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Hillary Clinton is trying to build a disciplined and loyal campaign team that can avoid one of the very things that plagued her last presidential bid: unflattering leaks to the press.

Reporters covering Clintons 2008 White House bid relished the dirty laundry her senior staffers dished about each other as then-Sen. Barack Obama surged ahead of the pack.

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Now, as Clinton blends longtime loyalists and Obama campaign alumni to staff whats expected to be her next presidential run, a major question surrounding the efforts is exactly how to minimize the damage from inevitable press leaks while maintaining focus on her overarching, still-TBD campaign message.

The test of a good campaign is how it deals with adversity and whether people pick each other up, support each other or whether they start leaking on each other and trying to purge each other, David Axelrod, the former top Barack Obama campaign strategist, said last week on MSNBCs Hardball. Thats what plagued their campaign the last time.

Leaks are a challenge for any major presidential bid, but the stakes are especially high for Clinton as she takes the early 2015 pole position in a diminished Democratic primary field. Her early dominance of the race carries an enhanced risk of leaks: So many high-profile Democratic operatives will be jostling for influence in her inner circle that they may be tempted to make their disputes public.

Clinton loyalists insist that if everything goes smoothly and she wins Iowa next year, she will enjoy a largely leak-free run to the nomination. But if the campaign hits a speed bump or two?

When things go south, leaks come out, many of them not even truthful, as everyone is trying to get out of the way of the loss, said a former senior Clinton political aide. When things go north, leaks are fewer because everyone is jockeying for the win and so the penalty of leaking is greater.

Clinton has shown in recent years she can run a leak-free operation. Her tenure leading Obamas State Department, covered by the diplomatic press corp rather than political reporters, didnt include many front page stories detailing tensions with the White House. But a presidential campaign in todays hyper-caffeinated, Twitter-obsessed media environment is an entirely different beast, and interviews with more than a dozen Clinton veterans who span her career as first lady, New York senator, presidential candidate and secretary of state suggest a slew of obstacles for someone who in the past has had many more self-destructive moments than other top-tier politicians.

For starters, Clintons campaign is expected to mix some of her closest allies with Obama veterans and less experienced operatives. The approach sounds similar to her 2000 Senate bid, which had its rocky moments but successfully incorporated veteran Clinton hands like campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle, deputy campaign manager Neera Tanden,and strategists Harold Ickes and Mark Penn alongside native New Yorkers like communications director Howard Wolfson and Bill de Blasio, now the citys mayor. But just on sheer numbers alone, her presidential campaign will be much larger, much more competitive and much more at risk of leaking.

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Hillary Clinton's fear of leaks