The wait is almost over. Hillary Clinton will kick off her long-anticipated campaign for president on Sunday with a social-media announcement, three sources close to the campaign-to-be told POLITICO, and will begin her 2016 run for the presidency with a trip to Iowa.
The announcement will be followed by a round of conference calls with staff, supporters and potential campaign donors to outline the theme of the campaign, which will focus on middle-class pocketbook economics and her role as a gender trailblazer, one of the people said. The timing of the rollout, which has leaked out to reporters over the last few days, has been the subject of hot debate inside the growing Clinton organization, and several sources have told POLITICO the Sunday launch isnt intended to cast her as competition to Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, who is announcing his own candidacy on Monday.
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We just wanted to get this thing over with and get on with it, a soon-to-be-Clinton staffer said on condition of anonymity. A senior campaign staffer refused to confirm or deny previously published reports that Clinton was throwing her hat in the ring, and her official spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.
As POLITICO reported last month, the former secretary of state plans a quick tour of at least two battleground states, Iowa and New Hampshire, before settling into her new campaign headquarters in Brooklyn to begin the months-long work of setting up a field operation, communications shop and fundraising apparatus for a campaign that many close to Clinton estimate will raise and spend $1.5-to-$2 billion.
Clinton has already filmed her announcement video, in which she will position herself as an alternative to the Republican field expected to include former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and possibly Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas who is a favorite among evangelical Christians.
Clinton has privately told her aides that she wants to avoid the coronation atmosphere of her 2008 launch and is trying to schedule what one person in her orbit described as low-key events where she will interact directly with voters nearly seven years after her last appearances as a presidential candidate, when she lost to then-Senator Barack Obama.
Some supporters, though, are skeptical of a digital launch that may do little to soften Clintons edges. I dont know why shes not doing an event with kids and families, that would have made more sense to me, said a supporter with close ties to Clinton.
The news of the announcement also elicited GOP attacks. The Republican National Committee on Friday tweeted a Stop Hillary video, saying her campaign will launch in the shadow of investigations & questions about her ethics.
The optics of the announcement will say much about the campaign to come: In January 2007, Clinton ran misguidedly, as it turned out on a thematic platform of inevitability and her video message, emailed to supporters, featured her sitting in a power pose at Whitehaven, her mansion in Washington D.C. This time, she is likely to emphasize her connection with middle-class voters, who remain disaffected with the pace of the countrys spotty, slow-motion recovery eight years after the financial collapse and the start of the Great Recession.
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Hillary Clinton to announce White House run on Sunday