Will Hillary Clinton run for President of the US in 2016?
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Ready for Hillary: New Backers, High-Profile Endorsements Lend Legitimacy to Pro-Clinton Super PAC
In a world of proliferating super PACs run by well-known Washington power players, this one might have been easily dismissed.
Its founders -- a 61-year-old former college professor and a 27-year-old former campaign aide -- seemed an unlikely pair to stir up grassroots support for 2016's most-talked-about potential presidential candidate.
But since its formation earlier this year and its official launch at the beginning of the month, the Ready for Hillary PAC has already had an impressive track record. The group, which calls itself "the nation's premier organization urging former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to run for president in 2016 and laying the groundwork of support for her potential candidacy," has developed more than a whiff of legitimacy.
According to organizers, financial contributions -- more than 1,000 of them -- have been pouring in. Activists have gathered for boisterous pro-Hillary events outside two of the former secretary of state's recent speaking appearances (in Washington, D.C., and New York). And Ready for Hillary has built a slick website and a fast-growing social media presence.
Ready for Hillary has also amped up its credibility in a big way over the past two weeks with a series of high-profile endorsements from three prominent Clinton backers: Democratic strategist James Carville, long-time Clinton confidant Harold Ickes and former California congresswoman Ellen Tauscher.
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"She needs to know -- and it's our goal to demonstrate to her and to the country -- that there's an army ready to help her candidacy," the group's communications director Seth Bringman said in an interview with ABC News.
What began as a quirky venture run by Bringman and a handful of Clinton fanatics, is suddenly looking a lot more serious. Organizers are assembling something of a shadow campaign-in-waiting, complete with an email list 150,000 supporters strong -- and growing. And although the super PAC would be legally barred from coordinating with Clinton's campaign if she decides to run, the group's success in cultivating a grassroots network, raising money and sparking genuine passion for her candidacy (a political ingredient that Barack Obama arguably had in greater supply in 2008) could send a powerful signal to potential challengers from both parties and to Clinton herself, who remains the group's most important target audience.
Bringman said that the recent support from both Carville and Ickes was a "huge" boost for the organization.
"I'm not going to waste my time writing you about how great Hillary is or how formidable she'd be -- you know it all already," Carville wrote in a recent message sent to the group's email network. "But it isn't worth squat to have the fastest car at the racetrack if there ain't any gas in the tank -- and that's why the work that the Ready for Hillary PAC is doing is absolutely critical. We need to convert the hunger that's out there for Hillary's candidacy into a real grassroots organization."
Carville's note stressed one of the key reasons the small band of committed Hillary enthusiasts decided to form the group in the first place: Clinton had to cease her political organizing activities during her four years at the State Department.
"We owe it to Hillary to start putting the building blocks of her campaign together now," wrote Carville, who advised her 2008 presidential bid and served as a top strategist to Bill Clinton. "The modern political campaign demands it."
She definitely will. No doubt in my mind. She's grown even further in her already prevalent capability since 2008 by being Sec of State. Nearly every reasonable left-sided individual wants her to. I honestly think that Obama was what America needed for the social/domestic hope and has done a phenomenal job of putting America in a beacon of optimism with him addressing nearly all hot-button topics. However, as a political leader, Clinton would have been/will be stronger.
If resolution/conflict is not reached before her election, Clinton will probably manage to conquer the issue in North Korea.
I would absolutely love it but to be perfectly honest I don't think I would be able to handle all the attacks on her gender. We all saw it when it was her or Obama and everyone went in on her when she was crying, branding her as just another oversensitive, hysterical, emotional woman. The attacks will only get worse as I'm sure we'll see attacks against her appearance, her femininity, what she wears, her makeup (or lack thereof), her hair, her weight, her motherhood, her family- all things that wouldn't even come up if she were just a typical old white man. All the misogynists will come out in full force for her.
I mean, just look at how we treat out female celebrities! Women whose professional and personal lives are in the spotlight purely for our entertainment and scrutiny. It will be a complete media blood bath.
That being said, she will have my support if she decides to run for the Presidency.
