The staffing positioning for 2016 continues.

So, about two months ago there was an email oppo drop on Robby Mook, who is/was presumed to be high up in Hillary Clinton’s eventual Presidential campaign. My (unpublished) take on that email oppo drop, at the time: Dear sweet God, but the Democrats really had no idea that they were about to get Smote, did they?

Mook continued: “This has been a tough cycle — midterms always are — but what’s been so amazing to me is how from the Senate to the House to Governor’s races and beyond, we’ve been keeping the other side on defense. So many of you have played leadershp [sic] roles building field programs, managing campaigns, or running programs from allied groups. It’s been incredibly insipiring [sic] to see.”

…That was written the day of an election where, in point of fact, the Democrats ended up not keeping the other side on defense.  Anywhere.

Now, I could never get that post to gel, for some reason: and that’s perhaps, like Maggie Haberman, I thought that it looked weird that people would drop stuff on Mook in the first place. Upon reflection, maybe it was just concern? After all, as Jammie Wearing Fools notes here there is a remarkable whiff of insecurity and general juvenile behavior going on: JFW calls them ‘snot-nosed twits’ and ‘foul-mouthed punks,’ which is both unkind and generally true. 

I bring all of this up because one Marlon Marshall – who is prominently featured in the Mook email oppo drop as Mook’s partner/second-in-command, has decided to leave the White House:

The Obama administration’s top aide in charge of promoting Obamacare enrollment is leaving the White House, possibly with eyes on helping another Democrat win the job in 2016.
Marlon Marshall, an aide to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, is leaving the White House to rejoin 270 Strategies, a Democratic consulting firm he helped found.

“I am thrilled today to announce I will be returning to the management team of 270 Strategies,” Marshall, who served as deputy director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, said in a statement. “I want to thank the President for the opportunity to serve and Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett for being an amazing boss and mentor.”

I’ll give CNN credit for this: they went on to mention that Marshall was part of the Mook controversy.  What CNN forgot to mention, though, was that that Marshall was (as per said email drop) involved in both Charlie Crist’s and Martha Coakley’s candidacies (presumably legally, because it’s what legal in This Town that will astound you).  In other words, it’s not so much that Mook and Marshall may be putting a 2016 Hillary Clinton band together.  It’s that – if true – then apparently Hillary Clinton can’t find anybody better than them.  I mean, do you know how hard it is for a Democrat to lose in Massachusetts?  You have to work at it!

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: Buried lead: nobody expects the White House to be where the Democratic action is over the next two years. This should surprise nobody, because it’s perfectly normal… but we have a lot of people who seem to think that the regular political rules were somehow suspended when Barack Obama was elected President.  Well, they were not.  This is going to be the most powerful return-to-normalcy campaign in recent domestic political history…