"She wants people who work for her to want to be there out of a sense of mission, not just simply as professionals," said Lorraine Voles, Clinton's Senate communications director.
The mission, Voles said, "would be electing the first woman president. It's not the only thing that brings people in the door, but it's what would be on everyone's minds over the long run."
It is the one obvious thing that differentiates her from John Edwards and Barack Obama, but I wonder, is it enough?
Never one to cast her stones in a single basket, Hillary has another novel strategy: Going after the evangelical vote.
Burns Strider, who spearheaded religious outreach for the House Democratic caucus, has been hired to tap into the evangelical Christian movement.
I wonder if Strider will be focusing on evangelical women voters or all evangelicals. If its all evangelicals, I wonder if her position on issues is going to move to the right. Either way, I think she's far more likely than Obama to make inroads there.
John Edwards is shaping up as the progressive candidate. John Edwards is more popular than Hillary in the blogosphere. Elizabeth Edwards has engaged the blogosphere on her own.
Does the blogosphere matter to Hillary? Peter Daou is still the internet strategist, but the LA Times describes his role as "tackl[ing] Web-based opposition research" not engaging bloggers.
Hillary has spent much of her $35 million campaign funds "to build a massive national database — essential to mining millions more in small donations and profiling likely volunteers."
I'm wondering who is in this database, and if the campaign will be using its own outreach rather than blogger outreach to message them.
I guess we'll have more answers soon as she should decide in January.
As for me, I'm keeping my eye out for the candidate who can win the election. All I know is I want a Democrat back in the White House. Why? To preserve the independence of our courts and prevent them from being taken over by right wing activist judges. Because a Democrat will make better decisions about health care and social security. Because a Democrat will be less likely to engage us in stupid wars and more likely to get us out of the one we are still in.
Update: Peter Daou contacted me to clarify that although he does not have any information regarding Sen. Clinton’s plans, the blogosphere continues to be important to the senator (as it was in her senate campaign) and that he remains responsible for blog outreach.
That's good news.
