRC? She won the election in 2016...she got more votes.

[regnaD kciN]

7. Oh FFS yourself...

Haven't we already learned twice in the past two decades that "getting more votes" in a presidential race guarantees you nothing? In a functioning democracy, that would be all that counts, but we don't live in such a system, and need to learn to deal with it, or else be satisfied with endlessly being able to repeat "But we won the popular vote!!!" even as Republicans cement their hold on all branches of government for the foreseeable future.

Put it another way: without the ammunition from cherry-picking her time as SoS, might she not have gotten even more votes, with a margin that wouldn't have allowed such a split? We'll never really know but, since it seems obvious that what really doomed her in 2016 was Comeygate, not being in a position where even such a faux-"scandal" could have been an issue might likely have been enough.

[MontanaMama]

8. None of that has anything to do

with whether or not she maybe should have been governor of NY. It’s a silly question.

[regnaD kciN]

6. The main benefit is that she wouldn't have gotten "BENGHAZI!!!"'d to death...

...and, of course, there never would have been any issues with e-mail servers.

But I'm sure the Repugs would have found some other way to frame her as the Wicked Witch of the Northeast.

[3catwoman3]

13. They absolutely would have.

There’s always that child sex ring in the basement of the pizza parlor, doncha know.

[LisaM]

9. How dare she try to add experience to her resume?

I'd say that it was the perfect thing for her to have done (well, I wish she'd gotten the VP nod, but that didn't happen for whatever reason).

She had statewide experience as NY Senator (and on some level as First Lady of Arkansas), national experience as First Lady, and adding international experience to her resume should have been a clincher. I think being a governor would have seemed like a consolation prize to some degree.

I'm sure the OP meant well, but I don't agree that being governor of NY would have helped her - and I think people should serve out their elected terms and serve at least two of them if they can.

[StClone]

10. "Hunting of the President"

Evil crap spewed by Limbaugh, Hannity, on and on it went. Sexist jokes, lies about her, decades of calculated character assassination by the Right. She deserves a lot better than than "losing" to the worst president of all time.

[BigmanPigman]

11. What was wrong was that Putin became her enemy

and he got even.

[mcar]

12. Good gad!

[ecstatic]

14. The GOP was determined to annihilate her and our bogus media helped them.

End of story. Doesn't matter what job she held or didn't held. They were determined to destroy her and it gave trump a great cover to steal the election with putin's help in 2016. That's why we have to stop accepting GOP framing. It allows them to steal elections with no questions asked.

[Trumpocalypse]

15. What if she had been the nominee in 08

and Obama the nominee in 16? Wrap your head around that.

[kacekwl]

16. You're wrong.

She was a great SOS. They would have pulled the same shit on her as governor.