STEPPINGSTONE? – AT 9:16 A.M. ET:  Look, this is speculative, even silly, but it's so much fun.   Pressure is building on Hillary Clinton to run this year for mayor of New York City.  Would she?  Would she see it as a steppingstone back to another presidential run in 2020?  From the Daily Mail:

Hillary Clinton fans are urging her to make a political comeback after a poll showed how she would trounce Bill de Blasio in a hypothetical race for New York Mayor.

Clinton, who has given no indication she will run for office again, won 49 percent of the hypothetical vote over de Blasio's 29 in the survey.

The poll sparked calls among her fans to revive her political career. They started a 'Hillary for Mayor' hashtag on Twitter and told de Blasio to 'watch out'.

The poll, conducted by Quinnipiac University, asked: 'If the election for Mayor were being held today, and the candidates were Bill de Blasio the Democrat, and Hillary Clinton running as an independent candidate, for whom would you vote?'

Clinton won 49 percent of the hypothetical vote while de Blasio got just 29.

The next Mayoral election in New York will be held on November 7. De Blasio has already begun campaigning for reelection.

While Clinton's camp has not directly denied the possibility she may run for mayor, advisers say it is unlikely.

COMMENT:  Okay.  Well, Richard Nixon ran for governor of California after losing the presidential election of 1960...and lost again.  But he bounced back to win the presidency in 1968.

No former mayor of New York has become president.  The highest-ranking New York City official to make it to the White House was Theodore Roosevelt, who'd been police commissioner. 

As a job, mayor of New York is thankless.  Former mayors tend to disappear.  I once passed former Mayor Abe Beame on the street, and no one around me seemed to recognize him,.  Rudy Giuliani, a great mayor, tried to run for president and didn't come close to the GOP nomination. 

To run for mayor, Hillary would have to displace a Democratic incumbent, the above-mentioned Bill de Blasio.  He is an awful mayor, but a favorite of the Democratic Party's left-wing Zoloft-inducing fringe. 

Odds are, Hillary won't take the bait.  But you just never know.  Being mayor would keep her in the public eye, and the mayor of New York is the mayor of Trump Tower.  She could have all the elevators condemned.

January 19,  2017