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The Clinton 2016 camp is growing.

John Podesta, a senior White House adviser for President Obama, will step down from his post next month to serve in a senior role in Hillary Clinton's likely 2016 presidential bid, the Wall Street Journal first reported Tuesday.

Mr. Podesta, who served as Chief of Staff in former President Bill Clinton's second term, would likely take on the role of a campaign manager, according to reports, sending signals about Clinton's nascent campaign.

In Democratic circles, Podesta is a heavyweight.

"Few figures in the Democratic Party constellation carry as much intellectual heft as Mr Podesta," concluded the UK's Independent.

After serving under Mr. Clinton, he founded the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank in Washington, DC. The Obama administration brought him on as a special counselor to the President about a year ago to help reinvigorate Mr. Obama's political fortunes.

Podesta has counseled Obama in both foreign and domestic policy, advising him on matters including Ebola, immigration, and climate change. He was the surprise force behind negotiations with the Chinese government aimed at reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.

He is, as Politico once put it, "the quintessential Washington wise man."

Which is why Clinton is bringing him on her team.

And a Podesta hire sends clear signals.

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John Podesta joins Clinton campaign: What that means for Hillary 2016

After I wrote this piece arguing that it made little sense for Mitt Romney to run for president a third time in 2016, I got lots and lots of tweets like this one:

Clinton has, after all, been around national politics longer than Romney. And she is just as much a throwback as he would be if he ran again. I get it. I just don't agree with it. (Cue: Well, that's because you are a Democrat and rooting for her to win. Um, no.) Here's why a second Clinton bid in 2016 makes more sense than a third Romney bid would.

1. It would be her second, not third, run for president. The more apt comparison for Clinton 2016 is Romney 2012. In both cases, they were seen as the runner-up to the eventual nominee in their party's most recent competitive primary. And there's a clear logic in coming in second and then running again to try and come in first. It's the logic that installed Romney as the favorite in 2012, a position he never relinquished. Making a return bid also allows a candidate Clinton in this case to make the "I did it once and learned what to do and what not to do" argument. Running for a third time in three straight elections, having lost twice before, makes it a lot harder to make that argument.

2. She's spent sixyears doing other things. Clinton went from her 2008 loss to serving for four years as the country's leading diplomat. That allows her to present herself as something different and new-ish to voters. She can draw rhetorically and from a policy perspective on what she's done since the last time she ran for president; "Representing the U.S. on the world stage, I learned that ... " is a sentence you can see Clinton using and using effectively as she re-pitches herself to voters. Romney, on the other hand, is just over two years removed from losing in 2012, and hasn't taken a job (or a position on a major issue) that would allow him to make the I'm-something-new-and-different argument easily. He's essentially the same person he was when he lost in 2012; his argument is, in a nutshell: "I came close last time and I was right about lots of things." Sure. But, neither of those things re-invent him in any way and his loss in 2012 suggests that some level of reinvention would be necessary if he wants to run and win in 2016.

3. She has no primary challenge. Clinton is running (or will be running) in as close to an empty primary field as any non-incumbent president could hope for in 2016. She is the de facto nominee before she has even said the words "I'm running." Romney, on the other hand, would face a crowded and talented field that is inarguably deeper and better than the one he bested in 2012. If Romney had a path even close to as (seemingly) easy as Clinton's, his third-time candidacy would make a whole lot more sense.

That word "sense" is the one that I and the Republicans I talk to not directly linked to Romney keep coming back to when talking about his potential 2016 candidacy. Typically in winning campaigns presidential or otherwise there's a logic behind the bid that not only makes sense to the candidate and his or inner circle but also to voters. Whether that's a rerun after coming in second (the preferred route to the nomination of most recent Republican nominees) or the need to have a complete break from the "old" ways of doing things in politics (Barack Obama's "hope" and "change" in 2008), there'susuallya sound logic to the candidacy.

Campaigns without an obvious logic to them Ted Kennedy's primary challenge to President Jimmy Carter in 1980 being the shining example tend not to work out so well. And the logic of Clinton's 2016 candidacy seems to be there. For Romney, not so much.

Chris Cillizza writes The Fix, a politics blog for the Washington Post. He also covers the White House.

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No, Hillary Clinton Mitt Romney when it comes to 2016

Provided by The Hill Clintons confidence in an Iowa win grows

A year before the Iowa caucuses, confidence is building among Hillary Clinton allies that shell be able to win the first-in-the-nation presidential contest.

Clinton finished a disappointing third in 2008, but Clinton World is emboldened because no one like then-Sen. Barack Obama has emerged as a possible rival this time around.

There is no Barack Obama looming and ready to suit up and come in that I know of, said Jerry Crawford, who was the 2008 co-chair for the Clinton campaign in Iowa and is currently assisting Ready for Hillarys effort in the Hawkeye State. Thats a fundamentally different lay of the land.

Crawfords comments point to the confidence in Clintons camp that the most-like-Obama potential candidate, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), will not get in the race, despite a continued push for her to do so from the left.

On Tuesday, when asked by Fortune magazine if she would run for president, Warren simply said, No.

Regardless of Warren, Clinton allies arent taking any chances in Iowa.

Ready for Hillary, the super-PAC pushing Clinton to make a second bid for the White House, has devoted a significant amount of resources in the state, including direct financial contributions totaling more than $121,000 to local candidates and the Iowa Democratic Party. Officials say they have two staffers based in the state and have organized on the grassroots level in all 99 counties.

The super-PAC has logged quality time at 10 college campuses in Iowa to court young voters and launched its nationwide bus tour in the state.

A new Democratic Party chairman also will soon be in place in the state, and a Clinton friend, Andy McGuire, is in the running for the top spot, which will be decided in a Saturday election.

The rest is here:
Clintons confidence in an Iowa win grows

Hillary Rodham Clinton is building out the senior leadership team for her likely 2016 presidential campaign, enlisting Joel Benenson as her chief strategist and pollster and Jim Margolis as her media adviser, Democrats familiar with the moves said Tuesday.

Both Benenson and Margolis are veteran Democratic operatives who worked on President Obamas 2008 and 2012 campaigns.

On the likely Clinton campaign, they would work closely with two other aides that have been previously reported: John Podesta, who is expected to leave his White House post as counselor to Obama in February to serve as Clintons campaign chairman and enforcer, and Robby Mook, who would become campaign manager, these Democrats said.

Benenson, who is based in New York, served as the lead pollster on Obamas campaigns, but is poised to take on a broader portfolio for Clinton as her chief strategist, the role David Axelrod played for Obama.Politico reported last week that Benenson was advising Clinton as she makes a final decision about a presidential run.

His role in helping her to think this through is to provide both his specific expertise and counsel, said one person familiar with the effort.

People familiar with the Clinton operation said polling responsibilities would be divided among Benensons firm and other Democratic pollsters, including two others that worked on Obamas campaign: John Anzalone and David Binder.

Benenson helped guide then-candidate Barack Obamas primary campaign against Clinton in 2008 as well as the general election he won that year. Benenson also worked for Obama during his 2012 reelection. He previously worked for former president Bill Clinton.

His biography on his firms web site lists him as the only Democratic pollster in history to have played a leading role in three winning presidential campaigns.

Margolis is a longtime political adviser to Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and has worked on the campaigns of many Senate Democrats. His firm, GMMB, is a prominent Democratic media firm and one of the few with a production, creative and media-buying staff large enough to handle a campaign on the scale of the one Clinton is likely to build.

In 2008, Clinton relied on Mark Penn - a pollster and former adviser to husband Bill Clinton - as her chief strategist. Penn was widely blamed for being an architect of her failed strategy in that years Democratic primaries and many Clinton allies have encouraged her to turn elsewhere for counsel this time around.

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Hillary Clinton recruits chief strategist, media adviser for 2016 effort

Hillary Clinton #39;s Gender Politics
Source: http://www.cnn.com/videos/ January 10, 2015 - Hillary Clinton, in the run-up to a possible presidential announcement, has almost gone out of her way to speak about women #39;s issues....

By: PigMine 6

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Hillary Clinton's Gender Politics - Video