Hillary Clinton is concerned a number of major liberal donors will sit on the sidelines due to anxiety about her positions on a host of issues, according to a secret campaign memo acquired by Politico’s Ken Vogel.
The memo, intended for longtime Clinton flack David Brock, details a number of questions Brock expected to face at a donor meeting in San Francisco. The questions indicate that Clinton allies believe there is serious concern among donors that she is not authentically liberal enough for their liking.
"What we found in this memo that we obtained is that they still believe that there are lingering doubts among these liberals about her, that they feel she's not liberal enough on some of their key issues like climate change, like fighting income inequality, even reducing the role of money in politics ironically," Vogel said Wednesday on MSNBC.
Clinton, possibly in response to these concerns, has tacked to the left since announcing her candidacy in April, even if it meant running against her husband’s legacy. The 2016 Democratic frontrunner has altered her positions on immigration, gay marriage, and criminal justice reform. She has remained notably silent on two major issues she once supported but are reviled by the left: the Keystone XL pipeline and the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
The campaign has scheduled 26 fundraisers in the next month. Thus far, her Super PAC fundraising efforts have been met with resistance from donors and public quarrels within her team, although few expect she will struggle to raise money in record numbers.
The campaign has downplayed the $2 billion goal, possibly because Priorities USA, Clinton’s Super PAC, has struggled to garner commitments.
Vogel said the campaign feels this issue is a top priority to combat her Republican rivals with major billionaires backing them, especially Jeb Bush.
"They need to aggressively court these folks to come off the sidelines to a point where they can be relied on to support Hillary's presidential campaign," he said.