December 6 Time magazine carries the following clip of Mark Halperin’s remark in MSNBC‘s “Morning Joe” under the Lede, “The Hillary Clinton Republican Primary.”
“You talk to Republicans about ’16, and obviously people are already talking about it. For a lot of Republicans, now, what people are auditioning for is can you beat Hillary Clinton? If you don’t have the premise of beating her, the stature to beat her, the fundraising to beat her, Republicans say, “No need to apply,” because that is, right now, the prism they’re looking at.”
To me as a foreign reader, the title looks like as if Republicans are led by Hillary Clinton at the first sight, though it's utterly impossible. If Japan Times puts, "The Koizumi (one of the most popular former prime ministers) Democratic Party (the opposition party) leader election"election," we'll be confused.
Is this a reasonable way of summation which is too obvious to native English speakers?