For about 10 minutes after her general election defeat three years ago, Hillary Clinton appeared to retreat into contemplative seclusion.

She wandered around the woods near her home in Chappaqua, N.Y. looking a little lost. Now, some people made fun of her for doing that, but in fact, it was a promising start. Humiliation can be the beginning of wisdom -- as those of us who've been fired in public can tell you.

But the period didn't last long. Before long, Hillary was back on the road -- for years -- like the circus. So many cities, so many excuses.

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Hillary Clinton: The Russians -- I say WikiLeaks, same thing -- dumped the John Podesta emails.

I have my complaints about former [FBI] director [Jim] Comey.

The use of my email account was turned into, you know, the biggest scandal since Lord knows when. They covered it like it was Pearl Harbor.

If you look at Facebook, the vast majority of the news -- news items -- posted were fake.

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There's all these stories about, you know, guys over in Macedonia who are running these fake news sites.

I inherit nothing from the Democratic Party.

I also think I was the victim of a very broad assumption [that] I was going to win.

You know, if the election had been on October 27, I'd be your president. And it wasn't; it was on October 28, and there was just a lot of funny business going on around that.

Despite what you may have heard, Hillary Clinton didn't really lose the 2016 election at all. She won it. She is the real president right now. This is her re-election campaign.

The Russians, Facebook, WikiLeaks, Jim Comey, the Macedonians, the Democratic Party itself ... Hillary Clinton blamed them all. This was not someone coming to terms with a loss. It was someone refusing to admit one. And in fact, over time, that became Hillary's de facto position on the whole thing.

Despite what you may have heard, she didn't really lose the 2016 election at all. She won it. She is the real president right now! This is her re-election campaign.

So, as recently as a few months ago, even her fellow Democrats would have laughed, privately, at that idea. They would have mocked it as delusional. Not anymore.

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Now, some of them are taking Hillary more seriously than they have in a long time. An article in Tuesday's New York Times describes growing panic among Democratic donors. Joe Biden suddenly looks weak and incapable. Much of the rest of the field clearly is too extreme to win a national election.

So, who is going to beat Donald Trump next year? Some in the party are starting to think it could be Hillary Clinton. And clearly this is a thought that has crossed Hillary Clinton's mind. In private, she has expressed her willingness to enter the race. As if to prove it, her personal website just added a policy section.

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That doesn't mean she's running. But suddenly, it's clear that she very well could run.

Adapted from Tucker Carlson's monologue from "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on Oct. 23, 2019.

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