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Hillary Clinton will run for president. Again.

No inside information informs this prediction. No argument is advanced as to whether her run is a good or a bad ideathere are many ways to make a case either way. Instead this is just a statement of simple facts (if facts mean anything anymore, that is). And the facts are clear that the former secretary of state is doing everything she needs to do to run for the White House one more time. If she finds a path to do so, she will take it. And I can prove it.

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Consider. Shortly after Clintons shock-the-world, hysteria-inducing defeat last November the Clinton Global Initiative announced plans to cease operations. The CGIthe most scandal-plagued arm of the Clinton Foundationwas a ground zero of grief for the Clinton campaign. Labeled a slush fund for political operations, paid for by foreign governments, it was an endless and easy target of complaints about conflicts of interest and graft. Yet despite pleas to do so by various supporters throughout the 2016 campaign, the Clintons time and again refused to shut it down. Which raises the question: What advantage, other than a political one, is there to doing so now?

Similarly, why did the Clintons allow rumors to circulaterumors they still havent officially quashedthat the former secretary of state was/is/might be considering a run for mayor of New York City? For the thrill of it? Out of spite toward the current mayor, who supported her candidacy for the White House? Or might there be another reason to keep alive the idea that Hillary Clintons political fortunes arent in the rear-view mirror?

Last week, Clinton signed a book deal with Simon & Schuster. That alone isnt noteworthy. This, after all, would be her seventh book, if you count her campaign policy venture/insomnia cure, Stronger Together. But added to all the other activities afoot, it raises few questions. Does she really have that much more to say? Or might there be another reason, besides money that she does not need, to go on a book tour, answer humiliating questions about losing to Donald Trump and stay in the headlines?

And just days ago, Clinton trolled Trump on Twitter over the courtroom defeat of his executive order banning citizens from seven majority-Muslim nations. She didnt have to do that, of course. Most defeated rivals disappear after their loss. Instead, Clinton sounded very much like she was still on the campaign trail. (Because, of course, she is.)

Finally, consider last Novembers concession speech to Trump. Absent in her remarks was any indication, as one might have expected, that she was going gentle into that good night, handing the baton to a new generation or even to a new leader. Instead, Clinton talked more about the futureexplicitly including herself in that futurethan she did about the past.

I know we have still not shattered that highest and hardest glass ceiling, but some day, someone will, she said, adding, and hopefully sooner than we might think right now. She then quoted a line of Scripture: Let us not grow weary in doing good, for in due season, we shall reap if we do not lose heart. And she concluded, tellingly, with this: So my friends, let us have faith in each other, let us not grow weary, let us not lose heart, for there are more seasons to come. And there is more work to do.

This was not Richard Nixons bitter You wont have Nixon to kick around anymore when he lost a race for governor in 1962, and thought his political career was over. This was someone looking ahead. More seasons to come.

At the moment, of course, the idea of another Clinton presidential campaignwhat would be the fifth since 1992seems outlandish, even exhausting. Whod want to go through all that mess again? But four years is plenty of time for memories to subside.

And its true that in another era, a candidate Clintons age might have been deemed too old for the presidency. But in 2020, shell be 73, one year younger than the incumbent seeking reelection.

Also in another era, her political career might have been seen as having passed its expiration date. Shes twice run for the White Houseand lost. But Ronald Reagan didnt think that way. He ran in 1968, and again in 1976, nearly beating the incumbent Gerald Ford for the GOP nomination, before his ultimate victory in 1980.

Besides, consider the alternative: Having a chance to run for a third timeand squandering it. Al Gore first sought the presidency in 1988 and then again in 2000, when he won the popular vote against George W. Bush and came within a few hundred hanging chads of winning the decisive state of Florida. Anyone think Gore still doesnt wonder what might have happened had he pursued a rematch against Bush four years later? (As it happens, Bush barely beat John Kerry in 2004, 50.7 percent to 48.3 percent.)

More recent history might well be very different today if Mitt Romney had made a third run for the presidency in 2016, which, by most accounts, he was sorely tempted to doand on more than one occasion. Romney, too, almost assuredly is still asking himself whether he made a mistake by staying out.

Clinton is not going to want to spend the rest of her life haunted by the question of what if. What if I could run againand win? Besides, seeking the White House has been her aspiration for decades. What else is there for her to do?

Yes, barring some calamity, Clinton is running. And this brave columnist will go one step further. Not only will Clinton will run again, she has an excellent shot at getting the Democratic Party nomination again. But only if she approaches it quite differently. Heres some advice for her.

LET THEM COME TO YOU

Lets face it. Positioning herself early as the front-running inevitable juggernaut soaking up dollars like gravy on biscuits has never worked for Clinton. For whatever reason, her best political moments have always come when she appeared as the underdog, vulnerable, even fragile. In the 1990s, she was deeply unpopular until she was humilitated by the Monica Lewinsky scandal. In 2000, during her race for a seat representing New York in the U.S. Senate, she was tied in polls against a relatively unknown Republican congressman until he appeared to physically bully her at a debate. In 2008, she was on the verge of losing Iowa and New Hampshire to Barack Obama until she started talking about all the fight left in herand shed some tears. Vulnerable and sympathetic, she defied the polls and her candidacy was revived. In each of those cases, people were pulling for her in a way they never did in 2016.

Thus, in 2020, the best way for her to win the nominationand potentially the White Houseis not to get out front early but to hold back and let the people come to her. The genius of Texas Governor George W. Bushs 2000 campaign was that throughout 1999, he made it so people, including some of the biggest names in the GOP, came to him begging him to run. By the time he did enter, hed gotten the party so excited, he all but wrapped up the nomination by the end of the South Carolina primary.

FLY CASUAL

In a crucial scene in Return of the Jedi, Han Solo pilots an imperial transport ship onto the forest moon of Endor. Trying to avoid detection by the enemy, he offers Chewbacca crucial advice: Fly casual. This, of course, is Clintons mission for the next two yearsto stay visible without attracting too much attention by staying visible.

To make another run, people must remember shes still out there and still engaged. A president-in-waiting, but crucially, without looking like a president-in-waiting. Thats why there will be another book tour, periodic op-eds on issues she care about, select speeches and media events, and the odd tweet in support of various anti-Trump activities, such as the womens march and the airport protests over Trumps executive order pertaining to refugees. Anything she does will attract attention, so she will have to plan her appearances very sparingly and wisely to avoid tipping her hand. Watch for her to do just that.

SUPPORT EVERYONEAND NO ONE

In this effort, a central goal will be to provide support for Democrats who will be seeking reelection in 2018 (and who could form a phalanx of support for her in 2020).

Most importantly, she should give a boost to each and every potential presidential candidatesaying nice things about them when prompted, offering advice when asked, but not showing any favoritism. As long as there is a crowded field of contenders with various strengths and weaknesses, each having their own slice of Democratic superdelegates, it would be much easier for her to come in and take control.

ENTER LATEAND HUMBLY

Hillary Clinton has 100 percent name ID, a personal fortune and a bastion of loyalists. She could enter the race at the last possible momentat the behest of the people, of courseand catch her Democratic Party rivals by surprise. To soften her reputation as a programmed, overly cautious and polarizing figure, Clinton should eschew the front-runner label and run as an underdog, praising the other candidates and their proposals, opening up her campaign bus to the press corps and offering to have a freewheeling debate with any major rival, at any time, and anywhere.

So thats what she could doand almost certainly will doto win the nomination. But could she beat Trump in Round 2? Well, thats another story, for another column, altogether.

Matt Latimer is a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush. He is currently a co-partner in Javelin, a literary agency and communications firm based in Alexandria, andcontributing editor at Politico Magazine.

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Hillary Clinton Is Running Again - Politico