One of several complaints about the 2012 election, at least on the Republican side, was that much of the ground game was left entirely in the hands of the Romney campaign. And let’s face it… we were caught flat footed in a number of areas. It appears that Reince Priebus isn’t waiting around to see who the candidate is this time, nor will he be waiting for that eventual nominee to declare an overarching strategy. This month the national committee is rolling out a series of early initiatives combined with on the ground activities designed to bring the war to Clinton’s doorstep before she can even grab her handbag and get on the road.

Check out one of the first ads which will be featured prominently in places where Clinton will be doing events… generally well in advance of her arrival. This is some pretty good stuff.

David Drucker provide a rundown of some of the other strategies which are already in place. This is one of the more aggressive approaches we’ve seen out of the party in a while and it really sounds like they don’t want Hillary to even have time to catch her breath.

• The above ad is being pushed nationwide with higher emphasis placed on targeting IA, SC, NH and NV
• Statements/Op-eds will be printed in advance of her campaign stops in the local press
• Plenty of new oppo research to be spread around
• Bracketing Hillary’s events in NYC, IA, SC, NH, NV and more
• Surrogates booked on radio/TV around these events to prevent her from dominating the media coverage
• Staff will be on the ground for her state visits

Nothing can assure victory, particularly this early in the process, but I’ll admit to being impressed. The “autopsy” that Reince conducted after the last time around produced a lot of data and there has clearly been an attempt to prevent the mistakes of the past from happening again. One huge advantage of being 99% sure of who the Democrat nominee will be this far in advance is that you can organize your forces and resources with a specific target in mind long before we know who we’re running. This is looking good so far.