The Week’s Marc Ambinder (one of the most solid reporters in the business) reports that a Hillary Clinton Super PAC is gearing up to go, although it is not formally affiliated with Clinton or her aides:
Long-time supporters of Hillary Clinton have opened a super PAC to lay the groundwork for a 2016 presidential campaign, even though Clinton, just finishing a four-year term as secretary of state, has said nothing about her future plans.
ReadyForHillary launches a splash page next Monday at its website, ReadyForHillary.com. Allida Black and Judy Beck, two veteran Clinton fundraisers, are spearheading the new organization. They recruited Adam Parkhomeko, who helped launch a “Draft Hillary” movement in 2003 and was later hired by the campaign, to corral the far-flung vestiges of the Clinton campaign organization. NGP Software, which designed the Clinton campaign website in 2008, has been hired by the PAC.
Several former Clinton campaign staffers are offering input and suggestions. The PAC has no formal affiliation with Clinton or any of her top aides.
The first inklings of the new organization came late last year, when a @ReadyForHillary Twitter handle began to follow Democratic activists and political reporters.
Go the link to read the rest.
The fact that a Super PAC is gearing up is a sign that with each increasingly day many Dems feel it’s likely that in the end Hillary Clinton will run. And, indeed, aside from her performance as Senator (solid), performance as a 2008 primary candidate (solid if prone to taking some errors), performance as Secretary of State (excellent to most except Rush Limbaugh fans and Fox & Friends groupies), two other facts remain (1) she is coming across as a quintessentially serious, policy-oriented person in a political scene that often generates figures that seem out of Mad Magazine and make it hard to tell if an Andy Borowitz satire is straight news or satire, (2) her age is NOT a barrier and, (3) she is perceived to have come across quite well on 60 Minutes.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.