Here's How You Know Hillary Is Running

Adam Parkhomenko really, really wants Hillary Clinton to be president. He’s been enamored of her since she visited his elementary school in the Virginia suburbs of Washington in 1995. He says he doesn’t remember anything in particular Clinton, then first lady, said that day; she just made a lasting impression on him. Enough so that in 2003, when he was a 17-year-old high school senior, he started a “draft Hillary” movement to prod the New York senator into challenging President George W. Bush, who was running for a second term. Parkhomenko started a website, votehillary.org, and drove his parents’ Camry to New York to sell Clinton buttons and bumper stickers outside a Democratic candidates’ debate. After Clinton declined to run, Parkhomenko put off college and went to work for her Senate reelection campaign.

A decade later, at 28, Parkhomenko is still at it. Last year he started a super PAC, Ready for Hillary, to raise money and sign up voters in hopes of encouraging Clinton to run in 2016. His girlfriend, Kirby Hoag, is in charge of the readyforhillary.com store, which sells Clinton-branded iPhone cases, beanies, and, optimistically, champagne glasses. Parkhomenko makes frequent appearances at fundraisers, telling would-be donors that Clinton is the ideal candidate to speak to young people. “She was someone who included my generation at the table, gave them a voice, and made an equal playing field where we were able to truly make a difference,” he explains at the group’s sparse headquarters in Arlington, Va., where boxes of bumper stickers and T-shirts spill into the hallways. He started the super PAC because “I felt I couldn’t be at peace without showing her that her base still loves her and that it has expanded so much,” he says. “I want to give her every reason to run.”