'Hillary super PAC' expands

The super PAC that wants to create a presidential campaign organization for Hillary Clinton to steal — should she decide to run — is expanding. Ready For Hillary has hired a digital director, Nickie Titus, a Democratic digital activist who most recently ran the tech operation for Tim Kaine's successful Senate campaign. Titus is paid employee number two. She comes highly recommended: Her old boss was Mike Henry, who was deputy campaign manager for Clinton's 2008 presidential bid.

The PAC has also hired Rising Tide Interactive, a consulting firm with ties to several significant Democratic groups, to put together a database of email addresses, social media capacities, and small donors. Ready for Hillary wants to have a big list ready to go before it formally launches; it will recruit through targeted ads on the Google Ad network, AOL, and through the purchase of lists from other groups.

Seth Bringman, the national communications director for Ready for Hillary, told me: "The tactics, analytics, and targeting are extremely intricate and it takes early investment and experts like Nickie to be effective.”

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Amelia Showalter, former digital analytics director for President Obama's re-election campaign, said that the PAC's early investment in data and analytics is crucial. "Running optimization tests and making data-driven decisions is how we built such a large base of low-dollar donors on the Obama campaign. That's why I am excited to see the sophisticated digital program Nickie Titus is building at Ready for Hillary. This will clearly be a smarter, savvier kind of super PAC."

The PAC has no formal contact with Hillaryland, such as it is. But there will be plenty of overlapping advisers. Several are quietly helping raise money for the PAC and will be identified when Ready for Hillary finds a good moment to effectuate a PR splash.