Hunger grows for President Hillary

[Turner Coates]

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/new ... c8710ec447

A TOP Democratic fundraiser and confidant of Bill and Hillary Clinton for more than two decades is advising a new group laying the foundations for a possible 2016 presidential bid by the former secretary of state.

Harold Ickes, a Clinton loyalist renowned for his ability to solicit tens of millions of dollars from a vast network of Democratic donors, is assisting the “Ready for Hillary” independent political action committee, or super-Pac.

He told The Sunday Times that he had held conversations with wealthy Clinton donors that have been “totally informal and have no direct relationship with Mrs Clinton” or her husband.

“These are people I know who have told me over the years that they and a lot of other people want her to run. They don’t have any idea what she’s going to do, but if she runs they want to be ready to give whatever assistance they can.”

He added: “I’m not part of the super-Pac, but I’ve known them for a long time and I think they’re very solid people with good judgment and good intentions, so I give them advice.”

Thus far, Ready for Hillary has focused principally on building up its email database — currently standing at more than 150,000 entries — and establishing a grassroots network. The super-Pac was registered in January and its full website only went live with its official launch last week.

But The Sunday Times understands that multimillionaire “bundlers” — those who gather money from others and pay them as a lump sum — are now pledging to back the super-Pac, which can take unlimited cash. Asked whether big donors were contributing to Ready for Hillary, Ickes said: “Some are and I think others will.”

Last week, barely two months after she stepped down as secretary of state, Clinton shot back into the spotlight with high-profile appearances at events in Washington and New York honouring women.

Simon & Schuster announced it would be publishing a memoir of her tenure as America’s top diplomat, including her thoughts on the “urgent, ongoing need for American leadership in a changing world”. The book will come out next year, just as the 2016 presidential campaign begins.

At New York’s Lincoln Centre on Friday, Clinton, 65, wore bright pink and appeared rested and newly invigorated — her hair was styled shorter and she was without the thick glasses she had worn at the beginning of the year after suffering concussion and a blood clot following a fall.

She beamed broadly when her friend Tina Brown, editor of The Daily Beast, said mischievously when introducing her: “The big question about Hillary is: what’s next?” The crowd erupted in cheers and sporadic cries of “2016”.

In her speech, Clinton described women’s rights as the “great unfinished business of the 21st century”. While the address gave no overt clues about her political intentions, it laid out an implicit foundation for her candidacy as one that could make history by resulting in the election of America’s first female president. Ready for Hillary is also being helped by James Carville, Bill Clinton’s colourful 1992 presidential campaign strategist, known as the “Ragin’ Cajun”.

On Thursday, he penned an email urging supporters to sign up because the “hunger for a Hillary Clinton presidency is unlike anything I’ve ever seen” but “it isn’t worth squat to have the fastest car at the racetrack if there ain’t any gas in the tank”.

Ickes, 73, and Carville, 68, are the basis for central characters in Joe Klein’s 1996 novel Primary Colors, based on the 1992 Clinton campaign and made into a movie starring John Travolta as Jack Stanton — Bill Clinton. Howard Ferguson III (Ickes) is the campaign manager, a “cold son of a bitch” who conducts business with “no grease, no grace, no emotions”. Richard Jemmons (Carville) is the campaign strategist, a “hyperactive redneck from outer space” who “looks like he was sired during a love scene from Deliverance”.

The real-life Ickes is the son of President Franklin D Roosevelt’s interior secretary. He spurned his privileged Washington upbringing to work on a ranch and later lost a kidney when he was beaten up by segregationists as he tried to register black voters in Carville’s native Louisiana in 1965. He is notorious for his profanity, fiery temper and ruthlessness.

Ready for Hillary is led by chairwoman Allida Black, a historian and author of an Eleanor Roosevelt biography, and Adam Parkhomenko, whose British-born mother emigrated to the US. He is due to become the group’s executive director on May 1. Both worked on the 2008 campaign, for which Ickes was an inner-circle adviser.

Ickes said: “Allida and Adam are very credible. They go back a long way with the Clintons and I think they’re very solid and know what they’re doing.” The super-Pac was “off to a very strong start. There are a lot of people who want to be in a position of helping Mrs Clinton if she decides to run, and it seems to me this is a very good vehicle for channelling those energies.”

He speaks to the super-Pac leaders “whenever they ask my advice on certain things . . . but I want to stress that I’m not speaking on or on behalf of Mrs Clinton”. By law, a super-Pac cannot co-ordinate fundraising activities with a candidate. Also on the super-Pac staff are Matt Felan, Clinton’s 2008 deputy national finance director, and Seth Bringman, a Clinton spokesman during the 2008 Ohio, Indiana and South Dakota primaries, each of which she won.

Ickes is almost uniquely placed to benefit a Clinton 2016 campaign. His relationships with Clinton donors are unrivalled and last year he was president of Priorities USA, the Obama-aligned super-Pac that raked in almost $100m (£65m), principally to fund advertisements against Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee.

Clinton has a 61% approval rating — 10% higher than Obama’s, making her the most popular politician in the US. A McClatchy-Marist poll released last week found she would defeat any Republican opponent. She is also far ahead of the vice-president, Joe Biden, her nearest Democratic rival.

A recent National Journal poll of senior Democratic insiders found that 81% believed Clinton would be their 2016 nominee. “Just the perception she may run has already cleared the field,” said one.

Furthermore, 69% of Republican insiders agreed she would be their opponent. One concluded glumly: “Hillary has earned it; she has the organisation and she’ll kick our ass.”

[RATTdrools]

It's obvious she's running but she shouldn't announce it till next year or people could tire of her.

[Dr J Jones]

It's obvious she's running but she shouldn't announce it till next year or people could tire of her.

too late...already tired of Clinton's, Bush's, and Obama...

There is alot of Fail represented in those names.

Surely we can do better....

[Luminiferous]

It's obvious she's running but she shouldn't announce it till next year or people could tire of her.

too late...already tired of Clinton's, Bush's, and Obama...

There is alot of Fail represented in those names.

Surely we can do better....

And Romney was the best the right could come up with?

[vlad]

Part of me wishes there was a law* that made it illegal to speculate about a presidential election until one year before the damn election. These 4 year campaigns are fucking annoying.


* Not really, but I wouldn't get get too owrked up about it.

[Dr J Jones]

It's obvious she's running but she shouldn't announce it till next year or people could tire of her.

too late...already tired of Clinton's, Bush's, and Obama...

There is alot of Fail represented in those names.

Surely we can do better....

And Romney was the best the right could come up with?

Romney was also full of fail...
We continually nominate the most unqualified people in the country...
I have yet to see one presidential candidate in the past 30 or more years who I would vote for.

[RATTdrools]

Part of me wishes there was a law* that made it illegal to speculate about a presidential election until one year before the damn election. These 4 year campaigns are fucking annoying.


* Not really, but I wouldn't get get too owrked up about it.

I believe in England there is a law that candidates cannot run for office until 60 or 90 before the election while we fucking start 2 YEARS ahead of time!

Hillary shouldn't get ahead of herself but as long as she plays her cards right she WILL be the next president. It's too historic a presidency not to win!