Hillary Clinton’s new PAC, OnwardTogether, is still a bit of an enigma. Its website is sparse, explaining only that it is dedicated to “advancing the vision that earned nearly 66 million votes last election.” However, we now have a sense of who will staff the new PAC: veterans from Clinton’s failed campaign. Via BuzzFeed’s Ruby Cramer:
The new additions, Emmy Ruiz and Adam Parkhomenko, held central roles on Clinton’s campaign: Ruiz delivered key victories as state director in Nevada during the primary and in Colorado during the general election; Parkhomenko worked in headquarters as her director of grassroots engagement before moving to the Democratic National Committee. Both served on Clinton’s first presidential bid in 2008.
As Cramer notes, Ruiz also ran Tom Perez’s contentious campaign against Keith Ellison to become chair of the Democratic National Committee. Parkhomenko, meanwhile, is a longtime Clinton loyalist. According to a 2016 profile in The Washington Post, he started a “Draft Hillary” campaign at age 17, and he’s been with her ever since. “When you’re 17, 18, 19 and getting a call from Hillary Clinton on your birthday, she takes on a role of mom-away-from-home. She was always asking me how things were going with my degree and why I hadn’t finished it. She cares, she really cares,” he told the Post.
One of the most persistent criticisms of Clinton is her tendency to maintain a hermetically sealed inner circle of loyalists, many of whom haven’t served her well. But as Clinton reenters politics, it’s clear that Hillaryland will follow. Clinton wants to leverage her influence for the benefit of the Democratic Party, and there’s reason to be optimistic about that effort. But hiring people best known for losing to Donald Trump may not be the best way to do that. The PAC’s goal, after all, is to win.