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Hillary Rodham Clinton, who wont yet say whether she is running for president, is assembling a massive campaign team-in-waiting that outstrips anything on a Republican side that remains factionalized and focused on knocking off one another.

At this point, without so much as an announcement, she has settled on at the least a campaign chairman, a campaign manager, a chief strategist and lead pollster, another pollster, a lead media adviser, a communication director, a deputy communications director, a focus group director and a communications strategist.

She is also closing in on a New York City campaign headquarters and a date to make all of this official.

Some senior staff are signing on without nailing down the usual conditions of a new job, such as a salary or starting date. Recruitment is being led by White House senior adviser John Podesta and manager-designate Robby Mook, with Clinton making many of the final decisions herself.

Clinton faces no competition for Democratic campaign talent and is said to prefer to wait as long as possible to begin campaigning, but she has assured senior advisers that she would put the legal framework of a campaign in place this spring.

The advanced stage of her organization is one of many signs that Clinton is the heir apparent for the Democratic nomination, a status that has scared off serious rivals and allowed her to postpone perhaps until summer the day she has to begin rigorous campaigning.

Her effort at this stage looks a lot like an incumbents reelection campaign: She will be running largely in support of a sitting president and his agenda, and is busy hiring many of President Obamas former aides.

Jim Messina, who helped engineer Clintons downfall in 2008 as a senior aide to Obamas campaign, now runs a super PAC devoted to supporting her in 2016. Its her turn and her time, he said on MSNBC this week. Were going to do whatever it takes to make sure shes the president of the United States.

No Republicans now moving toward active candidacies can say that they are as far along in staffing their upper ranks with the kind of experienced people whom Clinton is bringing aboard. Shes also locking in wealthy donors and has a head start on other ground organizing and fundraising because of the efforts of outside groups supporting her.

But the luxury of front-runner status could easily become a liability as Clinton attempts the historically difficult feat of leading her party to a third consecutive term in the White House.

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Official or not, Hillary Clinton builds a massive 2016 team-in-waiting