Mired in a growing scandal over her private email server and questions about her handling of the Benghazi massacre, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is now facing questions from her strongest backers about her viability as a presidential candidate.
"Once again, worried supporters see signs of a bunker mentality in response to bad news about her e-mail server and other controversies, and they see a candidate who can seem strangely blinkered to the threat posed by a lesser-known challenger,"
according to a new story in The Washington Post.
"A lot of the people who were hired by the campaign were new to the Clintons," a prominent Democrat who counts both Hillary Clinton and former president Bill Clinton as friends told the newspaper. "I kind of assumed it would be different. But it hasn’t changed."
Though no one is yet ready to "pull the fire alarm," according to the article, a number of key donors are starting to see some dangerous tendencies in both the campaign and its candidate. In disturbing order: "insularity, rigidity and a sense that the operation is tone-deaf to changes happening around it."
There's also concerns about rival Bernie Sanders, who is drawing far more enthusiastic crowds on the campaign trail than Clinton. A reporter for CNN said Saturday that Sander's audience was the largest he's ever seen at the Iowa State Fair.
"They need to show her being bold and being a fighter and breaking out of this carefully constructed, opportunistic package that people think she is," said another Democrat to the Post.
"There’s clearly emotion out there and she’s just not going anywhere near it, and she needs to find a way to."