Hillary Clinton is hitting the road—but not the campaign trail.
The potential 2016 presidential candidate is lining up events promoting her memoir about her time as secretary of state. So far, only four cities have been announced and the events are being described as a “conversation” with Clinton.
The book tour to discuss “Hard Choices” includes two stops in Canada — Toronto on June 16 and Edmonton on June 18 — and then one in Austin, Texas on June 20 and San Francisco, Calif. on June 25. The book comes out on June 10, and tickets range in price from $95 to $500.
A spokesperson for Simon and Schuster, the book’s publisher, said more dates and cities would be announced in the future. Requests for comment from Clinton’s spokesman was not returned.
The memoir will be scrutinized for any indication that Clinton is planning to run for the nation’s highest office and will certainly raise her profile in the lead up to her decision. Clinton has said she’ll declare by the end of this year whether she’ll launch a second bid for president. Her remarks in the memoir on the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi in particular will likely be pored over as well, as Republicans have accused repeatedly accused Clinton of a cover-up.
Political action committees – both for and against a Clinton presidential run – see opportunity in the memoir’s release.
The Ready for Hillary super PAC views the book tour as an organizing opportunity to build on their 2 million person-plus supporter list in the event that Clinton does run.
“We’ll have volunteers with clipboards signing up new supporters” in Austin and San Francisco, Seth Bringman, the communications director for Ready for Hillary, told msnbc on Friday. “This is a great opportunity for us given that the people who show up on a book tour stop are more than likely to be Hillary supporters.” On the other side is the America Rising PAC, which started a “Stop Hillary 2016” fundraising initiative. Tim Miller, the executive director of the group told msnbc earlier this month that some of its employees are going through historical records for potential ammunition in the event that there are any factual inaccuracies in Clinton’s forthcoming memoir. The group even has a full-time staffer in Arkansas who’s combing through documents at the Clinton Presidential Library looking for any relevant 2016 information. While Clinton has continually been the overwhelming front-runner for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, the Republican field is much more crowded. The latest RealClearPolitics average of 2016 polling data shows Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee tied at 13% support. Meanwhile, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is in a close second at 12.3% followed by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (10.7%), Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan (10.5%), Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas (6.7%), Rubio (6.5%), Texas Gov. Rick Perry (4.4%) and Santorum (3.3%). Recommended
