Pro-Hillary Clinton super PAC announces finance team
Hillary Clinton has not said whether she will run for president in 2016, but some of her closest backers from 2008 are already making sure that her candidacy will be adequately funded if she decides to take the plunge.
Ready for Hillary, a super PAC supporting a potential Hillary Clinton presidential bid in 2016, announced the formation of its national finance council on Tuesday. Founding members include Susie Tompkins Buell, a San Francisco-based philanthropist and entrepreneur who played a key fundraising role in Clinton's last bid, and Houston attorneys Steve and Amber Mostyn.
The fundraisers offered words of praise for a prospective Clinton candidacy in a statement released Wednesday, and they each pitched Ready for Hillary as the best way for Clinton backers to channel their support at this very-preliminary stage in the next presidential race.
"Hillary is the best candidate to build on the progress President Obama has made, and Ready for Hillary is the best vehicle for donors who want to help make Hillary our next president," said Steve Mostyn, who, along with wife Amber, was among the largest donors to President Obama's 2008 super PAC, Priorities USA.
Buell, an ardent Clinton backer in 2008 who conspicuously declined to donate to either of President Obama's general election campaigns, added, "Ready for Hillary is the wisest investment right now for anyone who wants Hillary Clinton to be the next president."
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Buell and the Mostyns are the latest in a series of Clinton loyalists who have affixed their seal of approval to the super PAC. Last month, James Carville, a Democratic strategist who played a key role in President Bill Clinton's two campaigns, sent a message to the Ready for Hillary email list encouraging Clinton's network of supporters to donate to the super PAC.
"The enthusiasm and hunger for a Hillary Clinton Presidency is unlike anything I've ever seen," he wrote. "So I'm not going to waste my time writing you about how great Hillary is or how formidable she'd be - you know it all already. But it isn't worth squat to have the fastest car at the racetrack if there ain't any gas in the tank - and that's why the work that Ready for Hillary PAC is doing is absolutely critical. We need to convert the hunger that's out there for Hillary's candidacy into a real grassroots organization."
Craig Smith, who served as political director in President Bill Clinton's White House, has also assumed a senior leadership role at the super PAC, another sign that the Clinton political team is getting the gang back together again.
Now all they need is a candidate.