Subject: Stitch — The X Factor: Barack Obama; Sidewire Chats: Josh Holmes, and Ron Christie & Doug Schoen
From: Jonathan Allen <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 May 2016 12:06:38 +0000
List-Id: dff5dea186e38c29c57ca6f8fmc list <dff5dea186e38c29c57ca6f8f.326717.list-id.mcsv.net>

** WHAT'S THE STITCH
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The Stitch is a morning news speed-read highlighting the work and insights of Newsmakers that is followed by a daily chat on hot political topics.

** TODAY'S SIDEWIRE CHATS
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9:30 a.m. Eastern — Cavalry's JOSH HOLMES, former chief of staff and campaign manager for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, chats in the Stitch about the presidential campaign, the battle for the Senate and Tuesday's Kentucky primary.

12 p.m. Eastern — "Ronwire": Republican strategist RON CHRISTIE's recurring Sidewire Chat features Democratic strategist DOUG SCHOEN

** WHY BARACK OBAMA IS THE X FACTOR IN THIS PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN
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DAN BALZ & ANNE GEARAN write about Hillary Clinton's deficiencies as a candidate in today's Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/even-supporters-agree-clinton-has-weaknesses-as-a-candidate-what-can-she-do/2016/05/15/132f4d7e-1874-11e6-924d-838753295f9a_story.html) , emphasizing that even some of her advisers and allies say she's struggling to get out from under the weight of negative public views of personal traits like honesty.
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"They’re dealing with 20 years, almost 30 years now, of public narratives about her. ... I don’t think that’s fixable in the next six months. You have to turn it from a referendum on her trustworthiness to a contrast.”

—Dan Pfeiffer / WaPo (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/even-supporters-agree-clinton-has-weaknesses-as-a-candidate-what-can-she-do/2016/05/15/132f4d7e-1874-11e6-924d-838753295f9a_story.html)

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At the same time, MICHAEL C. BENDER of Bloomberg reports, she'll have difficulty pinning Donald Trump down on policy because he's been distancing himself from some of the positions he took in the Republican primary.

When Trump senses a position is bringing too much heat, he sidesteps it, Republican pollster Ed Goeas tells Mike.
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"Stylistically, where Trump has shown a great deal of talent has been his ability to realize when the push-back was hitting critical mass."

—Ed Goeas / Bloomberg Politics (http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-05-16/hillary-clinton-plans-to-pin-down-donald-trump-on-policy)

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DAVID AXELROD sees Trump's malleability on issues as a window into the broader argument Democrats will make against him: that he lacks the temperament to be president.
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Trump's position-switching tendencies "raise concerns about his suitability for a job in which sobriety, consistency and reliability are absolutely required."

—David Axelrod / Bloomberg Politics (http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-05-16/hillary-clinton-plans-to-pin-down-donald-trump-on-policy)

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Interestingly, Bill Clinton advised Obama's team in 2012 that they should attack Mitt Romney as an extremist rather than as a flip-flopper because Clinton believed that the flip-flopper charge, often leveled against him, was largely ineffective.

Enter JOSH GREENMAN of the New York Daily News, who explains the unique circumstances that make it tougher to tag Trump on temperament.
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"Taking morally reprehensible stances should be devastating for a candidate. So should advancing proposals that are politically or practically impossible. But doing both has been key to Trump's success because the very absurdity of many of Trump's plans has helped inoculate him from charges that they, and he, are dangerous."

—Josh Greenman / NY Daily News (http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/josh-greenman-two-trump-trick-article-1.2636490)

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For his part, Trump tells the New York Times' PATRICK HEALY that he plans to go after Clinton on her husband's infidelity and the Benghazi terrorist assault that killed four Americans in 2012.

MIKE MURPHY tells Healy that hitting Clinton hard is the right approach to unify the GOP.
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"His best way to rally hostile Republican delegates before the convention is to show he’s a great Clinton attack dog."

—Mike Murphy / NYT (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/17/us/politics/donald-trump-hillary-clinton.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news)

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The headline on this section involves Barack Obama being the X factor in this campaign. That's inherently the case because he's the sitting two-term president, and the nation's mood about politics is inevitably related to perceptions of him and what he's done in office.

But, more than that, Obama's success, failure or indifference as Clinton's top surrogate is the X factor in how well she will be able topaper over her own problems with the public and turn Trump into a pariah among swing voters.
* Clinton will go negative on Trump, but the public's judgment that she's dishonest means that her word lacks credibility with many voters — including some who will cast ballots for her. For example, 69 percent of Ohio voters say Clinton is not honest and trustworthy, according to a Quinnipiac poll released last week.
* Obama, on the other hand, has generally been a little bit above the 50 percent mark on honesty and trustworthiness across the country. Voters think his word is stronger than Clinton's.
* Trump also suffers from the perception that he lacks honesty, and his unfavorable ratings are epic.
* That means Obama has more credibility than both parties' presumptive nominees.
* Because voters have twice decided Obama has the temperament for the presidency, and because they see him as honest for a politician, Clinton would be hard-pressed to find a better validator and surrogate to help make the case that she's got the temperament to be president and Trump does not.
* At the same time, Obama attacks on Trump should have the effect of binding many Republican voters to their nominee. While Obama is very popular with Democrats, it turns out he's not as well-regarded among Republicans.

Obama, whose personal distaste for Trump was evident in a White House Correspondents Dinner speech several years ago, is just starting to wade into the presidential campaign. But just as Clinton gains from binding herself to the more personally popular Obama, he risks losing some of his luster when he jumps into the partisan fray, especially on behalf of someone who is less liked.

On Sunday, in a commencement address at Rutgers University in New Jersey, Obama went after Trump, though not by name. Rather than suggest Trump doesn't have the temperament to succeed him, Obama argued that the real-estate magnate and reality TV star lacks the basic knowledge and approach for the job.
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"Facts, evidence, reason, logic, an understanding of science — these are good things. These are qualities you want in people making policy. ... In politics and in life, ignorance is not a virtue."

—President Barack Obama / via NYT (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/16/us/politics/obama-swipes-at-trump-but-doesnt-name-him-in-speech-at-rutgers.html?_r=0)

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It's clear that Democrats still haven't figured out the best line of attack against Trump. But they are floating a lot of options as the campaign turns toward the general election. As Trump has shown, the messenger can matter as much or more than the message itself. That's why Obama is the X factor in this race.

** CHEATSHEETS: OREGON & KENTUCKY
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The incomparable GREG GIROUX of Bloomberg sends along his hallmark (if not trademarked) cheatsheets for watching Tuesday's Oregon and Kentucky primaries.
* So good: the Oregon cheatsheet includes primary data from the 1968 Eugene McCarthy-Bobby Kennedy primary. Click here (https://t.co/YXDQQPc6r9)  for Oregon.
* Click here (https://t.co/rnCaQtL9PL)  for Kentucky, which includes results from 2010 GOP and Democratic Senate primaries and several other races.

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**
TRIVIAL PURSUITS
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ABOUT TODAY
In 1868, the Senate came one vote short of removing impeached President Andrew Johnson from office.

ONE THING TO KNOW ABOUT SPORTS TODAY
The talk of the sports world is Texas Ranger Rougned Odor punching Toronto Blue Jays slugger Jose Bautista in the face (http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/15554767/texas-rangers-rougned-odor-lands-punch-face-toronto-blue-jays-jose-bautista-brawl)  in retaliation for Bautista's unmistakably late slide into second base Sunday. Bautista was signaling that he was unhappy with having been hit by a pitch. Should the players enforce their own code of conduct? That's what everyone's talking about.

ONE THING TO KNOW ABOUT ENTERTAINMENT AND POLITICS TODAY
Speaking of violence, Wendell Pierce, who played Clarence Thomas in the HBO film "Confirmation," was arrested in Atlanta this weekend on charges of simple battery. TMZ reports (http://www.tmz.com/2016/05/15/the-wire-arrested-wendell-pierce-hilary-clinton-bernie-sanders/)  that Pierce, a backer of Hillary Clinton, got in an argument with a Bernie Sanders supporter and her boyfriend and then became physical.

ONE THING TO KNOW ABOUT TECH AND POLITICS TODAY
CNN's BRIAN STELTER reports that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will meet with conservatives, including S.E. CUPP, this week in an effort to limit damage from allegations that stories favorable to conservatives are kept of off Facebook's "trending" stories section.
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"I'm going in with an open mind and an eagerness to learn more. ... Conservatives and Silicon Valley actually come down on the same side of many issues and share some common concerns. I'm sure we'll find plenty to talk about, and I'm honored to have been included."

—S.E. Cupp / CNN (http://money.cnn.com/2016/05/15/news/companies/mark-zuckerberg-glenn-beck-facebook/)

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YESTERDAY'S TRIVIA
GREG GIROUX was the first to correctly respond that Herbert Hoover was president the last time Michigan's congressional delegation didn't include someone with the last name Dingell. John Dingell the elder took the oath of office in early March 1932, a couple of weeks before Franklin Roosevelt took office.

TODAY'S TRIVIA
Courtesy of Greg: In the November 2012 presidential election, how many states were decided by a margin of fewer than five percentage points?

Send answers to [email-masked]. The first person to respond correctly wins unbound glory and the right to ask tomorrow's trivia question.

WHAT TO DO WITH NEWS TIPS, SUGGESTIONS AND CORRECTIONS
Please send them to [email-masked].

** IS BEN CARSON THE TOP SURROGATE?
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BEN TERRIS of the Washington Post reports that he was riding with Ben Carson, the adviser to and former rival of Donald Trump, when Carson revealed that the names of potential Trump running mates in a recent poll are also on the list that he and others are reviewing for the Donald.
* John Kasich
*  Marco Rubio
* Ted Cruz
* Sarah Palin
* Chris Christie

For anyone else on any other campaign, talking about the state secrets of the candidate's vice-presidential selection process would be a major breach. But Carson's known for his openness, including when it comes to his perceptions of Trump's faults. Is Carson naive, as so many detractors would suggest, or very, very canny?

DEANA BASS, his former spokeswoman, tells Terris that Carson is simply honest when he's asked about Trump.
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"No one is going to believe him if he came out and said Trump is the perfect candidate, because he isn’t the perfect candidate. ... If he did that, Dr. Carson would lose the respect he’s earned for not telling the truth as he sees it.”

—Deana Bass / WaPo (https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/is-ben-carson-the-worst-or-the-best-surrogate-of-all-time-yes/2016/05/13/0afc3c52-17ac-11e6-aa55-670cabef46e0_story.html)

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THE BIG QUESTION

What effect will President Obama have on the 2016 campaign?

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