"Obviously, I will look carefully at what I think I can do and make that decision sometime next year," Clinton said in an interview with ABC's Barbara Walters that aired Wednesday night.
Clinton, who was named Walter's "Most Fascinating Person of 2013," was quite open in the interview about her feelings towards launching another presidential campaign, but also emphasized again that it's too early to be obsessing about the next race for the White House.
"It's such a difficult decision and it's one that I'm not going to rush into ... and I don't think we should be looking at the next election,"Clinton said. "I think we should be looking at the work that we have today. Our unemployment rate is too high. We have people getting kicked off food stamps who are in terrible economic straits. Small business is not getting credit, I could go on and on, so I think we ought to pay attention to what's happening right now."
Since Clinton stepped down as Secretary of State at the beginning of the year, speculation has mounted that she'll run again for the Democratic presidential nomination. Then-Sen. Clinton battled then-Sen. Barack Obama in a marathon fight for their party's nomination in the first half of 2008 before she bowed out in June.
Now, for the first time in decades, neither Clinton or her husband, former President Bill Clinton, are in public office, which she calls a "relief."
"I knew that I wanted to get off this high wire that I had been on for so long," Clinton said. "To spend time just doing things that give us a lot of joy, playing with our dogs, going to movies, just hanging out."
Asked whether her husband wants her to run, Clinton said that Bill Clinton has been "very respectful," adding that he wants her to "do what I think is right."
Asked if she wants to see a woman in the White House, Clinton answered, "of course," but said, "I don't know the exact timing of it or who that might be."
If she decides to run, Clinton would instantly become the overwhelming frontrunner for her party's nomination, and she's been miles ahead of the other potential Democratic White House hopefuls in every public opinion poll.
A new national survey by Fairleigh Dickinson University indicates that if the 2016 race for the nomination were held today, 63% of Democrats would back Clinton as their party's nominee, with no other possible contender even cracking double digits. According to the poll, which was released Thursday, Clinton grabs the support of 66% of liberals, 61% of moderates and 58% of the smaller faction of conservative Democrats.
The Fairleigh Dickinson University poll was conducted December 9-15, with 1,002 adults nationwide questioned by telephone. The survey's overall sampling error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.(cnn)
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