Report: McAuliffe Operatives Auditioning for Potential Hillary Campaign

Top operatives for Terry McAuliffe’s gubernatorial campaign may actually be auditioning for roles in a potential Hillary Clinton 2016 presidential campaign. 

According to a Washington Post report, there has been chatter that McAuliffe’s staff is composed of a “farm team” that Hillary Clinton may be willing to call up to a national campaign during the 2016 cycle. 

As the Post notes, “Robby Mook, who ran Hillary Clinton’s successful 2008 primary campaigns in Indiana, Nevada and Ohio,” is McAuliffe’s campaign manager and there are also a “handful of operatives in the running to direct a 2016 Clinton campaign.” 

Other operatives who may be auditioning for a Clinton 2016 campaign on McAuliffe’s staff include “pollster Geoff Garin, a top strategist in Clinton’s 2008 campaign” and Patrick Hallahan, a former Clinton campaign aide who “married one of Clinton’s State Department aides, Natalie Jones, at McAuliffe’s McLean home” last year.

Clinton loyalists are downplaying these suggestions because they fear Hillary “could be damaged if her political strength is measured by the McAuliffe campaign.”