Mediaboss Marketing

Hillary Clinton, after much debate within her inner circle, appears to have put off formally entering the 2016 presidential race until the spring of 2015. "Hillary Rodham Clinton is considering the nitty-gritty details of how and when to organize a presidential campaign amid signs that she will postpone making her shadow campaign official until later in 2015 than expected, according to advisers and Democratic strategists," wrote WaPo's Anne Gearan and Matea Gold this week. That jibes with plenty of other reporting on the matter and seems as close to a consensus opinion as you will get when it comes to the remarkably opaque decision-making process of the former Secretary of State.

While there are plenty of reasons that argue in favor of waiting -- legal ones in terms of how she incorporates (or doesn't) the various outside groups that have blossomed in support of her over the past few years, political ones about looking less, well, political for as long as possible -- there's also a big reason why she should at least consider announcing sooner rather than later. And it's named Elizabeth Warren.Or, at least, the energy and passion among liberals that is, at the moment, channeled through Warren. An attempt to draft the Massachusetts Senator launched formally this week and her stern opposition to the CRomnibus bill because of a provision that would ease derivative trading by corporations drew scads of national coverage.

That's not to say Warren is running or even thinking about it at the moment. But, let's say the next three months play out like the last three months. The dominant narrative remains that Clinton is the heavy favorite to be the Democratic nominee. But that storyline is accompanied by another one -- which is that the heart of the Democratic party really wants Warren. And, as that storyline continues, more and more people hear about it; an actual movement develops, all fueled by the anti Wall Street populism that Warren embodies.

If Clinton waits until April, let's say, to announce, it's uniquely possible that the populist/draft Warren movement in the party has grown strong enough that it has forced the Massachusetts Senator to reconsider her past denials of interest in the race. And, if Warren runs, it's a totally different race for Clinton than if she doesn't. (To be clear, Clinton would be a favorite over Warren. But not a huge one.)

So, why not get in earlier -- before the Warren movement gets any more energy or excitement behind it? Plus, the sooner she gets in, the sooner Clinton can start raising the money and building the campaign infrastructures that should be her biggest advantage in the race. And, what if she used her formal campaign announcement to deliver a message on income inequality -- sending a message about how central that would be to her candidacy in 2016?

In short: Make it as hard as humanly possible for Warren to reconsider or for the movement trying to get her to reconsider to gain steam. Be the prime mover. Act and make Warren, and everyone else, react.

Below are our rankings of the six people either running, talking about running or being talked about as potential runners for 2016 for the Democratic nomination. The candidate ranked number one -- let's not pretend here: it's Clinton -- is considered the most likely nominee.

6. VermontSen. Bernie Sanders:Sanders is not a Democrat -- he;s a Socialist -- and he's not going to win the Democratic nomination for president. Yet, he still appears on this list, because there's a decent chance he will run. And that's more than we can say for a lot of folks. For now, Sanders is the most likely outlet for liberals who think Clinton is too closely allied with Wall Street. But, the idea that a guy who calls himself a "socialist" is going to gain real traction in this race is hard to believe.

5.Former Virginia senator Jim Webb: The one-term senator is the first real entrant in the 2016 presidential race. And there won't be any more surprising candidate. That's because Webb retired from the Senate after one term and never seemed to enjoy the political process very much -- especially the campaigning part. The fact that this is the guy some are holding up as a more liberal alternative to Clinton just doesn't really make sense. But he is a former senator and Navy secretary, so he's got some national profile.

4. Maryland Gov. Martin OMalley: A few years ago, O'Malley would have been seen as Clinton's biggest obstacle. He's a capable politician, a two-term governor and has national experience as Democratic Governors Association chairman. But O'Malley's two terms as governor ended on a low note. His approval rating dropped to 41 percent (in a blue state), and his lieutenant governor lost in the most shocking upset of the 2014 election. O'Malley seems one of the most likely big-name politicians to run, but he's hardly looking strong these days.

Here is the original post:
Hillary Clinton decided to postpone her presidential ...

Hillary Clinton says she wants to get through this year before she starts assessing whether she should run for president in 2016.

In new clips from the former secretary of state's interview with Diane Sawyer, set to air Monday night on ABC, Clinton reveals an updated timetable for making her decision.

"I'm going to decide when it feels right for me to decide," she said in a preview that aired on Sunday's This Week.

VIDEO: Hillary Clinton Responds to Age, Health Jabs During Diane Sawyer Interview

She added that she won't make a decision before the end of this year.

"I just want to kind of get through this year, travel around the country, sign books, help in the midterm elections in the fall, and then take a deep breath and kind of go through my pluses and minuses about what I will and will not be thinking about as I make the decision," she said.

She said she would be "on the way to making a decision by the end of the year" but it's "probably likely" a decision will not be announced until next year.

Appearing on Good Morning America on Monday, Sawyer teased more of the interview, including asking Clinton whether she could have done anything to make Benghazi safer.

STORY: 5 Things Learned From Hillary Clinton's Memoir

On that matter, she said, "What I did was give very direct instructions that the people who have the expertise in security applied. I'm not equipped to sit and look at blueprints to determine where the blast walls need to be or where the reinforcements need to be. That's why we hire people who have that expertise."

Link:
Hillary Clinton Reveals Timetable for Making Decision About Presidential Run (Video)

Dinesh DSouza is planning to go where NBC and CNN feared to tread: an on-screen portrayal of Hillary Clinton.

Ten months ago, NBC and CNN, under immense pressure from both the right and the left, famously ditched their planned projects focused on the former first lady, U.S. senator and secretary of state. But a portion of DSouzas upcoming documentary, America, features Clinton as both a teenager and a college student, played both times by a 22-year-old novice actress named Jennifer Pearson.

In America, DSouza attempts to debunk arguments he says the political left makes to demean the U.S., including its motives and its history. In the one-minute scene embedded below, a youth minister tells a 14-year-old Clinton that hes excited for her to meet someone, then a door opens but the clip ends before the meeting takes place. DSouza, the conservative filmmaker who was also behind the surprise hit movie, 2016: Obamas America, tells The Hollywood Reporter that the person on the other side of the door is leftist icon Saul Alinsky. What happens after that, DSouza wont say, but there are plenty of clues in America: Imagine a World Without Her, his just-published book in which the film is based.

VIDEO:Hillary Clinton Tells Diane Sawyer That Benghazi Crisis Is 'More Reason to Run' for President

In DSouzas book he analyzes Alinskys most famous book, Rules for Radicals, beginning with the often overlooked fact that it was partially dedicated to the devil, because, as Alinsky put it, he was "the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom."

DSouza writes that Alinsky taught "that the task of the radical is to turn middle class people against themselves, to make them instruments of their own destruction," and that the four steps to accomplishing that goal are polarization, demonization, organization and deception.

All of this is relevant, DSouza says, because Clinton first met Alinsky as a young teenager, as depicted in the movie, then reconnected with him in college. She was so influenced DSouza says "radicalized" by Alinsky that she wrote her undergraduate thesis on him.

STORY:Group Demands DOJ Records Pertaining to Dinesh D'Souza

When 1960s activists like Clinton sought Alinskys counsel, he told them, according to DSouza: "You can be revolutionaries, but you should not look or act or smell like revolutionaries. Take baths. Use deodorant. Cut your hair. Put on ties and dresses if you have to. Dont use obscenities. Dont call the police pigs and U.S. soldiers fascists. Feign an interest in middle-class tastes; in other words, pretend to be like the people you hate."

DSouzas point in the book -- and one he makes in the movie, too -- is that if Clinton is elected president in 2016, shed be the second U.S. president in a row who would be an "Alinskyite," the first being Barack Obama.

See the original post here:
Dinesh D'Souza's 'America' to Explore Hillary Clinton's Teenage Years (Exclusive Video)

VIOREL FLORESCU/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Ridgewoods Josh Gottheimer once wrote speeches for Bill Clinton. Now, hes trying to raise millions for Hillary Clinton.

As the New Jersey political establishment awaits word from Republican Governor Christie on a possible run for president in 2016, Garden State Democrats have launched an early and aggressive effort to raise as much as $5 million to $10 million for what they hope will become a Hillary Clinton campaign.

The informal group, which held two recent preorganizing meetings in late October and last month at the Robert Treat Hotel in Newark, is strictly a volunteer effort and conducted without the involvement or blessing of Clinton or her top associates.

But the Democrats are operating under the assumption that Clinton will announce her campaign early next year, and they want to greet the new candidate with a stack of fundraising commitments, possibly on the very day she announces.

There is and was and continues to be an incredible eagerness to start a campaign, if there is to be a campaign, said Michael Kempner, a public relations executive from Cresskill and a leading national Democratic Party fundraiser who is mobilizing the early Jersey effort with Josh Gottheimer, a onetime speechwriter for former President Bill Clinton.

So we have the ability to capture that sentiment and organize it, Kempner said.

The effort is also far more extensive than six years ago, when a deep-pocketed round table of Democratic operatives dubbed The Group mobilized to raise money for Hillary Clintons first bid for president.

This time, organizers are widening the circle, enlisting a range of influential Democrats including allies of New Jerseys U.S. Sens. Bob Menendez and Cory Booker and power brokers like the South Jersey party leader George Norcross as well as legislators, county chairmen and veteran street operatives.

Several factors are at work this time. Democrats are hoping that an early cash haul will build stronger ties with Clinton, even though its unlikely that she would spend much time in New Jersey cultivating voters and supporters during the campaign.

Read more here:
Stile: Hillary Clinton's New Jersey backers mobilize fundraising efforts

AP Images

Hillary Clinton

The Hillary Clinton promotional tour wages on, and Tuesday saw the former Secretary of State stopping by two cable news networks.

Clinton first appeared in an hour-long "Town Hall" on CNN, before splitting a half-hour interview between adjacent Fox News Channel series Special Report with Bret Baier and On the Record with Greta Van Susteren. Despite the truncated time, it was FNC that delivered the bigger ratings outperforming CNN with nearly four times the audience.

PHOTOS Team Hillary Clinton: Her 2016 Hollywood Supporters

For the half-hour, which aired between 6:45 and 7:15 p.m. ET, FNC averaged a 2 million viewers and 313,000 adults 25-54. For its admittedly very early 5 p.m. Town Hall, CNN pulled 521,000 viewers and 115,000 adults 25-54.

A FNC win in the hour is business is usual. And CNN did simulcast its Town Hall globally on CNN international and CNN en Espanol, so its total haul is likely considerably larger than its domestic take.

True to FNC's aggressive coverage of Clinton's role in the U.S. government's handling of the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, much of Clinton's Q&A was spent on the subject. "I know you and your viewers have a lot of questions," she said.

This caps off the heavy portion of Clinton's big book tour for her latest memoir, Hard Choices and since she has remained mum on her presidential prospects, speculation looms about when she'll make a formal announcement about the 2016 race.

Read the rest here:
Fox News Wins Hillary Clinton Ratings Race Against CNN's Town Hall