December 6 Time magazine carries the following clip of Mark Halperin’s remark in MSNBC‘s “Morning Joe” under the Led, “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, although “The” preposed Hillary suggest otherwise.

Is this a reasonable way of summation which is too obvious to native English speakers?