Subject: ​Correct The Record Friday September 12, 2014 Afternoon Roundup
From: Burns Strider <[email-masked]>
To: CTRFriendsFamily <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2014 13:32:01 -0400
List-Id: <CTRFriendsFamily.americanbridge.org>

*​**Correct The Record Friday September 12, 2014 Afternoon Roundup:*

*Tweets:*

*Pres. Bill Clinton* @billclinton: #OTD in '94 I welcomed the 1st class of
@Americorps. Grateful to the 900K members who've kept the spirit of service
alive in the U.S. #Proud [9/12/14, 10:33 a.m. EDT
<https://twitter.com/billclinton/status/510436027740483584>]

*Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: .@HillaryClinton
<https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton> called for an emergency appropriation
to protect @AmeriCorps <https://twitter.com/americorps> #AmeriCorps20
<https://twitter.com/hashtag/AmeriCorps20?src=hash>
http://correctrecord.org/hillary-clintons-strong-support-of-americorps/ …
<http://t.co/cgGuqTZ0e4> [9/12/14, 1:08 p.m. EDT
<https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/510474984615985153>]

*Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: .@HillaryClinton
<https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton> worked to expand @AmeriCorps
<https://twitter.com/americorps> and provide more substantial education
awards.#AmeriCorps20 <https://twitter.com/hashtag/AmeriCorps20?src=hash>
http://correctrecord.org/hillary-clintons-strong-support-of-americorps/ …
<http://t.co/Rui6U3LTCP> [9/12/14, 12:57 p.m. EDT
<https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/510472319798894592>]

*Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: Americans vote for who "they believe
is the most qualified to lead our nation – gender, race and religion
aside." http://time.com/3329430/chuck-todd-hillary-clinton/ …
<http://t.co/zqpNnsmoMT> [9/12/14, 10:26 a.m. EDT
<https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/510434229797527552>]

*Headlines:*

*CNN: “Clinton tops Democrats in Iowa while Huckabee leads Republicans”
<http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/12/politics/clinton-huckabee-iowa-poll/index.html>*

“According to a new CNN/ORC poll, 53% of all registered Democrats contacted
in Iowa said they would support Hillary Clinton if the 2016 caucuses were
held today.”

*Washington Post: “Hillary Clinton returns to Iowa, trailed by criticisms
about 2008 loss”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hillary-clinton-returns-to-iowa-trailed-by-criticisms-about-2008-loss/2014/09/12/37f66584-39dc-11e4-9c9f-ebb47272e40e_story.html>*

“Hillary Rodham Clinton returns to Iowa this weekend for the first time
since her devastating loss in the 2008 presidential caucuses, arriving as
the undeclared frontrunner for the 2016 Democratic nomination but still
trailed by criticisms about her first campaign here.”

*The Wire: “Hillary Clinton Returns to Iowa a Mere Mortal”
<http://www.thewire.com/politics/2014/09/hillary-clinton-returns-to-iowa-a-mere-mortal/380113/>*

“Hillary Clinton returns to Iowa on Sunday for the first time in six years,
but she'll do so without the same god-like political status she held at the
peak of her popularity as secretary of state.”

*The Hill: “Clinton allies target Iowa youth”
<http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/217550-clinton-targets-iowa-youth>*

“The Ready for Hillary SuperPAC is visiting six college campuses in Iowa
next week, piggybacking on Hillary Clinton’s first visit to the state since
her disappointing loss in the 2008 presidential election.”

*Wall Street Journal blog: Japan Realtime: “Hillary Clinton Talks Up Paid
Family Leave”
<http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2014/09/12/hillary-clinton-talks-up-paid-family-leave/>*

“In a videotaped speech to a largely adoring crowd, Mrs. Clinton
highlighted that paid leave is one area the U.S. still lags behind even
Japan.”

*Washington Times: “Bill Clinton touts Hillary’s credentials at White House
event”
<http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/sep/12/bill-clinton-touts-hillarys-credentials-white-hous/>*

“Mr. Clinton, who launched the first AmeriCorps class on Sept. 12, 1994,
told the audience on the South Lawn that Mrs. Clinton has been a longtime
supporter of national service.”

*Washington Post blog: The Fix: “Hillary Clinton is going to Iowa this
weekend. How she acts will be telling.”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/09/12/hillary-clinton-is-going-to-iowa-this-weekend-how-she-acts-will-be-telling/>*

“Her trip to Iowa is one of the first major tests of what Hillary Clinton
2016 will look like and how -- if at all -- it will differ from Hillary
Clinton 2008.”

*Washington Post opinion: Sen. Marco Rubio: “Let’s reject the veiled
isolationism of Obama and Clinton”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/marco-rubio-lets-reject-the-veiled-isolationism-of-obama-and-clinton/2014/09/12/b4e769c0-3780-11e4-8601-97ba88884ffd_story.html>*

“President Obama’s call on Wednesday for the United States to lead an
international military campaign in the Middle East has the potential to
begin a departure from the isolationism that he and former secretary of
state Hillary Rodham Clinton have advocated during their years in office.”

*Weekly Standard blog: The Blog: “Hillary Clinton Quietly Scrubs 'Remarks'
From Website”
<http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/hillary-clinton-quietly-scrubs-remarks-website_804865.html>*

“Hillary Clinton is widely considered, should she enter the 2016
presidential race, the Democratic front runner. But the former secretary of
state is shrinking rather than building an already limited website
presence.”

*Articles:*

*CNN: “Clinton tops Democrats in Iowa while Huckabee leads Republicans”
<http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/12/politics/clinton-huckabee-iowa-poll/index.html>*

By Dan Merica

September 12, 2014, 10:18 a.m. EDT

Hillary Clinton is heading to Iowa as the politician that most Democrats
would choose as their 2016 presidential nominee.

According to a new CNN/ORC poll, 53% of all registered Democrats contacted
in Iowa said they would support Hillary Clinton if the 2016 caucuses were
held today. That number far outpaces the 15% that would opt for Vice
President Joe Biden, 7% who would choose Sen. Elizabeth Warren and 5% who
would pick Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Clinton will be visiting Iowa for the first time in six years on Sunday when
she headlines the last Harkin Steak Fry. Biden, likewise, will be in the
state Wednesday to speak at a liberal Catholic event in Des Moines.

Although Clinton tops Biden with men and women, there is a noticeable
gender split between the two politicians. Sixty-three percent of women
favor Clinton, compared with Biden's 10%. With men, however, Biden is
drawing 21% support -- a number more than twice his support among women.

On the Republican side, Mike Huckabee nearly laps the field with 21% of all
registered Republicans contacted in the poll saying they would support the
former Arkansas governor if the 2016 Iowa caucuses were held today.

Paul Ryan is second with 12%, and there is a cadre of politicians --
including Sen. Rand Paul, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and New Jersey Gov.
Chris Christie -- with support in the single digits.

Huckabee and Ryan are getting similar support with men -- 15% and 16%,
respectively -- but it is with women that the former Arkansas governor
jumps ahead of the congressman.

Twenty-seven percent of registered Republican women polled said they would
pick Huckabee, compared with 8% who choose Ryan.

As the first-in-the-nation caucus state, Iowa is critically important to
presidential hopefuls and can make or break a campaign.

With almost two years until the 2016 presidential election and a little
over a year before the Iowa caucuses, most Republicans and Democrats polled
have openly admitted that they are toying with the idea of running for
president.

The CNN/ORC poll was conducted September 8-10, with 1,013 Iowa adults --
608 likely voters -- questioned by telephone. The survey's overall sampling
error is plus or minus 4 percentage points.

*Washington Post: “Hillary Clinton returns to Iowa, trailed by criticisms
about 2008 loss”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hillary-clinton-returns-to-iowa-trailed-by-criticisms-about-2008-loss/2014/09/12/37f66584-39dc-11e4-9c9f-ebb47272e40e_story.html>*

By Dan Balz and Philip Rucker

September 12, 2014, 11:46 a.m. EDT

DES MOINES — Hillary Rodham Clinton returns to Iowa this weekend for the
first time since her devastating loss in the 2008 presidential caucuses,
arriving as the undeclared frontrunner for the 2016 Democratic nomination
but still trailed by criticisms about her first campaign here.

The former secretary of state and her husband, former president Bill
Clinton, will be in Iowa for Sen. Tom Harkin’s (D-Iowa) annual steak fry on
Sunday. But if the ostensible purpose of her visit is to pay tribute to
Harkin — who is retiring after 40 years of elective office in Washington —
she will not escape from the speculation that this is simply one more step
toward a formal presidential campaign. At a minimum, it will mark her
initial foray on the campaign trail for this fall’s midterm elections.

“I don’t expect her to talk about her future decisions,” said Harkin’s
wife, Ruth, who is a longtime Hillary Clinton friend and supporter.
“They’re going to be announced next year. But this is a very significant
moment for her to greet Iowa voters.”

Clinton’s 2008 effort in Iowa was plagued by startup problems and affected
by the overall dysfunction of her national campaign team. By the time she
corrected her course, Obama had moved ahead of her on the ground.

But it was more than staff problems that hurt Clinton here in 2008. As a
candidate, she often chafed at the demands of the caucus process, including
the time required to court individual activists across the state. She
disliked traveling too far from Des Moines and certain friendly hotels.

Added to that are questions raised by this summer’s book tour about whether
her campaign instincts have dulled. Clinton’s time since leaving the Senate
has been devoted to foreign policy discussions inside the administration,
interaction with world leaders and more than a year of lucrative
speechmaking as a private citizen — rather than being in more regular
contact with everyday Americans.

At this point, Clinton has no strong challenger in Iowa, for her a welcome
contrast to eight years ago when she faced then-senator Barack Obama and a
well-entrenched John Edwards, the party’s 2004 vice presidential nominee.

Nonetheless, she won’t have Iowa totally to herself this weekend. Sen.
Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.), who is contemplating running for president, will
appear at several events, while Vice President Biden, who was the featured
speaker at last year’s Harkin steak fry, will be in the state next week.
Gov. Martin O’Malley (D-Md.) has been a frequent visitor here.

Still, she remains the dominant prospective candidate in her party.
Anticipation of Clinton’s appearance (as well as her husband’s), and the
fact that this is the last of Harkin’s 37 steak fry events, will draw a
large crowd at a balloon field in Indianola on Sunday afternoon.

Democratic activists and local party officials are eager to see and hear
from her, even as they offer suggestions for how she should run differently
in 2016.

Walt Pregler, the Democratic chair in Dubuque County, called Clinton “a
lead-pipe cinch” if she runs for the nomination, though he has long been a
supporter of Biden and would back him again if he were to run in 2016.
“There’s a great deal of support for her in Dubuque among my central
committee,” he said. “They like her and they like Bill.”

But many of these same activists say Clinton needs to learn from the
mistakes of her last campaign, which drew criticism for not understanding
the culture of Iowa’s caucus politics and because the Clinton entourage
often got in the way of her ability to connect more effectively with voters.

Julie Stewart, Democratic chair in Dallas County outside Des Moines, said
her personal experience with Clinton has always positive, but she was
critical of the Clinton national team of 2008. “She brought people from New
York and that just didn’t work,” she said. “Obama hired Iowans or
Midwesterners. Even though she grew up in the Midwest, the people she
brought with her, I don’t think they connected well.”

A conversation with a group of Iowa Democratic activists earlier this year
revealed similar complaints. The activists respected Clinton for her
experience but still found her less approachable than some others in their
party. And they too complained about Clinton’s national team.

“The BlackBerry was more important than the contact with [people],” Dale
Todd, a developer of affordable house who had backed Obama in the 2008
caucuses, said last spring. “We would be sitting right here, and they would
be working their BlackBerry, and you just felt like you weren’t getting
through.”

Bonnie Campbell, who was co-chair of Clinton’s 2008 Iowa campaign, said the
criticism of Clinton as someone who could not connect with voters in Iowa
still baffles her. “I’m mystified by it,” she said. “I attended many events
where she stayed till the last hand had been shaken. . . .There was a
really strong, important give and take. I just don’t know. I don’t think
that’s accurate.”

But Campbell acknowledged the challenges Clinton would face trying to run a
campaign close to the ground, given her stature and the security protection
that accompanies her. “The hardest challenge of all is putting together a
strategy that’s true to her personality and style, which I do think the
one-on-one is,” she said. “Thinking about how you do retail politics when
you are such almost a larger-than-life figure is a real challenge.”

Neither Clinton nor most of her national staff understood the intricacies
of the sometimes-arcane caucus process. By the time the 2008 campaign here
ended, both she and her husband were left with a sour taste about the
caucuses, which they saw as undemocratic. Caucuses require voters to show
up at a specified hour and stay for an extended period, unlike primaries
that allow someone to vote at any time during the day.

The former president also was new to the caucus process in 2008. He never
had to compete in the caucuses during his campaigns for the White House
because he and others ceded the state to Harkin in the 1992 nominating
contest, and he faced no primary competition in his reelection campaign.
Even now, he is still fixated on what he thinks are the flaws of the
process.

This time around, Clinton’s allies, with the help of some of those who ran
Obama’s 2008 operation, are busy trying to avoid the problems of the past.
Some are assembling a grass-roots network here that her eventual campaign
could inherit while the state Democratic Party is moving to address some of
the criticisms of the caucus process.

Ready for Hillary, a pro-Clinton super PAC, began organizing in Iowa in
January and has been signing up supporters at fairs and political
gatherings in all 99 counties. “It’s just like a campaign, absent an
announced candidate,” Campbell said. She admitted that she was skeptical
when she attended the first Ready for Hillary organizing meetings in Des
Moines but now is “all in.” The groundwork will give Clinton a “huge
advantage” in the caucuses.

Ready for Hillary officials said the group recently purchased the Iowa
Democratic Party’s 2008 caucus voter data, at a cost of $20,000, which
includes data about every Democrat who participated in the caucuses and
which candidates they supported. The super PAC intends to target voters who
caucused for Obama and other candidates to persuade them to support
Clinton, as well as reconnect with those who caucused for Clinton the first
time.

The Iowa Democratic Party has proposed changes to caucus rules in an effort
to make them more accessible to more people. Scott Brennan, the state
Democratic chair, said the proposals are the result of recommendations from
a process that drew advice from many sources. A Democratic activist, who
declined to be identified in order to be candid, said Iowa supporters of
Clinton worked to encourage the changes.

The party is trying to make caucus locations more accessible for
handicapped voters, improve childcare options for parents of small
children, and create options for military men and women serving overseas to
participate. Also under consideration is a rule allowing so-called
satellite caucuses in which, for instance, a group of laborers in a factory
working a shift during the caucus time could assemble their own caucus at
their workplace, so long as their employer accommodates them.

“It’s all about how can we get more people involved in the process,”
Brennan said.

Iowa was always a difficult state for Clinton in 2008. Though she held a
big lead in national polls throughout 2007 and was running ahead in most
other states, she never was able to build that kind of commanding support
in Iowa against either Obama or John Edwards.

The state looked daunting enough that Mike Henry, who was the deputy
campaign manager, wrote a memo recommending that Clinton skip the state
entirely. When the memo leaked, the Clinton campaign disavowed the
contents, though in retrospect the advice might have served her well, given
her third-place finish here.

This time, Iowa activists say that whether she has real or nominal
competition, she should run all-out in Iowa ahead of the 2016 caucuses. And
even supporters say they hope she will have competition, if only to sharpen
her skills as a candidate.

“If she ultimately decides to run for the White House in 2016, she needs to
come here and do the work that everyone does in Iowa,” Brennan said.

“In Iowa, shoe leather wins elections better than anything,” Pregler said.
“Just go greet and meet. . . . I’d just tell her to be Hillary.”

*The Wire: “Hillary Clinton Returns to Iowa a Mere Mortal”
<http://www.thewire.com/politics/2014/09/hillary-clinton-returns-to-iowa-a-mere-mortal/380113/>*

By Russell Berman

September 12, 2014

Hillary Clinton returns to Iowa on Sunday for the first time in six years,
but she'll do so without the same god-like political status she held at the
peak of her popularity as secretary of state.

The former first lady and New York senator's poll numbers have come back
down to earth after years in the stratosphere – the result of renewed
Republican attacks since she left the State Department and, in all
likelihood, collateral damage from the unraveling of President Obama's
foreign policy.

An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released this week found that
Clinton's favorability was barely above water; 43 percent of respondents
viewed her positively compared to 41 percent who held a negative view of
her. That represents a sharp drop from less than two years ago, when 58
percent of registered voters viewed her positively just before she left the
Obama administration.

Clinton does remain queen of the Democrats: A CNN poll released Friday of
registered Democrats in Iowa found that 53 percent would support her for
president, more than three times the level for any other potential
candidate. But that finding could say as much about the lack of competition
as it does about Clinton herself.

Vice President Joe Biden is the only other Democrat with a national
following that is currently giving thought to a 2016 campaign.

Clinton's fall was easily predicted, of course. Her years as secretary of
state shielded her from the rough-and-tumble of campaign politics, and even
some of Obama's top political advisers have pushed her to stay on the
sidelines as long as she could before jumping back into the fray.

Yet Clinton has clearly chosen a middle road. While she hasn't weighed in
on every controversy or gone attacking Republican presidential hopefuls,
she put herself back firmly in the public eye with a seemingly never-ending
book tour this summer.

Now, she'll cross what is likely the last hurdle before becoming a
candidate again by speaking at Sen. Tom Harkin's annual Steak Fry, a highly
political fundraiser in the first voting state in 2016. Political observers
will closely watch her talk for the outlines of a campaign stump speech,
and she is expected to hit the road for Democratic candidates in the weeks
leading up to the midterm elections.

Republicans will be watching, too, and they are welcoming Clinton back to
Iowa by reminding her, in an email blast, of what happened last time she
visited the Hawkeye State:

Hillary Clinton Returns To The Site Of Her Most Stinging Political Defeat

*The Hill: “Clinton allies target Iowa youth”
<http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/217550-clinton-targets-iowa-youth>*

By Amie Parnes

September 12, 2014, 12:01 p.m. EDT

The Ready for Hillary SuperPAC is visiting six college campuses in Iowa
next week, piggybacking on Hillary Clinton’s first visit to the state since
her disappointing loss in the 2008 presidential election.

Clinton will appear Sunday at Sen. Tom Harkin’s steak fry, a must-stop for
any presidential contender that might be even more important this year
given Harkin’s pending retirement.

She’ll have an opportunity to speak — and possibly flip steaks — before a
crowd of 5,000 people in the state that will hold the first contest in the
2016 presidential race.

Clinton finished a disappointing third in the Iowa caucuses in 2008 behind
not only then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), but to former Sen. John Edwards
(D-N.C.), too.

Sunday’s visit and the SuperPAC’s work shows she’s determined to deliver a
better result this year, and her allies are already keying in on young
voters.

Twenty-three percent of Democratic caucus goers in 2008 were under 30 years
old, highlighting the importance of winning the demographic in Iowa — in
the primary and general election, in which Iowa is a swing state.

More than half of the younger voters in Iowa supported Obama over Clinton,
according to exit polling data.

The Ready for Hillary SuperPAC — which has already visited all of the
Hawkeye State's 99 counties — will stop at Iowa State University, Drake
University, the University of Iowa, Cornell College, Grinnell College and
the University of Northern Iowa as part of an early effort to promote
Clinton — who remains officially an undecided candidate. The visits are
spread out throughout the week beginning on Tuesday and running through
Friday.

Polls suggest Clinton could do better in Iowa this time.

A new CNN/ORC poll released Friday shows that 53 percent of registered
voters in Iowa say they would back her in a caucus, if it were held today.
She's well ahead of Vice President Joe Biden — who is set to visit the
state on Wednesday — at 15 percent. And Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) received
just 7 percent of support in the poll.

Here are four other things to watch for this weekend from both Hillary
Clinton and former President Bill Clinton, who will accompany his wife to
the steak fry.

1) It's not a rehearsal but a 'soft open'

The Clintons are aware of the stakes involved in Sunday’s event.

One former aide to Hillary Clinton said the steak fry amounts to not a
rehearsal but a “soft open” for a potential Clinton campaign and an entree
to the Hawkeye state.

And as Clinton criss-crosses the country to campaign for various midterm
candidates in the coming weeks, she'll have a large entourage accompanying
her.

Ready for Hillary aides — along with their bus — are expected to be at many
of the midterm campaign stops to maximize the punch of each appearance,
just as they are in Iowa.

2) Don't expect either Clinton to say anything about 2016

Yes, it's Iowa. Yes, it's an event with not just one but two Clintons. And
yes, it's the first public political event, Hillary Clinton has attended in
years.

But don't expect a peep about a run for the White House, or even a joke
about coming back for a repeat visit.

Clinton allies say that while there are obviously 2016 overtones to the
event, they will keep the focus on Harkin during the visit — and also try
to help Rep. Bruce Braley (D-Iowa), who is facing a difficult race in
keeping the Harkin seat in Democrats’ hands.

Republicans scoff at that notion, however, that the trip by the former
secretary of State isn’t about 2016.

“Hillary is going to Iowa because she's currently running a campaign for
president — a rather unsuccessful one thus far seeing as her favorables
have dropped 20 points since leaving State according to the most recent
Wall Street Journal poll,” said Tim Miller, the executive director of the
SuperPAC America Rising.

3) Don’t expect her to talk about her 2008 defeat.

Iowa and 2008 is a sore subject for most Clintonites, and Hillary Clinton
doesn’t like to wallow in the history.

Most aides blame a poor Iowa strategy for the defeat, but would rather put
their past dealings with Iowa in the “lessons learned” category.

“We'd like to forget any of that happened and focus on what's ahead,” said
one former aide to Clinton.

But those who oppose Clinton will want to constantly remind people about
her Iowa failings. The Republican National Committee will be sending out a
document to allies reminding them of Hillary’s third-place showing in
2008’s caucus.

4) Iowans will be saturated with Hillary Clinton…starting now

Coming into Des Moines from out of town? Expect to see a Ready for Hillary
billboard when leaving the airport. And expect other Hawkeye state
billboards — including one in downtown Des Moines — to sprout soon.

It’s also set up to be a media circus.

More than a year before the Iowa Caucuses, approximately 200 reporters have
been credentialed to cover the steak fry, which  C-SPAN will broadcast live.

*Wall Street Journal blog: Japan Realtime: “Hillary Clinton Talks Up Paid
Family Leave”
<http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2014/09/12/hillary-clinton-talks-up-paid-family-leave/>*

By Eleanor Warnock

September 12, 2014, 7:29 p.m. JST

Much has been made of how far Japan still has to go to bring the number of
female workers up to the level of its counterparts. But Hillary
Clinton—seen as potentially the first female American president—pointed out
to Japan’s biggest ever conference on women’s issues that that the U.S.
also has a long way to go.

In a videotaped speech to a largely adoring crowd, Mrs. Clinton highlighted
that paid leave is one area the U.S. still lags behind even Japan.

“The United States, unfortunately, is one of a handful of developed
countries without paid family leave,” the former secretary of state said in
a video address to attendees of a Japanese government co-hosted conference
on women’s issues.

U.S. federal law does not guarantee that leave by workers to care for
newborn children or sick family members is paid. In Japan, a portion of pay
is guaranteed.

“If we give parents the flexibility on the job and paid family leave it
actually helps productivity, which in turn helps all of us,” she said.

Mrs. Clinton has expressed her support for the idea before but has said it
may take time to achieve, according to U.S. media reports.

Interestingly, one of the biggest pushes by former U.S. president Bill
Clinton during his first term in office was signing the Family and Medical
Leave Act into law in 1993. The law guaranteed unpaid leave to eligible
workers if a family member falls ill or in the case of pregnancy.

In her address Friday, Mrs. Clinton also mentioned that women hold a higher
percentage of low-wage jobs in the U.S., and took a swipe at Silicon Valley.

“The situation is even worse in some key industries,” she said. “Women
account for just 11% of directors on the boards of technology companies”
compared with 17% overall.

On that count, however, the U.S. has Japan beat. Only 1.23% of board
members in Japan are women, according to the Japanese government.

*Washington Times: “Bill Clinton touts Hillary’s credentials at White House
event”
<http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/sep/12/bill-clinton-touts-hillarys-credentials-white-hous/>*

By Dave Boyer

September 12, 2014

At a White House ceremony Friday marking the 20th anniversary of the
AmeriCorps program, former President Bill Clinton sounded as if he was
doing a little early 2016 campaigning for wife Hillary.

Mr. Clinton, who launched the first AmeriCorps class on Sept. 12, 1994,
told the audience on the South Lawn that Mrs. Clinton has been a longtime
supporter of national service.

“I shared that great day with a lot of people, including Hillary, who
campaigned across America with me in 1992, promising that we would create a
national service program,” Mr. Clinton said.

Then, with President Obama at his side, Mr. Clinton recited a bit of his
wife’s resume for the mostly young audience.

“She had participated in all kinds of community service; her first job was
with the Children’s Defense Fund,” Mr. Clinton said. “She started the Legal
Aid program in Arkansas at our university. We have lived this for a long
time.”

Mrs. Clinton hasn’t announced whether she’ll run for the White House in
2016 but is widely expected to become a candidate.

Mr. Clinton said it’s “one of the most important things I ever had a role
in.”

Mr. Obama urged Congress to approve his budget request of $1.05 billion for
the Corporation for National and Community Service, a slight increase from
fiscal 2014 enacted levels. The budget also calls for a restructuring of
AmeriCorps.

The president remembered his days as a community organizer in Chicago and
said he wouldn’t have become president without that experience.

“It gave me a sense of direction about how I wanted to live my life,” Mr.
Obama said. “It made me whole. It gave me center. It gave me a compass.”

*Washington Post blog: The Fix: “Hillary Clinton is going to Iowa this
weekend. How she acts will be telling.”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/09/12/hillary-clinton-is-going-to-iowa-this-weekend-how-she-acts-will-be-telling/>*

By Chris Cillizza

September 12, 2014, 10:56 a.m. EDT

Let's get one thing out of the way: Hillary Clinton is a massive favorite
to win the Iowa caucuses -- and the Democratic presidential nomination --
in 2016. (If she runs, of course, which everyone now assumes she will.)
Just in case you aren't hip to that reality, CNN and the Opinion Research
Corporation released a poll on Friday that made it crystal clear; Clinton
led the 2016 field in Iowa with 53 percent followed by Vice President Joe
Biden at 15 percent. No one else even got into double digits.

So, when Clinton stops in Iowa for the first time in six years this Sunday --
she and her husband are headlining Sen. Tom Harkin's final Steak Fry -- she
will be greeted like a hero.  But, it's worth remembering Clinton's
problems in Iowa in 2008 when analyzing the approach she takes to all of
that adoration.

Clinton finished third in the 2008 Iowa caucuses -- John Edwards narrowly
edged her out for second.  There were lots and lots of reasons given for
her struggles in the state up to and including:

* The Clinton machine wasn't strong in Iowa since Bill Clinton didn't
seriously compete in the state in 1992 (native son Harkin made the race
non-competitive) and was unchallenged for the Democratic nomination in 1996.

* Clinton was out of step -- particularly on the war in Iraq -- with the
liberal activists that comprise the bulk of the caucus vote. Both Obama and
Edwards were significantly more outspoken in their opposition to the war
than Clinton.

* Clinton fundamentally misunderstood the Iowa electorate. She ran a Rose
Garden campaign when Iowa voters wanted her to drop the big entourage and
simply talk to them one on one.

It's that last criticism that may be most telling as it relates to 2016.
Clinton and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani were the two most
famous candidates in the 2008 race. Both came to Iowa wearing that fame --
cocooned off from average folks, defaulting to larger rallies rather than
the hand to hand work that has, traditionally, been rewarded by Iowa voters.

Giuliani quickly realized Iowa wasn't for him, skipping the state to spend
more time in New Hampshire. (Giuliani eventually scrapped that strategy
too; making Florida his firewall. It became his Waterloo.) Clinton stayed;
she had no choice since the frontrunner for the nomination can't pick and
choose which states to seriously contest.

The exit poll conducted after Clinton's third place finish in Iowa speaks
to the problem she had connecting with the electorate on any level other
than celebrity-to-supplicant. One in five Iowa Democratic caucus-goers said
that a candidate who "cares about people like me" was the most important
characteristic in making their choice. Edwards got 44 percent among that
group -- double Clinton's 22 percent. (Obama took 24 percent.)  By
contrast, among the 20 percent of caucus-goers who said a candidate with
the "right experience" to be president was most important to them, Clinton
lapped the competition by winning almost half of their votes.

The takeaway from the 2008 exit poll is this: No one doubted Clinton's
competence. They doubted her compassion.  She was always "Hillary Clinton"
and never Hillary Clinton. It seems more than coincidental that when, in
the runup to the New Hampshire primary, Clinton let more of her "real self"
show, her polls numbers improved drastically.

Clinton hasn't talked extensively about what she thinks she did wrong in
2008. But, she has parted ways with pollster and chief strategist Mark
Penn, the leading advocate of a strategy that focused on Clinton's
competence not her compassion. And, early indications -- particularly  in
how she has talked about being a woman running for president -- suggest she
will take a different approach this time around.

That said, her post-Secretary of State life has largely been defined by
making big-dollar speeches and limiting her exposure to the press and most
everyone else. Her trip to Iowa is one of the first major tests of what
Hillary Clinton 2016 will look like and how -- if at all -- it will differ
from Hillary Clinton 2008.

*Washington Post opinion: Sen. Marco Rubio: “Let’s reject the veiled
isolationism of Obama and Clinton”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/marco-rubio-lets-reject-the-veiled-isolationism-of-obama-and-clinton/2014/09/12/b4e769c0-3780-11e4-8601-97ba88884ffd_story.html>*

By Sen. Marco Rubio

September 12, 2014, 7:31 a.m. EDT

President Obama’s call on Wednesday for the United States to lead an
international military campaign in the Middle East has the potential to
begin a departure from the isolationism that he and former secretary of
state Hillary Rodham Clinton have advocated during their years in office.
There is a risk, however, that the president’s focus on a counterterrorism
campaign akin to those waged in Yemen and Somalia, and his reliance on
regional partners to deal with the challenge posed by the Islamic State,
could lead to the continuation of what has been the most disengaged
presidential foreign policy in modern American history.

From his focus on prematurely ending wars in the interest of
“nation-building here at home” to his abandonment of America’s traditional
allies in an effort to placate America’s enemies, President Obama has made
it clear that he is different from his post-World War II predecessors. The
question now is whether, facing this new threat, the president will rise to
the occasion and truly reassert American leadership.

Five and a half years of the Obama/Clinton worldview has given Americans a
graphic and often horrific view of the chaos that is unleashed in the world
when America walks away from its traditional role as the guarantor of
global security. From Syria and Iraq to eastern Ukraine and the South China
Sea, we are seeing what the world will look like if our leaders continue
choosing detachment: more violence, rivals and partners alike taking
advantage of our inaction, and a steady increase in threats to our citizens
and to our prosperity.

The Obama administration did not advocate this global retreat on its own.
Members of my own Republican Party have also at times embraced the
Democrats’ narrative that too much American leadership is the problem,
rather than the solution to global instability. Not too long ago, some
neo-isolationists even claimed that America has no significant national
interest in the conflicts in Syria and Iraq, and that American support for
the Syrian opposition fueled the growth of the Islamic State.

The truth is that, when the Syrian people rose up in 2011 in protest
against Bashar al-Assad’s brutal rule, our vital national interest was to
prevent a protracted civil war in which radical jihadists from all over the
world could rush into a vacuum. If they could seize operational spaces,
they could use them to plan and carry out attacks against our allies and
ultimately America.

In the early stages of this conflict, responsible, bipartisan voices called
for U.S. leadership, hoping precisely to prevent the outcome we have now
seen play out. I urged Secretary Clinton and President Obama to intervene
decisively to oust Assad and to identify and arm the moderate Syrian
opposition. Instead, we were told that Assad was a “reformer” and that we
should not get involved. At a critical decision point early in the Syrian
crisis, when our involvement could have swayed the outcome, the
isolationist voices won. America effectively stood on the sidelines,
letting the problem fester for more than three years as the moderates
opposing the regime were pushed aside by better-funded and better-armed
jihadists. Meanwhile, the administration’s incoherent policy further
empowered Assad, strengthening his grip on power as chaos, violence and
refugees spilled across Syria’s borders, threatening the entire region.

Some former Obama administration officials, notably Secretary Clinton, have
tried to argue that they advocated internally for a different approach,
that they saw the train wreck coming. But the fact of the matter is that
when they were in positions of responsibility, they failed to prevent the
situation that now exists. “What are we going to arm them with and against
what?” Secretary Clinton said of the Syrian opposition in 2012. She and
other administration officials who found their voices only after they left
office were complicit in implementing and publicly defending the
president’s disastrous foreign policies — and we’ll be dealing with the
consequences for decades to come.

When President Obama finally proposed intervening militarily in Syria last
year, his primary objective was to censure Assad for using chemical
weapons. He argued that America should remain disengaged from the core
conflict. He presented no viable plan to remove the Assad regime from
power, significantly assist the moderate rebels or substantially degrade
the radical jihadists.

More than three years into the conflict, we have done very little to
support the non-jihadist opposition. After admitting in a late-August news
conference that he had no strategy, the president now assures us that he
has a plan to destroy the Islamic State. With any time wasted, the
challenge only grows.

While the president abdicated leadership, other regional actors
irresponsibly armed groups within Syria without regard for their ideology
or goals. These nations chose to do so not because of U.S. involvement, but
because of the lack thereof. The result is that today, Syria has become a
prime operational space for radical jihadists from around the world.

With its base in Syria, the Islamic State is now perhaps the most extreme,
powerful and capable terrorist group ever, with the clear intention of
establishing an Islamic caliphate to dominate the region and launch attacks
against anyone who doesn’t share its warped ideology.

The group didn’t achieve all this because America was too involved; just
the opposite. It rose most quickly in America’s absence and is intent on
driving us out of the Middle East. It is counting on us to abandon our
support of Jordan, Israel and other allies. It plans to terrorize us into
retreat.

America and the Islamic State are on an unavoidable collision course — and
there will be a price as we finally confront this challenge. We should not
think this struggle will be quick or risk-free. But every American should
know that the price of further disengagement now would be greater sacrifice
later.

To confront the Islamic State terrorists, we need a sustained air campaign
targeting their leadership, sources of income and supply routes, wherever
they exist. We must increase our efforts to equip and capacitate
non-jihadists in Syria to fight the terrorist group. And we must arm and
support forces in Iraq confronting it, including responsible Iraqi partners
and the Kurds. In addition, we must persuade nations in the region
threatened by the Islamic State to participate in real efforts to defeat it.

But we are fooling ourselves if we think that this will be just another
counterterrorism campaign like the strategy the United States has pursued
in Yemen and Somalia. Those cases are not success stories but containment
strategies. The conflict in Syria is impossible to contain. The long-term
threat posed by the Islamic State is much greater than that posed by
al-Shabab or al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. If we are serious, as the
president said, about ultimately destroying the Islamic State, we cannot
rule anything out.

Part of our response should also be reflected in our budgetary discussions
here at home. It is no coincidence that those Republicans who would
continue the president’s failed isolationist policies would also accelerate
another grave mistake of the Obama era: the weakening of our defense
capabilities through misguided priorities and round after round of defense
cuts, even as crises multiply. In their minds, a retreat on the world stage
has the benefit of a smaller, less capable military to go along with it.

Taken together, a continued weakening of America’s role in the world in
word and deed, and a reduction in U.S. military capabilities, would mark a
dramatic and almost irreversible change in American foreign and national
security policy — a change that would make the current chaos in the world
pale in comparison.

As he “bears witness” to their violations of international order, President
Obama likes to levy the charge that America’s foes, from Vladimir Putin to
the Islamic State, are on the “wrong side of history.” But presidents are
not supposed to be witnesses to history; they are supposed to help shape it
in America’s favor. Those of us entrusted with public service are called to
lead not in the world as we wish it were, but rather in the world as it is.
The world is more connected than it once was, and recent history has proved
that without American leadership, global instability threatens not only our
national security, but also our economy and our very way of life.

Leadership demands shaping public opinion, not chasing it; speaking the
hard truths on complex issues; and rallying the American people to confront
the difficult challenges of our time. And those who seek to lead our
country should understand that the world needs more American engagement,
not less. Decisive and targeted use of America’s military, diplomatic and
economic power will not only defeat the Islamic State and deliver us from
this crisis, it will also strengthen America and ensure our long-term
security.

A key lesson from President Obama’s first 51 / 2 years in office is that
isolationism and disengagement, no matter how they’re disguised, only put
more American lives at risk.

*Weekly Standard blog: The Blog: “Hillary Clinton Quietly Scrubs 'Remarks'
From Website”
<http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/hillary-clinton-quietly-scrubs-remarks-website_804865.html>*

By Jeryl Bier

September 12, 2014, 10:07 a.m. EDT

Hillary Clinton is widely considered, should she enter the 2016
presidential race, the Democratic front runner. But the former secretary of
state is shrinking rather than building an already limited website presence.

Sometime within the last two months, Hillaryclintonoffice.com quietly
removed the only substantive content featured on her website, a set a
remarks from three events from early 2013. The home page of the site that
included a "remarks" button in addition to the "contact" button vanished
sometime between July 23 and August 27 as these images show:

[IMAGES]

Mrs. Clinton launched the website within a week of concluding her tenure as
secretary of state in February 2013. By April, transcripts of remarks from
three events in which Clinton took part were added: February 14, 2013,
remarks at the Joint Civilian Service Award Presentation; April 2, 2013,
remarks at Vital Voices (a non-governmental organization promoting women's
leadership); and April 5, 2013, remarks at Women in the World summit. The
latter two events chiefly consisted of Clinton's own remarks on a variety
of issues related to women's place in societies around the world and their
struggles, and Clinton's efforts and actions on those issues as secretary.

The first event, the Joint Civilian Service Award Presentation, included
remarks from not only Clinton but also from Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff General Martin Dempsey, then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, and
an unnamed announcer. Dempsey had glowing words for Clinton for "working
tirelessly in the aftermath of the Arab Spring and to ensure we had a
strong coalition in Libya" and "recogniz[ing] that there are limits to hard
power and that we need both hard power and soft power." As Dempsey
presented Clinton with the award, the announcer lauded Clinton's "smart
power strategy."

Panetta's praise for Clinton was effusive as he recalled working together
during Bill Clinton's presidency as well as Hillary's term as secretary of
state. He credited her with important roles during the planning for the
successful bin Laden raid, as well as issues regarding "Afghanistan and
Syria and terrorist attacks, and even on our own defense strategy,
including the whole issue of Asia Pacific rebalance," adding that the two
of them had together made recommendations to President Obama regarding
"difficult choices in Iraq and Afghanistan and Libya and the Middle East."
Before presenting Clinton with a second award, Panetta closed his remarks
with what could easily be taken for an endorsement of Clinton for future
public service:

“Today ... it is now clear that we need to maintain a strong military force
to deal with the unstable and unpredictable and undeniably dangerous world
that we live in. But it is equally clear that we must enhance our other key
levers of power, our economic and diplomatic power, if we are to truly
achieve peace in the 21st century. Delivering on that vision will require
wisdom, and it will require a will to act, qualities that Hillary Clinton
exemplified throughout her career and as secretary of state.”

In Clinton's own remarks, she seemed to close the door on future service by
referring to herself as a "retired public official" who had "left the State
Department in the capable hands of Secretary John Kerry." She said that she
was "enormously proud of what we have achieved" using her "smart power
approach," having "gone a long way to restore America's global leadership
and to make progress on some of the great challenges we face, from taking
the fight to the leadership of Al Qaeda to reasserting the United States as
a Pacific power."

Clinton's performance in favorability polls has been dropping in recent
months, even as her legacy as secretary of state has been called into
question with deteriorating conditions across the world stage. Also, in
addition to Clinton's own book "Hard Choices" released this summer, several
other books came out in recent months examining her life and careers,
including Clinton, Inc.

Now that this set of remarks has been removed from Clinton's website, their
availability elsewhere appears rather limited. However, the Still4hill.com
website documents at least two of the events, even including some photos,
and the Daily Beast still has the transcript of the Women in the World
event. Clinton's office did not respond to a request for comment about the
removal of the remarks from her website.