Clinton in 2020!

Ask a Hillary Clinton supporter why we need her in 2016 and you’ll likely hear how difficult it will be for Democrats to win in 2016, and how important the election will be. I agree, but think they are missing an even stronger argument for a Clinton candidacy on both counts — 2020.

Winning a third consecutive term in the White House isn’t easy for either party, as Al Gore and John McCain proved, but it’s hardly unprecedented. George H. W. Bush did it in 1988, as did Herbert Hoover before him. (I didn’t say it was always a good idea.)

Unprecedented would be two Democratic presidents consecutively serving 8 year terms. The only time Democrats have held the White House for more than 12 consecutive years was when Franklin D. Roosevelt won four elections on his own, with Harry Truman adding one more for a total of 20 years. Republicans have twice held the presidency for more than 12 years, most recently from 1897 to 1913 with William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft; but they have never done it with only two presidents. Only the Democratic-Republicans were able to elect presidents to consecutive eight year terms, and that was with Founding Fathers Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and James Monroe.

If the economy continues to improve through 2016, and none of the Benghazi-IRS-Associated Press investigations gain traction, I can imagine any number of candidates being elected by a comfortable electorate to what would amount to a third Obama term. But a fourth in 2020? The best candidate for re-election would be one who ran on her own historic terms in 2016 and won’t have to awkwardly step out of Obama’s shadow mid-presidency.

With regard to seeking an unprecedented fourth term, the same things that set Clinton apart for 2016 put her further ahead of the field when considering 2020.

Just as a generic Democrat might win in 2016 if things are generally going well, he might also be sufficient to capitalize on the important issues of 2016. A President Biden, Cuomo, or O’Malley could continue Obama’s progressive executive decisions, and perhaps reverse some of the less transparent policies. Each would have the same chance to reshape the Supreme Court, if aging Justices like Scalia (77) and Kennedy (76) can’t or won’t hold out another four years for a Republican to nominate their successor. Each would presumably find his legislative agenda stalled until they can break the Republican hold on the House of Representatives.

Which brings me to what makes 2020 more important than 2016 – the census. As we learned in 2010, census years are critical to control of the House of Representatives. After the Tea Party wave, Republicans not only took control of the House, but were able to use their gains in state legislatures to cement their advantage through post census redistricting.

2020 will be the first and best chance for Democrats to reverse those gains, and they will need to win at both the Congressional and state level to do so. Given the underlying bias against Democrats in geographic voter distribution, they will need a candidate with coattails into outer suburbs and rural areas, particularly in states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida, that voted for President Obama but have majority Republican congressional delegations and state legislatures.

They also will need to appeal to independent and even Republican women. In short, Democrats need Hillary Clinton, who won the 2008 Democratic primaries in all the states mentioned, and is viewed positively by 65 percent of independents and 45 percent of Republican women. No one else really comes close.

All of this assumes that Clinton decides to run at all. If she does, I doubt it will be because she needs us. It will be because she thinks we need her. If I had five minutes to convince her, I’d spend less time on how she could make history in 2016, and more on how she could make history again, and cement a legacy, in 2020.

But since she’s Hillary Clinton, she probably knows that already.