Hillary Rodham Clinton’s team confirmed one of the worst-kept secrets in politics: She’s running for president. The former first lady and secretary of state officially entered the 2016 presidential race with an announcement to supporters from her campaign chairman Sunday, which is set to be followed by an email from Clinton herself, followed by visits in coming days to key early-voting states including Iowa.
It’s an intentionally low-key kick-off plotted by a campaign seeking to avoid the mistakes of Clinton’s failed 2008 presidential bid. In 2007, the then-New York senator entered the race as the overwhelming favorite but ultimately lost ground to an insurgent candidate named Barack Obama amid the perception of an unwieldy campaign apparatus and her inability to personally connect with voters.
Eight years later, Clinton again enters the race as the overwhelming frontrunner—albeit this time with no real challenger, as of yet. But instead of mounting the same shock-and-awe campaign aimed at scaring away potential opponents, Clinton’s strategists are said to be plotting a more humble approach to 2016 in hopes of winning over voters who complained eight years ago that she was inaccessible and distant.
Formal confirmation of her candidacy first came in the form of emails from John Podesta, the presumptive chairman of her 2016 campaign, to donors, 2008 campaign staffers and and members of Congress on Sunday. “I wanted to make sure you heard it first from me — it’s official: Hillary’s running for president,” he wrote in one missive. In another, he noted: “There will be a formal kickoff event next month.”
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