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Three sources with knowledge of the plans said Messina, an Obama insider who ran the president's campaign last year, and Podesta, a longtime advisor to Bill Clinton, are in discussions to join the board of Priorities USA, the multimillion-dollar super PAC that backed President Obama's reelection effort last year.

The men would chair a board of former elected officials and donors who would announce their support for Clinton's possible White House bid in 2016. Messina's presence, in particular, would signal that key Obama loyalists have lined up behind Clinton and are ready to essentially forgo a primary.

But those close to the group, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, warned that the talks are still in progress and that the eventual outcome of the PAC's "Phase Two" plan is still fluid and subject to change. One open question surrounds Vice President Joe Biden, who some worry would view Messina's move to a pro-Clinton venture as a slight, sources said, explaining that Biden is one of several considerations still holding up the PAC from moving forward.

For months now, Priorities USA founder Sean Sweeney -- along with advisor Paul Begala, a longtime Clinton associate, and the group's key financial backer, Dreamworks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg -- has been deciding how best to re-launch the PAC, orienting it behind Clinton ahead of the 2016 race.

Priorities, composed of a pair of linked groups that raised and spent $79 million battering Mitt Romney with television ads in 2012, would serve as a centralizing pro-Clinton advertising giant in its new iteration, funded by big-money donors and Katzenberg, who helped jump-start the small, four-person operation with a $2 million check in early 2011.

Katzenberg, who abandoned his old Clinton alliance for Obama in 2008, has already made clear he wants a hand in electing Clinton to the White House. The mega-donor told the Hollywood Reporter last month that he personally reached out to Clinton to "assure her" that if she runs, he would support her.