Will Hillary freeze the Invisible Primary?

She is the 800-pound gorilla in a pantsuit

Hillary Clinton delivers her farewell address to the staff before leaving her position as the secretary of state on Feb. 1.
(Image credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

So Hillary Clinton is now a citizen in repose. The brief frenzy of 2016 speculation that accompanied the inauguration has died down, and thank goodness, because we're all supposed to hate presidential politics, and we're supposed to let the current president govern. The Invisible Primary refers to the period before the formal party primaries. During this period, candidates figure out if they want to run, recruit staff, decide how they want to run, recruit donors, and plan their campaign. It takes place behind closed doors, usually, with brief flashes of publicity only to ensure that the political reporting class dutifully begins to assess the candidate's seriousness and informal campaign apparatus.

These days, the Invisible Primary is quite visible. Political operatives acquire a celebrity; their movements are tracked as they feel out candidates. Political action committee disbursements are scrutinized; how much of the money is going to Iowa or New Hampshire? Whose loyalists get the most representation on the rules committee? Who was seen having dinner with the head of the AFL-CIO?

Subscribe to The Week

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

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

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
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Marc Ambinder

Marc Ambinder is TheWeek.com's editor-at-large. He is the author, with D.B. Grady, of The Command and Deep State: Inside the Government Secrecy Industry. Marc is also a contributing editor for The Atlantic and GQ. Formerly, he served as White House correspondent for National Journal, chief political consultant for CBS News, and politics editor at The Atlantic. Marc is a 2001 graduate of Harvard. He is married to Michael Park, a corporate strategy consultant, and lives in Los Angeles.