Poor Hillary Clinton is caught between two formidable forces: her greed versus her ambition. At the Washington Post, Jennifer Rubin lays out the greed problem, citing an earlier Post report:

At least eight universities, including four public institutions, have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for Hillary Rodham Clinton to speak on their campuses over the past year, sparking a backlash from some student groups and teachers at a time of austerity in higher education. (snip)

Since stepping down as secretary of state in early 2013, Clinton has given dozens of paid speeches to industry conventions and Wall Street banks. But Clinton’s acceptance of high fees for university visits has drawn particularly sharp criticism, with some students and academic officials saying the expenditures are a poor use of funds at a time of steep tuition hikes and budget cuts across higher education.

Rubin comments:

Despite all this and the horrendous publicity she has been receiving, she can’t seem to give up the cash. One speaking fee after another, Clinton trudges on. She cannot bring herself to say, “Enough.” It is bizarre really that her greed overwhelms her ambition, but the speaking tours suggest that is exactly what is going on. Out of touch doesn’t begin to describe her political problem.

Mrs. Clinton appears to me to have an insatiable hunger for wealth, born of resentment against indignities suffered as a child and young adult when she must have felt humiliated by her own modest financial means compared to those of people she regarded as her inferiors in suburban Chicago in high school, and especially at Wellesley an Yale, where the children of privilege are abundant, and where her own inability to dress as they did, travel as a they did, dine as they did, and otherwise enjoy the Good Things of Life must have rankled her deeply.

Now that she and her husband have private jets available for their use, the fact that they are borrowed rankles. Now that she has hairdressers and wardrobe advisors ready to maximize her attractiveness, the fact that she is in her sixties and pear-shaped rankles. There are too many wounds that can never be healed. She is not “truly well-off,” and that is just so damn unjust that she must press ahead with her ambitions.

At PJ Media, Richard Baehr outlines the reasons why Hillary why Hillary will, nay must, run, regardless of the humiliations and obstacles her own demons create for her:

I expect Clinton to run, and her activities since her defeat in 2008 in the nominating contest against Barack Obama suggest a long, meticulously planned road to get back to where and what she thinks she deserves. But, as Tom Bevan has noted at Real Clear Politics, there are reasons she might choose not to go for it. Bevan provides five possible outs: Hillary is not that good at campaigning, she may lack the fire in the belly, winning is not guaranteed, Obama is leaving a mess, and the country wants real change.

I think any doubt about the fire in the belly misses the Clinton family dynamic — Hillary needs to be running and serving the family to stay relevant. Politics is their industry. Would the Clinton Global Initiative, whatever exactly this is, get the attention and pampering it does from well-heeled people, corporations, and foreign governments if it were perceived that Hillary was done with politics? If daughter Chelsea is being groomed for a future political role, isn’t a Hillary run essential to breaking the ceiling first and keeping the family industry operating?

Bill and Hillary are a perfectly matched couple in that each of them seems to have had ambitions for the highest office from their teenage years. This is not a normal level of ambition or narcissism to sustain for five decades, even among the excessively ambitious political class.

Despite her reputation as cold, calculating, and a pragmatist, Hillary Clinton to me appears a woman driven by impulses she cannot fathom, responding to long-buried resentments. This is the root cause for her appearance of insincerity and he inability to react gracefully under pressure.

God help us, she has a good chance of being the next president.