WASHINGTON - The presidential election is more than three years away, and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton hasn’t even announced whether she’ll run, but Clinton backers are already digging deep into their pockets to encourage her to make another bid for the White House.
Ready for Hillary, a political action committee dedicated to encouraging Clinton to run, said Tuesday that it had raised $1.25 million during the first six months of the year. A committee official said it will file its semiannual fundraising report today. According to the committee, it will show contributions from 9,300 separate donors.
“She’s got a hard decision to make, and we want her to know there are a lot of people ready to support her,” said Craig Smith, an adviser to the group. Smith is a political consultant who served as an adviser to Clinton’s failed attempt at the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. He worked for Bill Clinton when Clinton was governor of Arkansas and served as Clinton’s White House political director.
Since the group formed in January, several prominent Democrats have joined,including Harold Ickes, who served as Bill Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, veteran political consultant James Carville, U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri and former U.S. Rep. Ellen Tauscher of California.
According to the group, the average donation was $110, which they said was much lower than many super PACs, which typically rely on a few large donations. The money will be spent on building an email list, creating digital advertising and trying to reach supporters through social media sites such as Facebook. The group said it does not intend to pass the money it has raised to Hillary Clinton if she runs.
Clinton’s experience as first lady of Arkansas, first lady of the United States, U.S. senator and secretary of state would serve her well as president, according to Smith.
“There’s probably no one in my lifetime more qualified to be president than she is,” he said.
Others, including John Hinderacker, a conservative blogger at the Powerline blog disagrees. Clinton would “have a lot of explaining to do” about her tenure as secretary of state if she ran for president, he said.
“Throughout her career, her real claim to fame is she married Bill Clinton, who was the political genius of his generation,” Hinderacker said. “Bill has star power. On the left, there’s a lot of nostalgia for the Clinton administration, and a lot of that rubs off on Hillary.”
Although the Clintons no longer reside in Washington, both have made a number of visits to the capitol recently. On July 17, Bill Clinton attended a ceremony to name the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency headquarters building after him.
On Monday, Hillary Clinton ate lunch with President Obama in the White House, at Obama’s invitation.
The lunch, which consisted of grilled chicken and jambalaya, was “chiefly social,” said White House Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest.
“It’s not a working lunch as much as it is an opportunity for the two, who saw each other on a pretty frequent basis over the past four years, to get a chance to catch up,” Earnest said.
On Tuesday, she traveled to the vice president’s residence at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington for breakfast with Vice President Joe Biden, another possible Democratic contender in the 2016 presidential race.
Hillary Clinton, or at least actors playing her, will be making appearances on the silver screen and on televisions across America in the coming year.
NBC plans to produce a 4-hour miniseries about the former first lady. The network said this weekend that it hadn’t decided when it would run. CNN is preparing its own Clinton show, a documentary. A feature filmed called Rodham that depicts Clinton when she was a Watergate-era Democratic House staff member is in the works.
Bryan Sanders, a partner at The Wickers Group, a Republican political consulting firm in Little Rock, said the media exposure would help Clinton if she decides to run.
“Hollywood and the news media love the Clintons,” Sanders said. “The Democratic nomination is hers if she wants it.”
Sanders said Clinton will be well-positioned .
“Her gender will probably play a role,” he said. “It’s an asset.
Many voters are eager to see a woman elected president, he added.
Though Clinton is the focus of Ready for Hillary PAC, Bill Clinton maintains a prominent spot in the political debate. Republican leaders believe opposition to the ex-president can still be used to raise money and rally Republicans.
In a press release today, the National Republican Senatorial Committee labeled Democrats, including Sen. Mark Pryor of Arkansas, hypocrites for saying Republicans are waging a “war on women,” while inviting Clinton to appear with them at political events.
“This is the same Bill Clinton who’s predatory behavior destroyed lives, hurt his wife and embarrassed his colleagues,” the committee said in a statement.
Robert McLarty, a Little Rock political consultant who served as Hillary Clinton’s state chairman in 2008, said “Republican leaders are scared” of Hillary and Bill Clinton because of the strong records they compiled while in office.
“These are polarizing political attacks,” he said. “Voters see right through it.”
McLarty said he is not involved in the effort to encourage Hillary Clinton to run.
Smith, the Ready for Hillary adviser, said he hasn’t spoken with Clinton for “months and months.” Nor, he said, has he kept in contact with Clinton’s closest advisers.
“Have they given me a green light? No,” Smith said. “But they haven’t given me a red light, either. I guess I’ve got a yellow light - proceed with caution.”
Front Section, Pages 1 on 07/31/2013