Clinton talking to 2 top strategists

Hillary Clinton has been working with strategists Robby Mook and Joel Benenson as she heads toward a likely presidential campaign, Politico reports. 

{mosads}Mook is a front-runner to be Clinton’s campaign manager. He worked on her campaign in 2008 and won credit for managing Terry McAuliffe’s (D) successful Virginia gubernatorial campaign in 2013. 

Benenson was President Obama’s pollster for the 2008 and 2012 campaigns. A decision to bring him on would be a signal that Clinton is looking for fresh faces on her campaign team. Her 2008 campaign pollster, Mark Penn, has been widely blamed for how that campaign was run. Benenson did work on Bill Clinton’s 1996 campaign as well.

Clinton’s team has made clear that a 2016 campaign would be different from the 2008 effort, which was criticized as insular and overly scripted. 

“If she runs, it will be different,” Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill told The New York Times last month. 

“She has said that she is seriously considering running for president,” a Clinton aide told Politico when asked about the two strategists. “She’s casting a wide net, meeting with a variety of experts to discuss the economy and a range of challenges facing American families. And she’s using this time to look at what components are necessary to build an inclusive, thoughtful and technically advanced campaign, so that if she decides to run, she’ll be ready.”