By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, Cleveland Urban News.Com, and the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.com, Ohio's most read digital Black newspaper and newspaper blog.

Tel: (216) 659-0473.  Coleman is a community activist, educator and 21-year investigative journalist who trained at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio for 17 years. (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)

CLEVELAND, Ohio- Speculation is over. Former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton (pictured), who later became a U.S. senator, and was secretary of state in the Obama administration during the president's first term, will run for president in 2016, according to a new report.

Politico reported Monday that Clinton, who lost the Democratic nomination to  Obama in 2008, has already approved a budget and moved ahead with campaign hires. She will officially announce her run for president in April, the report says.

If Clinton were to win in 2016, she would become America's first female president.

Former president Bill Clinton will reportedly serve as Clinton's chief campaign adviser, with speculation that the Rhodes Scholar could likely be named as his wife's vice presidential running mate, if she were to win the Democratic nomination for president.

Ohio is a pivotal state for presidential elections with no Republican of remembrance taking the White House without first winning Ohio, and the last Democrat to do so being John F. Kennedy in 1960.

Though Hillary Clinton lost the Democratic nomination in 2008, she won Ohio's Democratic primary that year against Obama, and by 8 percentage points, 53 percent to 45 percent. America's first Black president, Obama went on the beat Republican nominee Arizona Sen John McCain for the presidency. He won a second four year term in 2012, easily defeating Republican nominee Mitt Romney,  a former Massachusetts governor.

"For everyone here in Ohio and across America whose ever been counted out but refused to be knocked out, for everyone who has stumbled but stood right back up, and for everyone who works hard and never gives up, this one is for you," Clinton said before supporters after winning Ohio's Democratic primary over Obama in 2008.

(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)