"I think the numbers clearly show that she's the strongest presidential candidate on the Democratic side,"he told The New York Times. "And Priorities is going to be there for her if she decides to run."

 

Mr Messina co-ordinated the president's re-election and has been hired by the Conservatives as a campaign strategist for next year's British general election. He is the most senior Obama lieutenant³（中尉，副官） to come out in support of a Clinton candidacy.

 

Priorities, a so-called "super PAC"(political action committee) also announced a new pro-Clinton leadership structure as Democratic heavyweights line up behind the former secretary of state.

 

Mrs Clinton, who lost out to Mr Obama in a bitter Democrat² primary campaign that she entered as the frontrunner, has said that she has not decided⁴ whether to run again in 2016.

 

But with nearly three years until the next election, senior former aides to Mrs Clinton and her husband Bill, who was president from 1993 to 2001, have openly been pushing her to run.

 

Mr Messina's comments will drive impressions that Mr Obama is privately⁵ supporting a Clinton bid, although Joe Biden, his vice-president, is another prospective candidate（准候选人）.

 

Mr Messina, who has strong ties to major Democratic donors⁶, will serve as co-chairman of Priorities with Jennifer Granholm, the former Michigan governor who is a prominent Clinton cheerleader.

 

"This is a very major development and a huge advantage for Hillary Clinton if she decides to run,"Tad Devine, a party strategist who played a senior role in the presidential campaigns of Al Gore⁷ and John Kerry, told The Telegraph. "Priorities will be able to attract enormous support and it means the Democrats⁸ will be able to compete with Republican big money donors in financial terms in 2016.

 

"Presidential campaigns in the US are endless and in order to compete you have to raise unimaginable amounts of money. It's a financial arms race.”

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