and it looks like that time is nigh. clinton is starting to deliver public orations again, as consultants start to eye the chessboard and grassroots activists start to gin up support and raise ducats for a campaign-in-waiting. there's no doubt that we're still several steps short of a critical mass -- let alone an announcement from the former secretary of state and presidential aspirant herself. but whatever dam had been previously holding back the flood has started to show some signs of cracking, and the discussion has begun anew.









we must pause here at the outset and offer praise to clinton for doing everything in her power -- by which i mean, nothing at all -- to delay the sort of advance-hype for the 2016 election cycle that we might otherwise be in up to our waist. see, as long as clinton says nothing definitive about whether she's running, she effectively "freezes the field." other democratic contenders can't start contending. republican rivals who lack real game have to keep their mouths shut as well. we're not drowning in stories, speculating about when andrew cuomo is going to visit des moines (though i'm sure des moines can't wait), and no one is getting tumescent over the tricksy consultants martin o'malley is hiring.









and that's great for america! most people can't wait to keep right on waiting to spend their every waking hour reading about the 2016 election. i don't know if there is some large group of non-partisan, single-issue voters whose primary desire is to be allowed to not have to contemplate elections four years before they happen, but if such a voting bloc exists, they all owe hillary clinton their support, for being a force for good in this area. they should also stop reading now, because i'm going to cave in, and try to highlight what's interesting about these recent developments.









despite clinton's best field-freezing efforts, we were never destined to live in a world where hot speculation over her presidential prospects were restrained. the biggest news that came out of clinton's appearance on "60 minutes" alongside president barack obama was obama playfully calling interlocutor steve kroft "incorrigible" for asking whether he was endorsing clinton for president. days later, people went nuts over a public policy polling poll that found that the state of texas was "in play" for clinton. and grousing from political speculators over clinton's coyness began to manifest itself. chris cillizza wrote a post insisting in one breath that "clinton likely won't have as much time to luxuriate in not working -- and not thinking about whether she wants to run in 2016 -- as she might want," and admitting in the next, "it's hard to pinpoint a particular date but it's hard to imagine her being able to wait much beyond the 2014 midterm elections."









if i'm not mistaken, bill clinton also launched an "office of bill clinton" website after his term ended, so if you wanted to hew to safe assumptions, you would probably just contend that hillary clinton is following the same practice. but cnn continued in an altogether different vein, contending that the photo was "attention-grabbing," that there was special meaning in the way her old website sent visitors to the new one that was a de facto reason to speculate on her presidential ambitions, and that there was a special mystery in the way that the "site was purchased through a service allowing the purchaser to remain anonymous."









it's not uncommon, of course, for political luminaries to find themselves the beneficiaries of supporters who want to build a "campaign-in-waiting." back in 2008, ed rollins tried to do much the same for mike huckabee. similar efforts were made on behalf of jon huntsman and mitch daniels. the efforts didn't amount to much. huntsman was the only one of the three who ran, and he didn't get much out of the odd surreal motorcycle ads that were created ahead of the launch beyond low-single digits in most national polls. rollins, failing to earn huckabee's assent, migrated to the campaign of michele bachmann. it was a strange arrangement, and it did not end well.









but what clinton supporters may have brewing could end up being a thing apart. for starters, this undertaking is going to move real money. my colleague michael mcauliff offers a game prediction: when the next round of campaign filings are perused, you're going to see donations in the amount of $20.16 moving in clinton's direction. with carville's imprimatur, ready for hillary pac is going to catch some of that scratch for its coffers. that means the unannounced clinton "campaign" is going to have a double-freeze on the field -- money will be piling up in her corner from the grassroots, and big institutional donors will remain leery of backing someone else's horse until an official decision from clinton makes it okay to mull backing an o'malley or a cuomo.









more importantly, these supporters aren't taking a flier on an unknown. if you recall the draft effort to bring gen. wesley clark into the 2004 campaign, in the apparent belief that his military background would be a compelling "x-factor" in the democratic field, this isn't it. draftwesleyclark did a respectable job -- in the opening two-week stretch of clark's campaign, they raised over $3.5 million. but clark ran from an underdog position, never manifested much facility for communicating on the stump, badly miscalculated by avoiding the iowa caucuses (where the entire campaign storyline shifted in john kerry's favor), and ended up as one of the field's semi-respectable also-rans -- not a guy who'd proved worthy of being "next in line."









pareene suggests that the "rebranding" efforts the gop is currently embarked upon might serve as a vital check against the possibility of a return to the paranoid style of clinton bashing. but between now and 2016, there's going to be a midterm election. the vagaries of redistricting makes the gop's retention of a house majority a rather easy hang. in the senate, they have a puncher's chance at returning harry reid to minority status, and even if they don't, their filibustering super-minority is working out just fine. by the time the dust has settled on election night 2014, the gop may well declare their "rebranding" to have been a success.
the week that hillary clinton 2016 speculation moved from trickle to stream
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