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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Alan Yuhas in New York

Hillary Clinton: 'I'm running for president' – as it happened

Hillary Clinton’s campaign announcement video.

Summary

We’re going to close our coverage of the official start to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign with a list of its key points.

  • Clinton became the first Democratic candidate to enter the 2016 by declaring “I’m running for president” in a video pitch aimed at the middle class. “Everyday Americans need a champion, and I want to be that champion,” she said.
  • The former secretary of state’s campaign shifted into action as she confirmed plans to meet with voters in Iowa, where the caucuses next year will help decide who wins her party’s nomination.
  • The campaign announced a formal “campaign kickoff” event in mid-May without providing further details. In the “six to eight weeks” between now and that speech, there will be a “ramp up” period during which Clinton’s staffers try to build a national grassroots organization.
  • Republicans launched various campaigns to diminish Clinton in the eyes of voters, including videos from presidential candidates Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, and statements from the Republican National Convention and Jeb Bush.

Clinton has returned to smash the glass ceiling, writes my colleague Suzanne Goldenberg in an in-depth piece about sexism and politics, the problem of Clinton’s many handlers, and the former secretary of state’s trouble connecting with voters.

In the 2016 race, Clinton will put women and children first, casting herself as a champion for low wage earners - both themes central to her campaign launch video. Confronting a familiar sexism that is straight out of a Mad Men episode, she already seems to have adopted a new persona: grandmother-in-chief.

“It won’t be the same strategy that we saw in ’08, or at least in the beginning of the ’08 campaign, which was not really to raise the fact that there was any importance or significance to the election of the first woman president,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.

“She is going to own the wise, smart grandmother,” Walsh said. “Embracing the title grandmother – rather than running away – makes her real, makes her human, makes her a more fully rounded candidate.”

Richardson, a member of Bill Clinton’s cabinet, ran against Hillary Clinton in 2008, and eventually endorsed Obama. The two have not reconciled, he said. But, Richardson told the Guardian, “she is going to have a very favourable current of being the first woman president, and I think women in droves are going to move in that direction.”

The one thing Clinton must still watch out for, Richardson said, was disappearing beyond a wall of handlers as she did in 2008: “I just worry that this big entourage that she always travels with – all the people with iPhones and all the security – gets in the way of her mixing one on one with voters.”

You can read the full piece here.

Updated

Former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley has released a statement about Clinton’s official entrance into the race, through a spokesperson.

“Governor O’Malley is seriously considering running for president, and he will make his decision regardless of what other people decide to do. All across the nation, he’s heard from Democrats that they are looking for someone who offers strong progressive values, new leadership, and the experience of getting real results. The Democratic Party will benefit from a robust issues debate, and – should Governor O’Malley decide to enter the race – he will bring one.”

And just like that, Clinton leaves Twitter for her anonymous staffers to run.

Updated

Y nosotros no queremos que ningún político que no hablan español pronuncie palabras de español malamente al tratar ganar votos hispanohablantes. Por favor.

There’s a button on HillaryClinton.com that translates the site into Spanish.

Reporters are poring through Clinton’s new campaign site and finding some oddities in its content and lack thereof.

The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman notes “Clinton’s website bio credits her [with] creating climate for tough new sanctions that brought Iran [to] negotiating table.”

Haberman also notes that the site seems curiously limited to four or five states (if one includes her New York headquarters), a point reiterated by Politico’s Gabriel Debenedetti: “Iowa, NH & SC are often thought of as the 3 important early states. With its website Team Clinton makes clear Nevada is also a priority.”

There’s also a more conspicuous omission.

Fordham law professor Zephyr Teachout – who was briefly a political challenger to New York governor Andrew Cuomo – has a similar criticism.

Updated

The Guardian’s Kayla Epstein has been watching the … effusive … online reaction to Clinton’s logo, and sends a note to that point.

It’s barely been out in the world for an hour, but Hillary Clinton’s new campaign logo, which shows an red arrow pointing towards… something (he future, maybe? The path to progress?) superimposed over the letter “H”, already has its fair share of detractors. Some think that the Fed-Ex-esque symbol is subliminally sending the wrong message:

The early words of support continue to roll in for Clinton, including from prominent women’s activist group Emily’s List and the president of Planned Parenthood, who says in a statement: “This is a historic moment.

“In our nation’s history, there has not been a candidate for president with a stronger commitment to women or a clearer record on behalf of women’s health and rights.”

AFL labor chief Richard Trumka also welcomes Clinton’s candidacy, saying, “We applaud Secretary Clinton’s decision to begin her campaign by going directly to voters and listening to them first … Working people want to hear Secretary Clinton’s ideas on how to create a Raising Wages America.”

Through a spokesperson, New York governor Andrew Cuomo throws his endorsement into Clinton’s basket.

Clinton 2016 hiring list:

Top strategists – check
Social media team – check
Slick video producers – check
Copy editors …

A question.

An unlikely answer.

An even more unlikely commitment to message.

Feeling nostalgic and want even more Clinton? Check out a gallery of Clinton’s life and career through the years.

hillary
r Hillary Rodham of Wellesley College talking about student protests, which she supported in her commencement speech. Photograph: Lee Balterman/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty
Clinton family campaigning during the 1988 Democratic presidential primaries
Clinton family campaigning during the 1988 Democratic presidential primaries Photograph: Mike Stewart/Sygma/Corbis
Clinton campaigns for the presidential nomination in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 2008
Clinton campaigns for the presidential nomination in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 2008 Photograph: Win McNamee/Getty Images

Updated

Are you ready for 30 seconds of close-ups of Ted Cruz’s face in what appears to be a poorly lit hotel room? Ted Cruz is. And he’s ready for Hillary, too.

Meanwhile, Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus has released a statement about “Clinton’s coronation.”

“Americans need a president they can trust and voters do not trust Hillary Clinton. Over decades as a Washington insider, Clinton has left a trail of secrecy, scandal, and failed policies that can’t be erased from voters’ minds. The Clintons believe they can play by a different set of rules and think they’re above transparency, accountability, and ethics. Our next president must represent a higher standard, and that is not Hillary Clinton.

“Clinton’s announcement comes in the shadows of looming investigations over deletion of State Department records and suspicious foreign donations. For weeks Clinton has stonewalled the American public on unanswered questions around these many scandals. As an official candidate, Clinton must come clean with the American people.

“Republicans have a strong and diverse set of candidates who will engage in a productive debate on how to move our country forward. Clinton’s coronation represents more of the same, and voters have made it clear they want a new direction.”

Formal 'campaign kickoff in mid-May'

The first press release from the Clinton campaign says that the former secretary of state is “starting with a focus on the early Democratic primary states. She will start with stops in Iowa this week to talk with Iowa voters, ramping up for a campaign kickoff in mid-May.”

It goes on to describe “the ramp up”.

“Just like the families in her video who are getting ready for fresh starts, Hillary is preparing her campaign organization. She’s committed to spending the next 6 to 8 weeks in a ‘ramp up’ period where her team will start to build a nation-wide grassroots organization, and she will spend her time engaging directly with voters. …

“In May, once her supporters in all 50 states are organized for house parties or to watch over live-streams, Hillary will hold her first rally and deliver the speech to kick off her campaign.”

The Washington Post’s Ed O’Keefe reports that former Florida governor Jeb Bush has already begun soliciting help to defeat Clinton.

Earlier Sunday he released a video conflating Clinton’s policies with Barack Obama’s – and predictably called for something completely different.

Clinton 2016 takes to Twitter.

Kirsten Gillibrand, who succeeded Clinton in the Senate, and Maryland senator Barbara Mikulski have both immediately endorsed Clinton.

Now that the campaign engine has shifted into its official gear, the critical reaction ranges from “well done” and“HRC comes off well” for her attention to voters first to, well, “Hillary’s logo is awf. looks like a sign for an ER department at a hospital.”

Buzzfeed’s Rosie Gray and Ruby Cramer:

The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza:

Updated

Everybody’s getting into it now.

Clinton: 'I'm running for president'

Clinton’s campaign website, the creatively named HillaryClinton.com, has just gone live with her first campaign ad placed at the top.

The ad pitches hard to the middle-class – the theme of choice among Republican and Democrat candidates – and meshes with Podesta’s call to “make the middle class mean something again.”

“Americans have fought their way back from tough economic times but the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top. Everyday Americans need a champion, and I want to be that champion.

“So you can do more than just get by. You can get ahead and stay ahead. Because when families are strong, America is strong.

“So I’m hitting the road to earn your vote because it’s your time. And I hope you’ll join me on this journey,” Clinton says.

Updated

The Wall Street Journal’s Byron Tau reports that the campaign machine has set in motion:

Republican senator Ted Cruz’ communications director, meanwhile, is not amused.

Carpenter is referring to the Podesta Group, a lobbying firm that Podesta founded with his brother in 1988.

Podesta is ill-liked among Republicans and has longstanding ties to two Democrat presidents: he served as Bill Clinton’s chief of staff from 1998-2000 and as a senior advisor to Barack Obama from 2014-2015.

Buzzfeed’s Ruby Cramer has also taken a screenshot of one of the Podesta emails to donors:

Updated

Campaign chairman: 'it's official: Hillary's running'

Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta has sent an email to veterans of her 2008 campaign, donors and fundraisers, saying the words that reporters have been waiting for: “It’s official: Hillary’s running for president.”

Blue Nation Review editor Jesse Berney has taken a screenshot of the email from Podesta:

Updated

Clinton has apparently split the opinions of two prominent Democrats, both of whom worked closely with her at pivotal moments of former New York senator’s career.

New York Senator Chuck Schumer endorsed Clinton, applauding her “empathy, intellect and passion,” and saying she “will be a great president. She will listen to the people.” Schumer is the appointed successor to lead Democrats in the Senate after current minority leader Harry Reid steps down after the next election.

Bill de Blasio – New York City mayor and Clinton’s campaign manager in 2000 – offered a far more qualified statement about his former boss. He declined to endorse her, “not until I see – and again I would say this about any candidate – until I see an actual vision of where they want to go.”

Democratic strategist and Clinton ally Hilary Rosen rebuked de Blasio for his comments, writing on Twitter that his “self-aggrandizing on [Meet the Press] at [Clinton’s] expense won’t go unnoticed … [Clinton] fought for the middleclass and poor families long before [de Blasio] could even articulate any vision at all.”

She then qualified those tweets, saying “I just think he should have been more sensitive on her announcement [day].”

Currying favor with journalists (wrong cuisine).

Pie-ing sympathetic reporting (just terrible).

Pandering to the press … if it’s pan-cooked pizza. There’s got to be a better pun than this.

Updated

My colleague Lauren Gambino has filed another post on the forthcoming announcement:

With a simple, bold icon, a blue H crossed by a red arrow pointing forward, Hillary Clinton will send a message to the world that she is ready to be the next president – and first female leader – of the United States.

A memo, first reported by Politico and later viewed by the Guardian, states the campaigns purpose, declaring: “We are Hillary for America”.

The campaign will be guided by the principals: “We are a team”, “We are a diverse, talented family”, “we are disciplined”, “we are humble”, “we know the importance of having fun”, “we are open to a diverse range of views”, “we are responsible”.

The campaign it says, will be guided by Hillary’s bedrock values: “hard work, service, fairness and faith in the American Dream.

“This campaign is not about Hillary Clinton and not about us – it’s about the everyday Americans who are trying to build a better life for themselves and their families.”

- Lauren Gambino

Updated

“She needs to try and convince us she’s not just the anointed one,” an Iowan voter says of Hillary Clinton, who has hired extra staffers in the critical primary state that she lost in 2008. My colleague Paul Lewis reports from Des Moines.

Like nearly every other Democrat in Iowa interviewed by the Guardian over the last 48 hours, John Sprole said he was undecided over who should be the party’s presidential candidate. But was hungry for “a debate”.

That sentiment was repeated by Democrats time and again at local party events in the state: activists want a contest, and feel they are missing out on the healthy debate that is well under way among Republicans. There is no clear frontrunner in the GOP race, where a crowded field of potential candidates are battling over ideas and philosophy.

The Clinton campaign is determined to avoid any appearance that the former New York senator is taking Iowa for granted.

Clinton’s dramatic defeat to Barack Obama in the 2008 Iowa caucus dealt a huge blow to her presidential prospects. Many blamed a neglect of the state – and alleged failure to connect with Iowans on a one-on-one basis.

“We don’t know where she stands,” Vernon Naffier said of Clinton, who the pair met eight years ago and found “rather distant”. “She’s definitely a politician, we know that,” he said, adding: “We know where Elizabeth Warren stands or Bernie Sanders stands.”

Viable competitors are in short supply in the Democratic party. Vermont’s Bernie Sanders, an independent senator, has hinted he may run, as has vice-president Joe Biden. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts senator with a strong populist streak, has repeatedly said she will not enter the race. Former governors Martin O’Malley and Licoln Chafee, of Maryland and Rhode Island respectively, will likely run but lack a national profile or resources comparable to Clinton’s.

More to the point, though, Iowans are skeptical of Clinton compared to anyone.

“We have seen her in the state of Iowa once – one time – since 2008,” said Carol Kochheiser, a 68-year-old retired math teacher, back at the Polk County event. “So I’m not sure she has much of a relationship with Iowa.”

You can read the full piece here.

Updated

Republican senator Lindsey Graham says Hillary Clinton’s only chance is to differentiate herself from Barack Obama, and “if she can’t then game, set and match.”

“The reason there’s 20 Republicans running is because all of them think they can beat her,” he told CNN this morning.

“At the end of the day, here’s her challenge: [to say] here’s how I’m different than Barack Obama, here’s how my foreign policy will be better than his because the world is literally on fire. If she can make a case that she’s different than him then she’ll have a chance.”

Graham said Clinton “owns his foreign policy, she owns his domestic policy.” And of course, he added, he would support a Republican candidate like Rand Paul, despite major disagreements about foreign policy and other issues, over Hillary Clinton.

The veteran senator hinted at a possible run of his own, though he would have to compete for conservative votes from fellow establishment Republicans Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio.

The Guardian viewed a detailed copy of Hillary Clinton’s prepared schedule for Sunday 12 April as of Friday morning, which revealed that she would announce her candidacy that day.

The schedule, which was always subject to change, showed that her campaign website would go live at 11.45am, followed by a tweet announcing she was running at midday.

Clinton has now delayed her announcement; the plan changed over the weekend after the Guardian reported on it and multiple news outlets began detailed preparations for the announcement.

This was the original Clinton campaign schedule viewed by the Guardian:

SUNDAY APRIL 12

  • 11:30am - HRC departs for Iowa
  • 11:45am - Website goes live
  • 11:55am - Heads up emails sent to political/donor universes.
  • Social media turns on (Facebook, YouTube)/video goes live
  • 12:00pm - HRC tweets that she is running
  • 12:00pm - Announcement video/email is sent to full list
    Political heads up calls started to elected officials in IA, OH, and PA
    Talking points sent to talkers listserve
    Press release sent to press list
    Telemarketing call center goes live
  • TBDpm - Press advisory sent out to press list (determine how much of the tour will be released)
  • 1:00pm - Begin booking staff and surrogates for press
  • Hold conference call with Talkers
  • 4:00pm - Hold conference call with Members of Congress + Governors (Podesta, Robby, Huma)

The rest of the afternoon was scheduled to be filled with conference calls to advisers in key battleground states.

- Lauren Gambino

Updated

Two very different presidents loom over Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign: Bill and Barack, each with incredibly dissimilar styles and tenures in the Oval Office. The New York Times reports that Clinton plans to take up Obama’s record as a torch.

Rather than run from Mr. Obama, she intends to turn to him as one of her campaign’s most important allies and advocates — second only, perhaps, to her husband, the other president whose record will hover over her bid.

In a general election, Mr. Obama is expected to help Mrs. Clinton raise money, and he would be asked to campaign for her in, among other places, the most heavily African-American counties of the swing states that he won in 2008 and 2012, according to numerous people briefed on the plans, who discussed them on the condition of anonymity.

But even in those states, Mrs. Clinton does not plan to distance herself from Mr. Obama’s record, advisers said. Rather, she intends to praise, above all, the economic progress Mr. Obama has made, getting the country out of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and cutting the unemployment rate nearly in half.

Advisers say Mrs. Clinton will promise a “new chapter” that would expand upon Mr. Obama’s efforts to address persistently stagnant wages and rising inequality.

Obama, too, has “good reason to tolerate any gibes from Mrs Clinton, real or perceived,” the Times continues.

With Republicans in control of Congress, [former White House press secretary Robert] Gibbs said, “he needs her to win this election so that the things he wants history to remember as his most consequential accomplishments aren’t undone in the first 100 days of a Republican administration.”

You can read the full piece here. Clinton also recently said he plans to be a “backstage adviser” for most of the campaign.

Updated

Senator and presidential candidate Rand Paul, undeterred by the facts that he does not actually face Clinton in an election yet – he has to win the primary first – and that Clinton has not yet announced her campaign – is already selling novelty items specific to mocking her, like this hard drive alluding to her use of private email while working for the State Department.

Hillary hard drive
Novelty hard drive. Photograph: RandPaul.com

Long-time establishment Republicans are also firing up an engine to take on Clinton as they wait for the official video.

You can read more about the strange market for political swag here.

The New York Times’ Nate Cohn sees the spin in this afternoon’s waiting game …

Former Democratic congressman John Dingell, with the necessary pun.

(ht @kaylaepstein)

The clock struck noon (ET) and the Clinton campaign has yet to release the video that will launch the former secretary of state’s second presidential bid at the time predicted by several reports.

CNN’s Mark Preston and the Times’ Maggie Haberman say that the campaign will release the video at some point this afternoon.

Updated

A vote for Hillary Clinton is against liberty, Kentucky senator Rand Paul has declared – in all caps, with an entire section of his website titled “Liberty, Not Hillary.”

How can you defend an abstract concept from “Clinton’s attacks on liberty and the constitution,” as Paul puts it? With backgrounds for your social media pages, available in variations of red, white and blue, of course.

The Republican presidential candidate took a few potshots at Clinton on CNN this morning, saying, “I do think that there is sort of a history of the Clintons sort of feeling like they’re above the law.”

But he tried to avoid any of the gaffes that some of his predecessors have made and prompted accusations of a Republican “war on women.” Paul said it would be “sexist” to suggest that the former secretary of state “deserves not to be treated as aggressively because she’s only a woman.”

“It’s going to be hard for her to say she’s for women’s rights when she’s accepting money from sort of stone-age sort of regimes that really abuse the rights of women,” Paul added, alluding to donations that the Clinton family foundation accepted from countries such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Nevertheless, he said he’d be as polite to Clinton as he is to everyone else (and maybe even more polite than to the media). There you have it: polite but aggressive treatment characterized by Twitter backgrounds and an implication that Clinton is un-American. Check out his dystopia-themed ad below!

Updated

Clinton’s supporters want to raise as much as $2.5 billion with a B, according to a report in the New York Times.

This campaign will begin on a small scale and build up to an effort likely to cost more than any presidential bid waged before, with Mrs. Clinton’s supporters looking to raise as much as $2.5 billion in a blitz of donations from Democrats who overwhelmingly support her candidacy.

Much of that enthusiasm is tied to the chance to make history by electing a woman president. But some, too, owes to the lack of compelling alternatives …

Mrs. Clinton’s expected declaration on Sunday is to be followed by a series of intimate but critical campaign events in Iowa and New Hampshire. She will use them to reintroduce herself to voters and begin to lay out the central theme of her candidacy: improving the economic fortunes of the middle class, with an emphasis on increasing wages and reducing income inequality.

Barack Obama and his Republican opponent Mitt Romney each spent more than a billion slugging it out in the 2012 race ($1.123bn and $1.019bn, respectively). Former Florida governor Jeb Bush and current Texas senator Ted Cruz have been raising millions the past few weeks and months for their current bid; Clinton apparently aims to outstrip them all by a wide margin.

Some of that money will come from sales of champagne flute, mason jars and dog hoodies by the Ready for Hillary Pac. (Assuming there are sales.)

Polls and politics guru Harry Enten of FiveThirtyEight remains skeptical: “Anyone know the difference between a 2 billion campaign vs. 1 billion for a candidate?”

Updated

Eager to avoid the mistakes of her 2008 campaign and rally new voters that Obama won that year, Clinton has decided to prioritize women and young people in the new campaign, my colleague Sabrina Siddiqui (@sabrinasiddiqui) reports.

“She faces the danger that she seems to be politics as usual, which a lot of millennials don’t like – both being part of Washington and a Washington that doesn’t work well,” Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University, told the Guardian. “She’s not somebody new; she’s familiar. It’s kind of static: people have heard of her. They think what they think of her.”

One significant way for Clinton to overcome such preconceived notions, Zelizer said, would be to sell voters on what her presidency would represent: a historic breakthrough as the first woman to become president of the US.

It’s a strategy Clinton’s campaign was reluctant to use in 2008 but is reportedly set to employ this cycle – and it just might be what she needs to create a grassroots movement in favor of her candidacy.

Clinton has been more vocal about her work on gender equality, both during her time at the helm of the State Department and through the Clinton Foundation. Her policy rhetoric, too, has preliminarily focused on equal pay, paid leave and other issues facing middle-class families.

Sabrina also notes that despite Republican’s huge victories during the 2014 midterm elections, the party still struggles to win the votes of women and young people.

Tying that message to her role as the potential first female president could counter precisely what Clinton neglected to do eight years ago, Debbie Walsh, the director at the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, told the Guardian.

“I think that what we saw back in 2008 was a reluctance early on in the campaign to really embrace [gender] and to take that head on and to let her be defined in some ways that way,” Walsh said. Perhaps consequentially, she added, “the younger women didn’t quite see the history of Hillary Clinton getting elected … they were much more captured by Barack Obama and his message”.

You can read the full piece here.

But would a Sunday morning Clinton video watch party really be a party?

“Hillary would make a great president, and I would make an even greater first dude.”

“Thank you, Bill, that’s nice … Aren’t we such a fun, approachable dynasty?”

SNL does the Clinton cold open.

Will Joe Biden challenge Clinton for the presidency, pitting Barack Obama’s VP against his former secretary of state, and gracing the internet with even more Onion articles?

The president and current secretary of state have already begun the awkward verbal circumlocutions.

In Panama City for the Summit of the Americas and a handshake with Raúl Castro, Obama on Saturday said Clinton would make “an excellent president”.

The one thing I can say is, she’s going to be able to handle herself very well in any conversation or debates around foreign policy.

And her track record with respect to domestic policies is I think one that cares about working families.

But perhaps remembering that Biden has not ruled out a campaign, Obama said “I’m not on the ballot”, when asked whether Clinton might run on his record.

Obama also recognized that it’s hard to hold on to the White House, telling ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that Americans “want that new-car smell. They’re going to want to drive something off the lot that doesn’t have as much mileage as me.”

Secretary of state John Kerry, meanwhile, told Stephanopoulus: “I wish her well in this race and I look forward to being able to stay well away from it. I’m not in the race, George, I’m out of the partisan politics here.”

Updated

No drama, no suspense, no spectacle. That’s the message Clinton’s staffers heard this weekend as they prepared what is by far the most subdued campaign launch of all the candidates.

But with a Twitter announcement and video and email messages, Clinton is expected to unleash those staffers – very politely – on the critical primary states where voters will elect the Democratic nominee for president. Sabrina Siddiqui (@sabrinasiddiqui) and Lauren Gambino (@lgamgam) have more:

In the air, according to a source familiar with the campaign, Clinton will make calls to elected officials in Iowa, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Throughout Sunday, she is scheduled to contact advisers in other campaign battlegrounds – in New Hampshire, where she is expected to visit later in the week, as well as South Carolina and Nevada – and to press, members of Congress, governors, labor leaders and so-called “superdelegates”, while setting up a “listening tour” of Iowa.

The low-key launch of a high-octane campaign in the key midwestern caucus state represents a test for whether Clinton can use intimate campaigning to her advantage. An internal campaign memo obtained by Politico on Saturdayreminded Clinton staffers that “we are humble”.

“We are never afraid to lose, we always out-compete and fight for every vote we can win,” campaign manager Robby Mook wrote to the growing Clinton team in the memo. “We know this campaign will be won on the ground, in states.”

You can read more of their article about how the gears of the Clinton political machine have started moving here.

Updated

Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of a milestone in American politics: the official launch of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign - the day the former secretary of state stops pretending she hasn’t been running for the past two years.

Clinton’s announcement today, first reported by the Guardian’s Lauren Gambino (@lgamgam) last week, kicks off a new phase of the 2016 race as one of the most famous American politicians of her generation takes the field – drawing the fire and scrutiny that comes with a campaign for the country’s highest office.

Joining the odd couple of Republican senators Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, Clinton will be the third official entrant to the race, and may be joined by a dozen competitors between the two parties. This is her second bid for the White House after having lost to Barack Obama in the 2008 Democratic primary.

Despite her status as the Democrats’ apparent frontrunner, Clinton faces concerns over whether she can inspire voters after years as a familiar public figure, overcome a reputation for secrecy and ties to moneyed interests, and buck a stark historical precedent: only once in the past 64 years has either party held the White House after eight years in office.

The former secretary of state is well-equipped to try, with formidable resources, many allies and years of experience with both success and failure. She begins her 10-month road trip in Iowa, where the first caucuses of primary season - when the two major parties begin to choose their presidential candidates - will be held early next year.

Without any obvious rivals in her own party yet, all eyes now turn to Clinton, whose every word, step and gesture will be pored over and parodied in the tradition of American politics - including here in this blog.

Updated

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