Hillary Clinton, the deeply polarizing former secretary of state who is widely expected to run for president in 2016, will focus her fundraising efforts exclusively on the presidential primary elections and caucuses this time around.
Clinton’s already-assembled fundraising retinue believes the ambitious senior citizen candidate made a critical, overconfident mistake in 2008 by raising checks for the general election before she had secured the Democratic Party nomination, reports ABC News.
Just as she is now, Clinton was largely seen in 2008 as the inevitable Democratic presidential candidate.
During the 2008 election cycle, the entitled Clinton simultaneously marshaled donations for both the primaries and the general election. In contrast, her main opponent, Barack Obama, raised cash mostly for the primaries. Thus, while both candidates raised similar total amounts, Obama actually had more available to use.
Clinton, who has been notoriously secretive throughout her political career, has refused to speak about her fundraising plans. Democrats speaking on the condition of anonymity disclosed the financing details.
The one-time first lady, who has long enjoyed a reputation as someone who will do anything to win, will likely attempt to raise over $1 billion for the 2016 election, just as Obama did in 2012.
In a likely bid to avoid criticism that she and her inner circle of older aides are out of touch and represent the past, Clinton’s fundraising armada will also copy Obama by organizing a national finance committee composed of wealthy donors.
In addition to the mechanics of fundraising, the calculating Clinton faces an ever-growing litany of scandals. The biggest one in the last few weeks involves her admission that she destroyed 31,000 emails from a server.
By sheer volume, the collected heap of scandals threatens to cast a pall over the Clinton brand. The fear is that Americans could conclude that she is too disingenuous and insincere to be trusted with the presidency.
The inability of Clinton and her team of staffers to suffer the minor indignities of politics is also likely to affect Clinton the presidential candidate.
On Wednesday, New York Times political reporter Amy Chozick reported that someone from HRC Super Volunteers sent her a menacing email grimly warning that Clinton supporters will not tolerate the use of certain words and phrases to describe their polarizing, secretive, out-of-touch candidate who first became a force in politics because she was married to now-68-year-old former President Bill Clinton.
“You are on notice that we will be watching, reading, listening and protesting coded sexism,” the email threatened, according to Chozick.
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