First it was January, then April, then July. Now, we’re back to April as the likely point when Hillary Clinton will officially announce a 2016 presidential campaign. To say these plans are anything but certain is an understatement.
Report from the IB Times:
Hillary Clinton reportedly plans to announce her candidacy for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination in April. The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday Clinton and her close advisers decided on the move to allay uncertainties and boost fundraising.
News of the pending announcement comes as stories surfaced about money the Clinton Foundation has accepted from foreign and corporate donors while she was secretary of state. The reports threaten to complicate Clinton’s presumed plan to focus on her foreign policy credentials in any campaign.
Clinton had been expected to put off an announcement until summer, but donors had been holding back, thwarting fundraising efforts. A source told the Journal John Podesta played a big role in the decision. She is expected to skip the step of forming an exploratory committee.
Money appears to be the issue. Clinton is expected to raise more than $1 billion for her campaign, topping the $716 million the Center for Responsive Politics said was collected by President Obama in 2012.
As with most things in politics, follow the money. In this case, the money hasn’t been flowing into the Clinton coffers as quickly as expected because donors were holding out for the formality of a campaign.
On one hand, I think the patient plan of waiting as long as possible is not a bad strategy given her token opposition. Unfortunately, for Hillary, presidential politics doesn’t work that way any longer, the way it once did with campaign announcements around Labor Day. Donors expect a fairly early entrance into a campaign the year before election year or they start getting antsy.
