Hillary Clinton's campaign: The key figures
Corrections and Clarifications : An earlier version of this post misstated the duration of Bill Clinton's presidency. He served from 1993 to 2001.
Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign kicked off today, but she'll hardly be building a staff from scratch. In recent months she's steadily enlisted a team of operatives ready to launch her campaign when it became official.
Here's a look at some of the players in her campaign:
John Podesta
Podesta is chairing Clinton's presidential campaign. The longtime Democratic strategist left the Obama White House in February, where he served as counselor to the president. Podesta previously served as a chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, and in 2003 founded the Center for American Progress.
Robby Mook
Mook will serve as Clinton's campaign manager. Just 35, Mook managed the successful 2013 Virginia gubernatorial campaign of longtime Clinton ally Terry McAuliffe. Prior to that post, he was executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which oversees campaigns for the U.S. House. He also ran several state operations during the primaries for Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign.
Joel Benenson
Benenson will reportedly be the campaign's pollster and senior strategist. He was the lead pollster for Barack Obama's 2008 presidential primary campaign and also for the general election and for his 2012 re-election. He also did polling for Bill Clinton's 1996 re-election campaign. Prior to becoming a pollster, Benenson -- once a New York political reporter -- was communications director for New York governor Mario Cuomo's unsuccessful 1994 re-election campaign.
Jim Margolis
Margolis will likely be a senior media adviser for the campaign. Margolis is a partner at GMMB, one of the leading Democratic advertising/campaign firms, and has a long history on Democratic campaigns, stretching back to former vice president Walter Mondale's 1984 presidential campaign. He was a senior adviser to Obama's 2008 and 2012 campaigns and has been a key adviser for many Democratic senators, including outgoing Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada.
Jennifer Palmieri
Palmieri left her post as White House communications director in February, to take on a similar role in the Clinton campaign. Before joining the Obama White House in 2011, she served as president of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, the think-tank's political arm. She previously served as press secretary for then-senator John Edwards' 2004 presidential campaign and spent eight years working in Bill Clinton's White House.
Brian Fallon
Clinton has tapped Fallon as lead spokesman, a job he was previously doing at the Justice Department for Attorney General Eric Holder. Before going to Justice in 2013, Fallon was the longtime spokesman for New York Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer.
Huma Abedin
For nearly two decades, Abedin has been a constant presence by the side of Hillary Clinton. Abedin interned for the then-first lady beginning in 1996 and joined her staff in the U.S. Senate in 2001 shortly after Clinton was sworn in. Abedin became Clinton's confidante and traveling chief of staff, a role she continued through the 2008 presidential campaign and through Clinton's tenure at the State Department. Abedin has weathered scandal of her own -- she is married to former congressman Anthony Weiner, who resigned the House after sending lewd pictures of himself to other women via social media.
Phillipe Reines
Like Abedin, Reines has been a constant presence around Hillary Clinton for more than a decade. He began working in her Senate office in 2002 and followed her to the State Department as well, where he served as her communications chief. Reines was also a key spokesman for her 2008 presidential campaign. Prior to joining Clinton, he had worked for other Democrats on Capitol Hill and as part of the communications team, for then-vice president Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign. It is not clear what formal role Abedin or Reines will play in Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.
Bill Clinton
The former president has been the Democrats' most powerful campaign weapon for 20 years, and he certainly will not be on the sidelines as his wife attempts to take the seat he held from 1993 to 2001. Clinton's performance during his wife's 2008 presidential bid was heavily criticized, particularly for making racially tinged comments about Obama. But even Obama gave the former president a starring role in making the case for his 2012 re-election campaign, calling him at one point the "secretary of explaining stuff." Bill Clinton has already made his first foray into "candidate spouse" territory for 2016, posing for a photo shoot for Town & Country Magazine's story about the family's philanthropic efforts. In that story, the former president said he expects to be a "backstage adviser" to his wife's campaign at the outset.