Political strategist David Axelrod said Friday that his admonition wasn’t aimed at Hillary Clinton when he said Democrats should focus on the 2014 midterms rather than the 2016 presidential race.
However, Axelrod told TPM in an email that the former secretary of state shouldn’t be too thrilled about all the 2016 mobilizing, either.
“It’s not about Hillary, who probably wishes-or should-that a lot of this activity would just stop for now,” Axelrod wrote. “But Democrats face a very serious challenge in ’14, and if they cede the terrain to the Koch Brothers in service of ’16, they put Senate at risk.”
The former top adviser to President Obama tweeted Thursday that “Dem funders should be focused on ’14.” During an appearance Friday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” he echoed the sentiment and said Democrats face a “serious threat” in this years midterms.
“I think Democrats have their hands full in 2014 and they better train their attention on these races,” he said.
BuzzFeed quoted a number of former Obama aides earlier this week who said that Clinton, widely viewed as the overwhelming favorite to claim the Democratic nomination in 2016, could be undone by the same air of inevitability that cost her in 2008.
