Reports: Clinton to Declare Candidacy

The "when will she declare" Hillary Clinton storyline that has powered news stories and endless analysis appears to be drawing to a close.

The consensus timeline has her declaring her second run for the presidency Sunday, perhaps looking to trump the Game of Thrones debut with her own play for the Oval Office.

Clinton will have to adjust the last entry on her Twitter bio: "Wife, mom, lawyer, women & kids advocate, FLOAR, FLOTUS, US Senator, SecState, author, dog owner, hair icon, pantsuit aficionado, glass ceiling cracker, TBD..."

The "TBD" is that she will attempt to become the first woman President. The only real news in the announcement would have been if she were going to pass on the election.

Political handicapping website FiveThirtyEightPolitics taps Clinton as pretty much a sure thing to grab the Democratic nomination given the relatively small field of expected primary candidates going up against her, as well as the fact that at this point in the last campaign Clinton had only one Senate endorsement. She already has 27 this time around.

Look for the Sunday morning talk shows to pivot toward the Clinton news, big time. Meet the Press has already lined up New York mayor Bill de Blasio, who, before he was mayor, NBC points out, was Hillary Clinton's first campaign manager.

Clinton has said she is not a big fan of the shows. Asked back in 2013 as she was exiting her State Department post why she had turned down requests to appear to talk about the Benghazi attacks that left four Americans dead, including Libyan Ambassador Christopher Stevens, she said that "going on Sunday shows is not my favorite thing to do."

The State Department had initially blamed the attacks on unrest fomented by a YouTube video.

As Secretary of State, Clinton pushed for the U.S. government to better leverage social media and international broadcasts. She created a video unit at State to do just that. When Al Qaeda put up a video saying how terrible the U.S. is, she said State would post one about how terrible they were.

She also said she thought that, while CNN and Fox were out there in the world, the U.S. government had abdicated its radio and TV presence, leaving a void that jihadist propaganda had filled.

Don't look for a President Hillary Clinton to give any aid and comfort to Republicans trying to undermine net neutrality rules.

Under Clinton, and in step with President Obama's strong support for net neutrality, the State department promoted Internet freedom internationally as a foreign policy goal. In a 2010 speech, Clinton likened the freedom to connect to the Internet to freedom of assembly in a speech that mirrored the Four Freedoms speech of President Franklin Roosevelt.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.