Hillary Clinton's to-do list

Polls show Hillary Rodham Clinton drawing support far above any other prospective Democratic or Republican presidential candidate in 2016. The most experienced campaign operatives in the business are jostling to be by her side if she decides to run. Time magazine asks, Can anyone stop Hillary?

At first blush, the worlds most famous woman projects an air of invincibility.

And yet: An avalanche of coverage prompted by the relatively obscure Washington Free Beacon which scored an impressive scoop by exploring a cache of papers with a mix of gossipy and revealing insights into her personality and marriage in the 1990s highlighted a Clinton paradox. Her ability to dominate the national political conversation is nearly as much liability as asset, since the obsessive interest about her character, her past, and her future intentions leaves her acutely vulnerable to publicity storms that can hijack her public image and swamp her plans to carefully manage her reentry into public life.

(PHOTOS: Hillary Clintons 50 influentials)

While this weeks furor over the journal entries of Hillary Clintons close friend Diane Blair, who died in 2000, is likely to be ephemeral, the larger challenge facing her is not. Her professed view that there is plenty of time to worry later about presidential politics is not really true. If she decides to run for president a campaign that will almost certainly be vigorously underway as soon as the midterm elections are over nine months from now the window for making some decisions will start to close this year. This leaves Clinton with a very specific, very urgent to-do list in 2014, according to a variety of operatives who have been close to her previously or are watching from afar.

These are vulnerabilities she needs to start tackling right now:

Dont turn into Mitt Romney

Even many Democrats acknowledge that Romney might have been president if he could have narrowed the gap between himself and people who thought he was awkward, elitist, insular, and just a bit odd.

This clearly isnt as big a challenge for Clinton, who tops surveys of the countrys most admired woman. Unlike Romney, shes among the most well-defined politicians that exist. But she still has a considerable task in front of her to avoid making the mistakes of someone whos been cloistered her recent acknowledgment that she hasnt driven a car since 1996 exploded on the Internet.

(PHOTOS: Mitt Romney through the years)

Continued here:

Hillary Clinton's to-do list

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