美國重量級團體支持希拉里競選總統 已開始籌款大綱

Jim Messina said that Priorities USA Action, which played a key role in Mr Obama’s election success in 2012, has started start raising funds for a prospective presidential run by the former First Lady.

“I think the numbers clearly show that she’s the strongest presidential candidate on the Democratic side,” he told The New York Times. “And Priorities is going to be there for her if she decides to run.”

Mr Messina co-ordinated the president’s re-election and has been hired by the Conservatives as a campaign strategist for next year’s British general election. He is the most senior Obama lieutenant to come out in support of a Clinton candidacy.

Priorities, a so-called “super PAC” (political action committee) also announced a new pro-Clinton leadership structure as Democratic heavyweights line up behind the former secretary of state.

Mrs Clinton, who lost out to Mr Obama in a bitter Democrat primary campaign that she entered as the frontrunner, has said that she has not decided whether to run again in 2016.

But with nearly three years until the next election, senior former aides to Mrs Clinton and her husband Bill, who was president from 1993 to 2001, have openly been pushing her to run.

Mr Messina’s comments will drive impressions that Mr Obama is privately supporting a Clinton bid, although Joe Biden, his vice-president, is another prospective candidate.

Mr Messina, who has strong ties to major Democratic donors, will serve as co-chairman of Priorities with Jennifer Granholm, the former Michigan governor who is a prominent Clinton cheerleader.

“This is a very major development and a huge advantage for Hillary Clinton if she decides to run,” Tad Devine, a party strategist who played a senior role in the presidential campaigns of Al Gore and John Kerry, told The Telegraph. “Priorities will be able to attract enormous support and it means the Democrats will be able to compete with Republican big money donors in financial terms in 2016.

“Presidential campaigns in the US are endless and in order to compete you have to raise unimaginable amounts of money. It’s a financial arms race.”

Clinton loyalists had already formed a Ready for Hillary PAC to raise smaller sums from grass-roots supporters. But Priorities will be seeking big money donations to fund major advertising campaigns and respond to conservative attacks, even before a Clinton declaration, and attack advertisements, as it did against Mitt Romney in 2012.

Matt Bennett, a former Bill Clinton White House staffer now with the Third Way think tank, said the small army of PAC’s and other outside groups working for a putative Clinton campaign were giving her more time to decide on her options.

“There is a very unusual dynamic, where nobody is expecting Hillary to do anything overt, but the campaign is building,” he told The Telegraph.

“It means that she can wait until much later before she declares - perhaps until the second half of next year - which is very late by contemporary standards.”

The Priorities announcement is expected to pave the way for another record-breaking campaign in financial terms. Groups supporting Mr Obama raised $1.12 billion in 2012 – with $79 million coming in from Priorities - while the Romney campaign and backers brought in $1.02 billion.

Mr Messina brings not just his unprecedented political connections, but also his expertise in “big data” and the micro-targetting techniques that allowed the Obama campaign to pin-point his supporters in 2012.據英國《每日電訊報》報道，美國重量級選舉團體“優先美國行動”1月23日明確表示支持希拉里•克林頓參加2016年美國總統競選，已經開始爲此籌款。

***重量級支持

據國外媒體報道，奧巴馬前競選主管吉姆•梅西納（Jim Messina）近日稱，曾在奧巴馬2012年大選中扮演關鍵角色的籌款組織“優先美國行動”已經開始新的籌款行動，這次他們支持的目標是未來可能的總統候選人，美國前“第一夫”人和前任國務卿希拉里•克林頓。

“我相信民意調查數據已經清晰顯示，她是民主黨最有實力的總統候選人，”梅西納在接受《紐約時報》採訪時說。“如果她決定參選，‘優先行動’將支持她。”

吉姆•梅西納曾在奧巴馬再次當選過程中起到重要的協調作用，最近英國保守黨邀請他爲英國明年的大選擔任競選策劃人。在奧巴馬的助手中，他是公開支持希拉里•克林頓競選的最高級別人物。梅西納不僅擁有前所未有的政治聯繫，而且擅長“大數據”和“定位”技術，曾在2012年幫助奧巴馬精確定位支持者。

“優先美國行動”目前是美國最大的自由政治籌款組織，梅西納和前密歇根州長珍尼弗•格蘭霍姆將共同擔任聯合主席；他們都是希拉里的支持者。

***金融軍備競賽

戰略專家塔德•迪瓦恩認爲情況對希拉里非常有利。他說：“‘優先運動’能夠吸引大量資金，意味着民主黨將有能力在2016年與財大氣粗的共和黨捐款人一爭高下。美國總統競選……是一場金融軍備競賽。”

2012年，奧巴馬的競選團隊一共籌集到11.2億美元，其中7900萬美元來自“優先行動”。羅姆尼的競選組織和支持者則爲他募集到10.2億美元。