That’s what Buzzfeed’s two top shelf reporters are hearing from the Obama folks:
Top advisers and former aides to Barack Obama say Hillary Clinton is repeating the mistakes she made in 2008, building a machine in lieu of a message and lumbering toward the Democratic nomination with the same deep vulnerabilities that cost her the nomination eight years earlier.The former secretary of state has offered her tacit blessing to a series of Democratic organizations, including a draft group, Ready for Hillary, which was recently taken over by a former Clinton aide, and Priorities USA Action, the Obama super PAC repositioning itself to raise huge sums for Clinton. The moves have been effective in telegraphing to other would-be candidates that they may have a hard time raising money and building an organization, and in establishing the sense of inevitability that was central to her 2008 campaign — a perception that also backfired badly….Some Clinton aides agree, quietly telling colleagues that they fear that jockeying for position, rather than Clinton’s own interest, has spurred the early build-out. And others with front-row seats in 2008 see a similar pattern….Clinton’s infrastructure has a range of elements, and Democrats said she is making some prudent moves. Efforts to defend her reputation as Secretary of State, and combat Republican attempts to define her, for instance, may not be able to wait. But the erection of a large-scale fundraising machine at Priorities USA and a grassroots Ready for Hillary — two super PACs operating outside Clinton’s control — both strike a range of former Obama officials as unwise.“Being seen as a front-runner this far before there’s another candidate will only lead to an organized effort to find an alternative,” said a fourth former senior Obama campaign aide. “If another step is taken — and maybe her allies try to change the calendar or do something to the rules to make it easier — there’s going to be a backlash.”
Of course, the difference is that there was someone willing to run against Hillary in 2008. Where is that person now?
It may be that all machine and no message is good enough in 2016 to get the nomination. After that?
It’s all war on women and race card all the time.
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