Former White House adviser and 2008 Obama campaign manager David Plouffe on Sunday praised Hillary Clinton as the “strongest candidate” for 2016 from either party.
In an interview at Manhattan’s 92 Street Y, Plouffe was asked what he would do if Clinton called him and asked him to run her campaign.
“No, I would not run your campaign,” Plouffe said he would tell her. “But because I’m done with that.”
But he went on to praise Clinton, saying that she would “obviously be an enormously strong candidate.”
“She is in both parties right now by far the most interesting candidate, probably the strongest candidate,” said Plouffe.
“She has right now the opportunity to take some well-deserved and rare time for her with her family and figure things out. All I know is I’ll accept the call, whenever she calls, but my — even if it's at 3 a.m. — but my days of running presidential campaigns ... I’m just going to be helping like everyone else,” he added.
Clinton has not said if she would consider at 2016 presidential bid, but is the center of media speculation, with poll’s showing her the Democrats’ presumptive front-runner.
Plouffe, though, made no mention of Vice President Biden, who has said he is not closing the door to a possible run.
As President Obama’s campaign manager, Plouffe helped his candidate top Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primaries, but said there were no hard feelings after that hard fought battle.
“It’s interesting when you go through something like that, you’re the only people who can fully appreciate what that’s like. So even though you are slugging it out every day, and you can be really angry and hold some grudges, you can have deep respect for your combatant who went through it with you,” said Plouffe. “All of us who went through that primary have the highest degree of respect for her.”
