The day that Hillary conceded the 2008 primaries, I rode the train back from Washington to New York with another political journalist. We wondered, then, about the possibility that Clinton might someday run for president again. At that moment, with tempers in the Democratic Party still blazing, it seemed awfully remote. But, we agreed, we could both picture it. There was just one big piece of baggage she’d need to lose first: Bill.

We weren’t advocating for divorce, per se. Let’s just say that we were speculating about ways that she might meaningfully disassociate herself, professionally and politically, from her ever-lovin’ husband, the man who, during the course of her recently concluded campaign, had made more trouble than he was worth.

Of course, this was before Barack Obama got elected president and surprised many whose tempers had run so hot by coolly appointing Clinton Secretary of State, establishing Clinton as her own political force, distinct from The Big Dog to whom she has been married since 1975.

By the time Hillary left the State Department in 2013, there wasn’t any question that she was cruising toward 2016 on her own steam, her baggage—Benghazi, Syria, her concussion—refreshingly hers alone. All she had to do was write a memoir, give some speeches, take some photos with her soon-to-be-born granddaughter, hire a campaign team, and she was good to go.

So what did Hillary do? She promptly re-ensconsed herself in her husband’s orbit, going to work at his philanthropic foundation and installing herself there so concretely that its name was changed to The Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation.