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"(Hillary Clinton's) inevitability is not a message, it is not something you can run on," said a longtime supporter.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

New York (CNN) -- The stated purpose for a meeting of pro-Hillary Clinton Democrats in New York on Friday was simple: Recap the last year and discuss 2014 lessons that will apply in 2016's presidential election.

The much-talked about and more interesting purpose, however, was the realization that the pre-campaign that has existed around a likely Clinton candidacy for the better part of two years is soon coming to an end.

In the hallway, ballroom and press briefing room of the Ready for Hillary National Finance Council meeting, dozens of top flight Democrats, many of whom would make up the roster of a Clinton campaign, came together to discuss the future of what appears to be a likely run.

"They are pretty certain," Stephanie Schriock, the president of Emily's List and a possible Clinton campaign manager in 2016, said when asked whether session attendees thought Clinton would run.

Though many of the speakers at the strategy session regularly inserted caveats like "if she runs" or "hypothetically" into conversations with the press, the feeling of nearly everyone in the room was that Clinton is almost certainly running for president and will likely declare early in 2016.

"You can derive that by looking at what she has been doing," said Chris Lehane, the political director of Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign and a longtime Hillary Clinton adviser. "I think she has been doing everything you would do if you were going to give a serious look to running."

Lehane added that the reason many of the Democrats were in a New York City ballroom on Friday was because of those movements by Clinton, who for the last year has headlined high profile speeches, stumped for Democrats across the country and written a much ballyhooed book.

"A lot of people are taking their signals from that," the California-based political consultant said. "That is one of the reasons this gathering is taking place."

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For Clinton Democrats, the end of the pre-campaign comes with concerns