Clinton staff shakeup may be coming

Hillary Clinton is weighing a staff shakeup after Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary, according to Politico.

Both Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, are unhappy with the direction of the campaign’s messaging and digital operations and had been considering changing staff and strategy after the first four voting states.

{mosads}But a source told Politico that the Clintons now want to consider such changes earlier.

Clinton defeated Bernie Sanders by a razor-thin margin in last week’s Iowa caucuses, but the latest polls show her trailing Sanders by double digits in New Hampshire, which will hold its primary Tuesday.

“The Clintons are not happy, and have been letting all of us know that,” one Democratic official close to both Clintons told Politico. “The idea is that we need a more forward-looking message, for the primary — but also for the general election too. … There’s no sense of panic, but there is an urgency to fix these problems right now.” 

Asked about the report on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show,” Clinton said she’s “very confident” in her campaign team.

“I have no idea what they’re talking about or who they are talking to. We’re going to take stock, but it’s going to be the campaign that I’ve got. I’m very confident in the people that I have. I’m very committed to them,” Clinton said.

“We’re moving into a different phase of the campaign. We’re moving into a more diverse electorate,” she continued. “So, of course it would be malpractice not to say, ‘OK, what worked? What can we do better? What do we have to do new and different that we have to pull out?’ “

Staff problems plagued Clinton’s 2008 White House run, and there was talk of a shakeup at about this point in her earlier primary fight. After Clinton won the New Hampshire primary in a surprise win over then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), the talk quieted. But she later brought in new staffers to take over top positions.

Without mentioning her by name, David Axelrod, who was the chief strategist to both of Obama’s presidential campaigns, suggested that the problems in the Clinton campaign come from the top.

When the exact same problems crop up in separate campaigns, with different staff, at what point do the principals say, “Hey, maybe it’s US?”

— David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) February 8, 2016

It didn’t take long for Republican to blast out the report of the Clinton campaign’s possible shake-up. America Rising PAC and the national party forwarded the story, likening it to a repeat of 2008.

This story was updated at 4:14 p.m.