Will Hillary Clinton Announce on Sunday?

Now that she has inked a lease for her campaign headquarters in Brooklyn, speculation is rampant as to when Hillary Clinton will make her formal announcement as a presidential candidate.  Some now say that her announcement will come on Sunday.  Or so reports the New York Daily News.  Here are article highlights:

The long wait’s almost over — Hillary Clinton’s official campaign announcement is expected Sunday, a source close to the campaign told the Daily News.

The former secretary of state is likely to throw her hat in the ring via video and social media as she kicks off her long-expected second shot at the White House.

She’s then expected to begin her campaign with a series of smaller events in early-voting states including Iowa and New Hampshire — though it remains to be seen how low-key the high-profile candidate will be able to keep her trip.

Clinton appears to have an easy path to the Democratic nomination — her poll numbers among Democrats have remained strong for months and no serious challengers appear likely to dent her in the primaries.

She’s also led most of her GOP foes in national and state-level polling for much of the past year, though those numbers may be taking a bit of a hit — a new Quinnipiac University poll Thursday showed her slipping in the swing states of Iowa, Colorado and Virginia in the wake of stories about the private email server she used as secretary of state.

Democrats are hopeful the official announcement will let her get out there and help right the ship.

“I think this is great news. As far as I’m concerned the quicker she gets in the better everything will be,” said veteran Democratic strategist Jim Manley. “Among other things, now that she’s getting in she’ll have a full operation to help her not only define her policies but to ward off all these attacks that are coming from the right as well.”

Sources close to Clinton have said for more than a month that she was aiming for an April announcement coinciding with the beginning of the fund-raising quarter, and her campaign’s move toward renting office space in Brooklyn last week confirmed that timeline.

Clinton will be by far the best known of the candidates to jump into the White House scrum. Republican Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ted Cruz of Texas have also thrown their hats into the ring, and Marco Rubio of Florida is expected to do so on Monday.

Republican-turned-Democrat former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee announced he’s looking at the race in a surprise Monday video, joining former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb in the field of little-known Democrats looking to challenge Clinton. Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders is also mulling a challenge from the left, as is former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley.

Once she announces, the slug fest with the GOP clown car will begin. 

Hillary's Campaign Launch Plan

While Republican extremists continue to engage in spittle flecked rants about Benghazi and now claims that Hillary Clinton "wiped her server" of e-mails in order to stoke the hysteria among the Tea Party crowd (who are the real parasites in America as a coming post will layout), Clinton is said to be putting in place her campaign launch to "reintroduce her to Real America."  Obviously, no matter what Clinton does, Kool-Aid drinkers will not be won over.  But for the less extreme demographic, the plan is to show Hillary as more "down to earth" and the opposite of what her detractors would have her seem.  An article in Politico looks at the coming campaign launch.  Here are excerpts:

The time and location of Hillary Clinton’s long-anticipated campaign kickoff are closely guarded secrets among her scattered staff — but what she’ll do immediately after her announcement is coming into clearer focus.

Clinton, according to several people familiar with the still-in-flux planning process, will embark on a short tour that will almost certainly include Iowa — and perhaps other states — to interact with voters in a series of events, most of them in low-key settings.

“They know that they need to reintroduce Hillary to America,” said one Democratic insider familiar with the Clinton team’s thinking. “They know it makes no sense to think of this as, ‘Let’s start where she left off on the national stage.’ This is not a continuation of the Hillary we knew as secretary of state. That’s the focus of their energy.”

Clinton aides want to reintroduce her with “humility,” the source added. “They are making sure she understands there are no guarantees, and I think we’re going to see that in her posture and her words. I don’t think people are expecting that.”

Clinton staffers say the kickoff announcement is likely to be made during the first few weeks in April but stressed that no firm date has been chosen yet. Most expect that Clinton’s initial announcement will come via social media or by mass email, followed by events. The location of her first in-person event has yet to be chosen, they say.

The consensus among most Democrats POLITICO spoke to is that Clinton’s two most likely kickoff locations are New Hampshire, site of her stunning come-from-behind victory in 2008, or Iowa, a state Obama won handily, setting the stage for his nomination and presidency. New Hampshire would be a more comfortable choice for the Clintons, who view the state as a friendly bulwark for their brand of establishment Democratic politics. But Clinton’s team wants to convince voters in Iowa — — the nation’s first to vote in 2016 — that she values the battleground state, despite trashing its quirky caucus system eight years ago.

Another source of disagreement among Clinton supporters is what role Bill Clinton should play on announcement day.

“On the biggest day of your campaign, you have your family there and they’re there to support you like any spouse would,” said former Obama adviser Tommy Vietor, dismissing the idea that the former president should be treated any differently.

But other longtime Clinton supporters said Bill Clinton’s presence would confuse Hillary’s message.

“It should just be her. It should be her moment and Bill could overshadow her announcement and remind people of unnecessary baggage.”

Beyond the optics and the strategy for how to reintroduce Clinton, she still has to answer the most basic question of all: why run?

“We still don’t know why she wants to run,” said the operative. “That’s what she has to explain to the American people in her announcement. It’s not that it will establish whether Hillary Clinton is running for president, but why she is running for president.”

The key to Clinton’s success, strategists said, is charging out of the gate with the right populist economic message.

“She needs to explain why she is going to be the one to fight for the middle class and against income inequality, the one who can keep the healing of our economy going, which the other guys are going to unwind,” said Vietor, who also worked on Clinton’s book rollout last summer.

She needs to set up as her foil the Republicans “who want to get rid of Obamacare and go back to a time when they gave big tax cuts to rich people,” Vietor added. “Soon after, it’s going to turn into a slugfest and the announcement is often your best shot.”

Another challenge for Clinton: balancing how she talks about the historic nature of her campaign to be the first woman president with a strong economic message.