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Originally Posted by Vulcan
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So the thing about Barrack Obama is that while there will certainly be a lot of ongoing discussions about his legacy, one thing that cannot be disputed is that he was an absolute force of nature in terms of stumping and getting out the vote. And a lot of that has to do with the way his campaign was run, but a lot of it has to do with his own charisma and influence. And he his going to stump hard for Hillary, because his own legacy depends heavily on her preserving his changes.
And while he may still be a divisive figure on a national scale, as a campaign asset you can take him out of that national spotlight and put him into a much more targeted approach, get him into the communities that you need to win specific states. So the demographic advantage that he brought to the Democrats isn't going away any time soon; hell, he could be even more effective that way than he was when spread over a national scale. (Contrast that with GWB, who was pretty much only a political liability in swing states by the time he his term was over.)
Between Hillary, Bill, Barrack, even Joe (a bit of a punching bag in the national media, but still very much with his own following, as polls showed when he was considering a presidential bid), a Clinton campaign is going to be extremely formidable in terms of campaigning. And that's even without adding whoever her VP choice is to the mix (lots of good state-level candidates, but of course they'll wait to see who emerges on the Republican side before deciding how to counter... The luxury in having such a great number of stumping draws is that you don't need to nominate a high-profile VP: you can look for someone relatively unknown at a national level but respected at a state level (which would be a nice counter to the Washington insider perception).
Hillary is far from a perfect candidate, and the Republicans may yet step back from the brink of insanity and choose an electable nominee, but I do believe that a Clinton campaign is going to be extremely hard to beat on a ground-game level. If Clinton screws it up at a national media level, that's a different matter entirely.