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Hillary Clinton to Stephen Colbert: ‘I’m not running for my husband’s third term’

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She’s already done “Tonight” and “Saturday Night Live,” and Hillary Rodham Clinton’s late-night tour continued Tuesday with a visit to “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.”

Often caricatured as robotic and rehearsed, Clinton seemed more relaxed than usual, even managing to lob a few (presumably) unscripted zingers, like when Colbert asked if she could see either of the the current Republican front-runners, Donald Trump or Ben Carson, in the office of the presidency.

“I can picture them in some office,” she joked.

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Or when the host noted that for many years he’d played a character who did not care for the former first lady and she fired back, “I can say it now: It was mutual.”

Maybe being on a talk show seems easy compared to 11 hours of testimony before the House Benghazi committee -- a subject which, by the way, Colbert repeatedly alluded to but did not specifically ask Clinton about.

When asked whether her electoral victory would herald the return of the ‘90s and a “Clinton administration 2.0,” the former secretary of State also sought to draw a distinction between herself and her Democratic predecessors -- particularly the one she’s married to.

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“I’m not running for my husband’s third term. I’m not running for President Obama’s third term. I’m running for my first term,” Clinton said, “but I’m going to do what works, and we have an understanding of what works.”

“What works,” according to Clinton, is raising the minimum wage, increasing taxes on the wealthy and regulating Wall Street.

What’s driving her to run for president, Clinton said, is a desire to “make it possible for more people in our country, particularly young people, to live up to their God-given potential.”

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“That means we’ve got to get back to providing opportunities,” she continued. “We’ve got to get back to making the economy work for everybody, and we have to defend the progress we’ve made in women’s rights and gay rights, and we have to protect voting rights.”

The conversation also touched on many lighter subjects, including Clinton’s brief tenure in the Wellesley College Young Republicans Club and her penchant for binge-watching so-called “bad TV” with Bill.

Clinton and her husband apparently like to curl up on the couch for long sessions of “House of Cards,” “The Good Wife” and “Madam Secretary” -- shows that happen to be set in the world of politics and to feature shrewd, powerful female leads, prompting Colbert to ask if she ever asks for residual checks.

We have one question to add: “The Good Wife” is bad? Clearly, she hasn’t been watching that much TV.

Follow @MeredithBlake on Twitter.

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