HILLARY CLINTON´S EARLY MOVES

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) is taking a series of concrete steps toward a likely campaign for president in 2008, settling on key members of her campaign team, recruiting potential new additions to her staff, and calling Democratic activists in states with early primaries and caucuses.

No final decision on running is expected before the end of the year, according to sources knowledgeable about her thinking, as Clinton works methodically through a checklist of preparatory steps. But she and her inner circle are already ramping up for what could be a history-making bid for the White House.

The latest move is the choice of longtime adviser Patti Solis Doyle as campaign manager. That follows the recent recruitment of three seasoned political operatives who, if she runs, would play key roles on what is now a rapidly expanding Clinton campaign organization.

The three are Jonathan Mantz, who has been working for New Jersey Gov. Jon S. Corzine (D), as finance director; Phil Singer, who was communications director for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, as a communications strategist; and Karen Hicks, who ran former Vermont governor Howard Dean's New Hampshire operation in 2004, to oversee organizing, particularly...

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