Subject: Re: Hillary Clinton Favorable Rating - Polls - HuffPost Pollster
From: Brent Budowsky <[email-masked]>
To: John Podesta <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2015 14:44:03 -0400

John, the one point I would emphasize that is time sensitive is that on the trade bill
vote in the Senate, my advice would be she say she would vote no now and vote no
until there is a significant jobs bill tied to it, similar to the big infrastructure bill I
suggested in my last column be tied to the trade bill....not merely fast-track tied to
a trade adjustment bill that itself is insufficient.....

What I predict is most likely is that Obama wins fast track with his deal with
Republicans and conservative Dems, tied to a lame TAA, with the net result is that
liberals and labor are engaged and that HRC supports this package would be a big
mistake IMO.....

Obama could easily sink her, on this and other matters.....and sink down ballot
Democrats....if we must do fast track, which I am not a big fan of in principle, there
is no reason it cannot be tied to a big infrastructure jobs bill which many Republicans
and business leaders support.....

What Obama did was inflame the GOP base in large numbers.....through no fault of his own....but depress enough Democrats to not vote...which was totally his fault and
many on his staff....HRC will have the same inflammatory affect on the Republican
base to vote...through no fault of her own.....but what she can control to a large 
degree is whether she motivates our base or whether she calls herself a fighter
but many in our base conclude she is not.....

My fear is she has a low standard of what will satisfy her on trade....which will make
her look, and be, Obama 2.0 on trade in the end at the very moment when a lot of
liberals....myself included.....were appalled by his insults of liberals on trade.....

Fast track plus weak TAA is a loser for her, but I suspect that is where she ends up,
add a significant infrastructure jobs plan, that is the winner, and IMO that should be
her price for supporting it, or something similar.....and if it were my call she would
tell Obama that personally and if he doesn't get a better deal, just say no having
made the fight.....Brent

Sent from my iPad

> On Jun 22, 2015, at 2:15 PM, John Podesta <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> Brent, 
> We are of course aware of the numbers and the trend lines. And we are not complacent.  And I put our consultants in that we. The question remains what do you do about that given the certainty that the Republicans (and to some extent the media) will continue to hammer away at "trust". My own view is that her history, values, vision and agenda can blunt the attacks and convince people from the center to the left that the one thing you can trust is that she will be a tenacious fighter for everyday Americans and the middle class. And you can trust the Republicans to fix the system for the people at the top. Moreover,  she has the strength to not only wage those fights, but to win them. So I think we need to stay strategically focused on proving that. 
> Two things I disagree with you about:
> 1) unlike perhaps the current occupant, she very much sees down ballot and broad geographic success for Democrats as critical.
> 2) Her trade position has nothing to do with donors and Wall Street. She's stated her criteria for TPP, but hasn't ruled out the possibility that that criteria can be met in a final deal. Her position in that regard is not that dissimilar to Pelosi's. That might not be that satisfying, but it's what she thinks. 
> John
> 
> On Jun 22, 2015 7:11 AM, "Brent Budowsky" <[email-masked]> wrote:
> >
> > John, here's what I mean, and please follow my logic.  I am linking below the
> > Huffington poll chart for HRC's favorable ratings.  Suggest you click "show me
> > more" and look at polls from June 2014 until today.  I began by looking for
> > calendar inflection points for WHEN her poll numbers declined, then when I
> > found the times, I google Hillary Clinton and those dates.  I emphasize we
> > would do the same things about match-ups with Republicans or with her
> > trust ratings and the result would be the same.
> >
> > After she left as Secretary of State she had stratospheric match-up and favorable
> > numbers and was competitive in 45-48 states.  During the last year she has lost
> > that and her polling patterns are very close to her polling patterns in from late 2007
> > until mid-2008 and---this is important patterns are almost identical to Obama's
> > patterns starting in 2009----an incremental stepladder downward, fall a notch,
> > stabilize,  fall another notch.  Her favorables polling today is almost identical to
> > Obama's favorable rating today.
> >
> > I found two distinct time frames for her first two stepladders down.  The first
> > was June 2014, and when I googled Hillary Clinton June 2014 (a date can be
> > googled) what popped up immediately her book launch overwhelmed by
> > her statement that the reason she made highly paid speeches to big  banks etc.
> > was that she was "dirt poor." That was a clear inflection point and the reason
> > for her decline was equally clear.
> >
> > The second downward inflection point was March 2015 and when I googled
> > Hillary Clinton March 2015 what immediately popped up was the NY Times
> > story breaking the news about her private emails and the saturation coverage
> > around that.  Again---the timing and reasons were crystal clear.
> >
> > It is possible we are now in the process of a third inflection point but we need more
> > time and data.  The latest stepladder which may or may not continue puts her
> > favorable ratings approximately 45 positive, 49 negative---almost the exactly
> > the numbers for Obama.
> >
> > Everything above is a fact.  People can debate the reasons, but not the fact.  It is
> > also a fact that a similar pattern existed for her in 2007-2008 and it is also fact
> > that a similar pattern occurred for Obama----I pointed this out repeatedly as it happened to a number of people such as Tom Daschle and John Kerry among others.
> >
> > It is also a fact that the result of Obama's pattern of public support and opposition
> > destroyed the Democratic House,  destroyed the Democratic Senate, destroyed
> > the Democratic majority of governors and destroyed a large number of Democratic state legislators----and by destroying all of these together destroyed the Democratic
> > position on reapportionment after  the 2010 census create a decade of damage.
> >
> > My great fear, based on the data and my observation and experience, is that the
> > above destruction of Democrats at almost every level under Obama could well be
> > paralleled under Hillary Clinton and was caused by the phenomenon of many
> > voters who would have voted for Democrats being disillusioned and staying
> > home, while similar voters who would have voted for Republicans being highly
> > incentivized  and turning out to vote.
> >
> > It should be a warning sign to the Clintons that the big surge in the Democratic
> > campaign so far is for a septuagenarian socialist and it should be a warning sign
> > that her trust numbers have fallen significantly....both trust and distrust are earned
> > and there are reasons for this happening.....
> >
> > I follow trade closely and I follow Hillary Clinton closely and I cannot tell you her
> > position on the trade bill.  It is obvious she is trying to appease the Democratic
> > base and trying to maintain the goodwill of her corporate and Wall Street donors
> > but the result is.....that she talks repeatedly saying "I am a fighter, I am a fighter,
> > I am fighting for working people and income equality" but her actions on trade
> > are an exercise in equivocation, hedging and maneuvering and the many voters
> > who care about trade will not view her as more trustworthy because of this.
> >
> > If you consider the totality of media coverage about Hillary Clinton...including her
> > talk of being a fighter and her progressive sounding words....it is all about her
> > tactics, her maneuvers, her positioning, her repositioning, her calculations, her
> > caution and her consultants----not her courage,  leadership or convictions....
> >
> > John, this is a trust erosion machine.....and I do not believe that Hillary Clinton
> > intuitively, intellectually or psychologically understands this.....candidly, and I
> > almost never say this kind of thing, the best thing you could do show this memo
> > to her, because she needs to think about this.  I don't expect you to, and I do not
> > believe she is hearing this from others, which is another similarity with Obama,
> > I don't think he ever heard this kind of warning, and if he did, he ignored it.....
> > his string of insults against liberals on trade were monumentally stupid and
> > self-destructive and the fact that he ultimately makes his deal with Boehner
> > and passed fast-track in the House is infuriating to liberals in ways that I do not believe Obama, Clinton or the consultants who have served them both remotely understand....
> >
> > Take a look at the data that I link here, the data is shouting the same warnings I
> > am trying to shout here......Brent
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > It is also a fact
> >
> >
> > http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/hillary-clinton-favorable-rating
> >
> >
> > Sent from my iPad