Subject: Correct The Record Thursday August 28, 2014 Morning Roundup
From: Burns Strider <[email-masked]>
To: CTRFriendsFamily <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2014 08:54:03 -0400
List-Id: <CTRFriendsFamily.americanbridge.org>

**

*Correct The Record Thursday August 28, 2014 Morning Roundup:*

*Headlines:*

*Politico: “Exclusive: GOP poll of women: Party 'stuck in past'”
<http://www.politico.com/story/2014/08/gop-poll-of-women-party-stuck-in-past-110398.html>*

“But the GOP appears to have a long way to go when it comes to capturing a
significant slice of the female electorate. Even on fiscal matters —
traditionally the party’s strongest issue set — Republicans hold only
slight advantages that do not come close to outweighing their negative
attributes.”

*People: “Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand: 'I Will Help Hillary Get Elected'”
<http://www.people.com/article/kirsten-gillibrand-hillary-clinton-president>*

“‘In my mind, she's definitely running,’ Gillibrand tells PEOPLE. ‘Anytime
I've ever talked to her, I've offered every bit of help in the world and
she's never said no.’”

*Wall Street Journal opinion: Sen. Rand Paul: “How U.S. Interventionists
Abetted the Rise of ISIS”
<http://online.wsj.com/articles/rand-paul-how-u-s-interventionists-abetted-the-rise-of-isis-1409178958>*

“We are lucky Mrs. Clinton didn't get her way and the Obama administration
did not bring about regime change in Syria. That new regime might well be
ISIS.”

*Wall Street Journal opinion: Daniel Henninger: “It's Not a Videogame”
<http://online.wsj.com/articles/dan-henninger-its-not-a-videogame-1409179337>*

“These foreign-policy fiascoes, and many others, are laid at the feet of
Barack Obama. And at the feet of former Secretary of State Clinton, who
spent four years and a million miles in flight from all this.”

*The Daily Beast: Nick Gillespie: “Hillary's Got a Millennial Problem”
<http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/28/hillary-s-got-a-millennial-problem.html>*

"Over at FiveThirtyEight, Harry Enten averages a bunch of polls taken
earlier this year and finds that the former first lady, senator, and
secretary of state rolls over Christie on average by 10 points with all
voters and a whopping 27 points with “young voters” (ages 18 to 29 or 34,
depending on the poll). For Paul, the shellacking is even worse, with
Clinton beating him by 11 points overall and by 28 points with the kids."

*Mediaite: “Fox Host Thinks NY Times Is Doing Hillary’s ‘Bidding’ by Not
Endorsing Cuomo”
<http://www.mediaite.com/tv/fox-host-thinks-ny-times-is-doing-hillarys-bidding-by-not-endorsing-cuomo/>*

“While Tantaros admitted that Cuomo ‘has had some shady ethics,’ she
wondered aloud, ‘Isn’t it interesting? Do you think they could be doing the
bidding of, oh, I don’t know, Hillary Clinton to take out somebody who
could potentially be a dark horse for 2016? I do.’”

*Elle: “There's a Clothing Store Dedicated to Hillary Clinton's Pantsuits”
<http://www.elle.com/news/culture/theres-a-clothing-store-dedicated-to-hillary-clinton>*

“In Kosovo's capital city of Pristina, just around the corner from Bill
Clinton Boulevard and a 10-foot statue of its namesake, sits Hillary—not
the person, but the store, whose wares were inspired by the woman herself.”

*New York Magazine blog: Daily Intelligencer: “Mitt, Again?”
<http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/08/mitt-again.html>*

“Romney would lose to Clinton in the general, the polls show. But he would
beat Obama, and he has some decent numbers in decisive states like New
Hampshire.”

*The Hill: “Could Romney really run?”
<http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/216124-could-romney-run>*

“Mitt Romney is in demand, and it’s raising speculation about another White
House run, however far-fetched that might seem.”

*Articles:*

*Politico: “Exclusive: GOP poll of women: Party 'stuck in past'”
<http://www.politico.com/story/2014/08/gop-poll-of-women-party-stuck-in-past-110398.html>*

By Jake Sherman and Anna Palmer

August 27, 2014, 5:47 p.m. EDT

A detailed report commissioned by two major Republican groups — including
one backed by Karl Rove — paints a dismal picture for Republicans,
concluding female voters view the party as “intolerant,” “lacking in
compassion” and “stuck in the past.”

Women are “barely receptive” to Republicans’ policies, and the party does
“especially poorly” with women in the Northeast and Midwest, according to
an internal Crossroads GPS and American Action Network report obtained by
POLITICO. It was presented to a small number of senior aides this month on
Capitol Hill, according to multiple sources involved.

Republicans swore they’d turn around the party’s performance with women
after Mitt Romney’s loss in 2012. And while they are in good shape in 2014,
poised to pick up seats in the House and possibly take the majority in the
Senate, the new report shows that they have not improved their standing
with women — which could exacerbate their problems if Hillary Clinton is
the Democratic nominee in 2016.

The report — “Republicans and Women Voters: Huge Challenges, Real
Opportunities” — was the product of eight focus groups across the country
and a poll of 800 registered female voters this summer. The large-scale
project was a major undertaking for the GOP groups.

“The gender gap is hardly a new phenomenon, but nevertheless it’s important
for conservatives to identify what policies best engage women, and our
project found multiple opportunities,” said Dan Conston, a spokesman for
the American Action Network. “It’s no surprise that conservatives have more
work to do with women.”

Republicans in D.C. say they recognize the problem. Republicans who have
seen or been briefed on the polling were not surprised about the outcome.
The poll was conducted by Public Opinion Strategies and Axis Research.

Paul Lindsey, the spokesman for Rove-backed Crossroads GPS, said, “There
are a number of House policymakers and staff who have been willing to focus
on issues important to women, and we think it’s important that they are
aware of the policy solutions that are available to help address these
concerns.”

The solutions offered include neutralizing Democratic attacks that the GOP
doesn’t support “fairness” for women; “deal honestly with any disagreement
on abortion, then move to other issues”; and “pursue policy innovations
that inspire women voters to give the GOP a ‘fresh look.’”

The report is blunt about the party’s problems. It says 49 percent of women
view Republicans unfavorably, while just 39 percent view Democrats
unfavorably.

It also found that Republicans “fail to speak to women in the different
circumstances in which they live” — as breadwinners, for example. “This
lack of understanding and acknowledgment closes many minds to Republican
policy solutions,” the report says. The groups urge Republicans to embrace
policies that “are not easily framed as driven by a desire to aid employers
or ‘the rich.’”

Two policies former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor promoted as a way to
make inroads with middle-class women and families — charter schools and
flexible work schedules — were actually the least popular policies among
female voters.

Republicans have long had a troubled relationship with female voters, but
this report, which comes out just months before Election Day, is the most
recent detailed illustration of the problem. Republicans have several
initiatives to attract female candidates and voters. Rep. Cathy McMorris
Rodgers of Washington, the No. 4 House Republican, for example, is
spearheading her chamber’s effort. The Republican National Committee is
trying to engage women in 25 “targeted counties for the midterm election,”
a spokesman said.

One bright spot is among married women. Married women without a college
degree view Republicans favorably, the polling shows. Married women prefer
a Republican over a Democrat, 48 percent to 38 percent.

“Just like a gender gap exists, a marriage gap also exists,” Conston said.
“While young unmarried women have always skewed liberal, the polling found
married women across the country are far more likely to be conservative and
are receptive to center-right policies.”

But the GOP appears to have a long way to go when it comes to capturing a
significant slice of the female electorate.

Even on fiscal matters — traditionally the party’s strongest issue set —
Republicans hold only slight advantages that do not come close to
outweighing their negative attributes. The GOP holds a 3 percent advantage
over Democrats when female voters are asked who has “good ideas to grow the
economy and create jobs,” and the same advantage on who is “fiscally
responsible and can be trusted with our tax dollars.”

When female voters are asked who “wants to make health care more
affordable,” Democrats have a 39 percent advantage, and a 40 percent
advantage on who “looks out for the interests of women.” Democrats have a
39 percent advantage when it comes to who “is tolerant of other people’s
lifestyles.”

Female voters who care about the top four issues — the economy, health
care, education and jobs — vote overwhelmingly for Democrats. Most
striking, Democrats hold a 35-point advantage with female voters who care
about jobs and a 26 percent advantage when asked which party is willing to
compromise. House Republicans say jobs and the economy are their top
priorities.

Andrea Bozek, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional
Committee, said the party’s candidates “across the country are speaking
directly to female voters both on the campaign trail and in their
television ads.”

But in Washington, Republican policies have failed to sway women — in fact,
they appear to have turned women off. For example, the focus groups and
polls found that women “believe that ‘enforcing equal pay for equal work’
is the policy that would ‘help women the most.’”

“Republicans who openly deny the legitimacy of the issue will be seen as
out of touch with women’s life experiences,” the report warned, hinting at
GOP opposition to pay-equity legislation. It’s the policy item independents
and Democrats believe will help women the most.

The groups suggest a three-pronged approach to turning around their
relationship with women. First, they suggest the GOP “neutralize the
Democrats’” attack that Republicans don’t support fairness for women. They
suggest Republican lawmakers criticize Democrats for “growing government
programs that encourage dependency rather than opportunities to get ahead.”
That message tested better than explaining that the GOP supports a number
of policies that could help fairness for women.

Second, the groups suggest Republicans “deal honestly with any disagreement
on abortion, then move to other issues.” And third, “pursue policy
innovations that inspire women voters to give the GOP a ‘fresh look.’” The
report suggests lawmakers and candidates inject “unexpected” GOP policy
proposals into the debate as a way to sway female voters. Suggestions
include ways to improve job-training programs, “strengthening enforcement
against gender bias in the workplace” and “expanding home health care
services by allowing more health care professionals to be paid by Medicare
for home health services.”

Katie Packer Gage, a political strategist who focuses on improving GOP
standing with female voters, said women think of “old, white, right, out of
touch” men when they think of the Republican Party.

“I think a lot of folks are whistling past the graveyard on this …
Certainly if Hillary is on the top of the ticket for Democrats, it is going
to be a significant challenge for us,” she said in an interview. “Maybe
we’ll see women on our side that will step up as well. … We have to quit
sitting back and taking it on the chin. I think we have to play offense on
this.”

*People: “Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand: 'I Will Help Hillary Get Elected'”
<http://www.people.com/article/kirsten-gillibrand-hillary-clinton-president>*

By Tara Fowler and Sandra Sobieraj

August 27, 2014, 4:45 p.m. EDT

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand isn't positive Hillary Clinton will run for
president, but the woman who took Clinton's former New York Senate seat
would like to think so.

"In my mind, she's definitely running," Gillibrand tells PEOPLE. "Anytime
I've ever talked to her, I've offered every bit of help in the world and
she's never said no."

For her part, Gillibrand, whose candid new book Off the Sidelines hits
shelves Sept 9., doesn't have her eye on the presidency quite yet. She's
perfectly content where she is at the moment.

"I have young kids," says the mom of two, when asked if she'd consider a
bid for the White House. "I really like where I am."

"I don't know that I aspire to it," she adds. "It's a very different job. I
feel like where I am, I can accomplish a lot."

It's her current job with the United States Senate that's provided the
fodder for her insightful – and sometimes groan-worthy – memoir.

In Off the Sidelines, Gillibrand, 47, shares a sobering incident in the
congressional gym, where an older, male colleague told her, "Good thing
you're working out, because you wouldn't want to get porky!" On another
occasion, she writes, after she dropped 50 lbs. one of her fellow Senate
members approached her, squeezed her stomach, and said, "Don't lose too
much weight now. I like my girls chubby!"

Gillibrand isn't especially offended by her coworkers' remarks. "It was all
statements that were being made by men who were well into their 60s, 70s or
80s," she says. "They had no clue that those are inappropriate things to
say to a pregnant woman or a woman who just had a baby or to women in
general."

*Wall Street Journal opinion: Sen. Rand Paul: “How U.S. Interventionists
Abetted the Rise of ISIS”
<http://online.wsj.com/articles/rand-paul-how-u-s-interventionists-abetted-the-rise-of-isis-1409178958>*

By Sen. Rand Paul

August 27, 2014, 6:35 p.m. EDT

[Subtitle:] Our Middle Eastern policy is unhinged, flailing about to see
who to act against next, with little regard to consequences.

As the murderous, terrorist Islamic State continues to threaten Iraq, the
region and potentially the United States, it is vitally important that we
examine how this problem arose. Any actions we take today must be informed
by what we've already done in the past, and how effective our actions have
been.

Shooting first and asking questions later has never been a good foreign
policy. The past year has been a perfect example.

In September President Obama and many in Washington were eager for a U.S.
intervention in Syria to assist the rebel groups fighting President Bashar
Assad's government. Arguing against military strikes, I wrote that "Bashar
Assad is clearly not an American ally. But does his ouster encourage
stability in the Middle East, or would his ouster actually encourage
instability?"

The administration's goal has been to degrade Assad's power, forcing him to
negotiate with the rebels. But degrading Assad's military capacity also
degrades his ability to fend off the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham.
Assad's government recently bombed the self-proclaimed capital of ISIS in
Raqqa, Syria.

To interventionists like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, we
would caution that arming the Islamic rebels in Syria created a haven for
the Islamic State. We are lucky Mrs. Clinton didn't get her way and the
Obama administration did not bring about regime change in Syria. That new
regime might well be ISIS.

This is not to say the U.S. should ally with Assad. But we should recognize
how regime change in Syria could have helped and emboldened the Islamic
State, and recognize that those now calling for war against ISIS are still
calling for arms to factions allied with ISIS in the Syrian civil war. We
should realize that the interventionists are calling for Islamic rebels to
win in Syria and for the same Islamic rebels to lose in Iraq. While no one
in the West supports Assad, replacing him with ISIS would be a disaster.

Our Middle Eastern policy is unhinged, flailing about to see who to act
against next, with little thought to the consequences. This is not a
foreign policy.

Those who say we should have done more to arm the Syrian rebel groups have
it backward. Mrs. Clinton was also eager to shoot first in Syria before
asking some important questions. Her successor John Kerry was no better,
calling the failure to strike Syria a "Munich moment."

Some now speculate Mr. Kerry and the administration might have to walk back
or at least mute their critiques of Assad in the interest of defeating the
Islamic State.

A reasonable degree of foresight should be a prerequisite for holding high
office. So should basic hindsight. This administration has neither.

But the same is true of hawkish members of my own party. Some said it would
be "catastrophic" if we failed to strike Syria. What they were advocating
for then—striking down Assad's regime—would have made our current situation
even worse, as it would have eliminated the only regional counterweight to
the ISIS threat.

Our so-called foreign policy experts are failing us miserably. The Obama
administration's feckless veering is making it worse. It seems the only
thing both sides of this flawed debate agree on is that "something" must be
done. It is the only thing they ever agree on.

But the problem is, we did do something. We aided those who've contributed
to the rise of the Islamic State. The CIA delivered arms and other
equipment to Syrian rebels, strengthening the side of the ISIS jihadists.
Some even traveled to Syria from America to give moral and material support
to these rebels even though there had been multiple reports some were
allied with al Qaeda.

Patrick Cockburn, Middle East correspondent for the London newspaper, the
Independent, recently reported something disturbing about these rebel
groups in Syria. In his new book, "The Jihadis Return: ISIS and the New
Sunni Uprising," Mr. Cockburn writes that he traveled to southeast Turkey
earlier in the year where "a source told me that 'without exception' they
all expressed enthusiasm for the 9/11 attacks and hoped the same thing
would happen in Europe as well as the U.S." It's safe to say these rebels
are probably not friends of the United States.

"If American interests are at stake," I said in September, "then it is
incumbent upon those advocating for military action to convince Congress
and the American people of that threat. Too often, the debate begins and
ends with an assertion that our national interest is at stake without any
evidence of that assertion. The burden of proof lies with those who wish to
engage in war."

Those wanting a U.S. war in Syria could not clearly show a U.S. national
interest then, and they have been proven foolish now. A more realistic
foreign policy would recognize that there are evil people and tyrannical
regimes in this world, but also that America cannot police or solve every
problem across the globe. Only after recognizing the practical limits of
our foreign policy can we pursue policies that are in the best interest of
the U.S.

The Islamic State represents a threat that should be taken seriously. But
we should also recall how recent foreign-policy decisions have helped these
extremists so that we don't make the same mistake of potentially aiding our
enemies again.

*Wall Street Journal opinion: Daniel Henninger: “It's Not a Videogame”
<http://online.wsj.com/articles/dan-henninger-its-not-a-videogame-1409179337>*

By Daniel Henninger

August 27, 2014, 6:42 p.m. EDT

[Subtitle:] After ISIS, can the Democrats be trusted with national security
from 2016 to 2020?

When ISIS made the murder of James Foley into a YouTube video, they
transported this outrage to the odd middle-world we inhabit between reality
and pixels of reality. People don't ask if you saw the murder of James
Foley. They ask if you've seen the video of his murder.

James Foley's beheading has reset this half-real world. After watching
screens on their PCs, tablets and smartphones fill with one shocking image
after another—Boko Haram's kidnapping of the girls in Nigeria, Russian
rebels' shooting down Flight 17 above Ukraine, ISIS's one-week capture of
one-third of Iraq, massacres of Yazidis and Christians, Islamic militias
fighting to take over Libya, Hamas's casual sidewalk executions—most
Americans realize the stakes in the world have become bigger than the four
sides of a video.

The world has reframed the politics of the 2016 election.

National security and the U.S. role in the world has pushed toward the top
of the decision tree in that election. That is why Hillary Clinton
outputted an interview this summer with the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg,
repositioning her bland foreign-policy views to the right of Barack Obama.
No more speeches about saving the oceans. That's why first-term Sen. Rand
Paul used his time on "Meet the Press" last weekend to re-reposition Mrs.
Clinton as a "military hawk."

Even Mr. Obama himself reacted to the new realities. Whether to staunch the
president's political bleeding in the polls, which is threatening Democrats
this November, or the nightmare of blood elsewhere, the U.S. government is
reportedly preparing possible airstrikes against ISIS inside Syria and
working to mobilize our "partners" in the region, such as Saudi Arabia.

Of course, the revolt of the Free Syrian Army against Bashar Assad has been
on since early 2011, and Saudi Arabia concluded that being a partner of the
U.S. was pointless.

These foreign-policy fiascoes, and many others, are laid at the feet of
Barack Obama. And at the feet of former Secretary of State Clinton, who
spent four years and a million miles in flight from all this.

Individual responsibility matters. The U.S. president is commander in chief
even if he doesn't want to be commander in chief. If Mrs. Clinton believes
what she told the Atlantic, she should have resigned and said what was on
her mind then. But she didn't. Doing so would have imperiled her
standing—not her standing with the American people, who were losing faith
in Mr. Obama's handling of the world, but with the Democratic Party
activists who would have demolished her presidential nomination in
retaliation for exposing the Obama worldview, which is their worldview.

In a foreign-policy election, as it looks like we are going to have in
2016, the stakes are a lot higher than picking among the one-person brands
who populate U.S. presidential politics now. Party matters. Party history
and belief shapes foreign-policy decisions in a time of crisis. The word
"fortitude" comes to mind.

So one must ask: Can the Democratic Party be trusted with U.S. national
security from 2016 to 2020?

At the Republicans' 1984 convention, keynote speaker Jeane Kirkpatrick
famously unloaded on the opposition party's foreign policy as "the San
Francisco Democrats." What we have learned the past five-and-a-half years
is that Jeane Kirkpatrick is still right. It isn't just Barack Obama. It's
them. If anything, the modern Democratic Party is more hostile to national
defense than it was in 1984.

Let us hypothesize that Mrs. Clinton is a Democratic hawk. Name one other
office-holding hawk in the party? California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, sort
of. Beyond these two women, none. Former Sen. Joe Lieberman, the party's
vice presidential nominee in 2000? They joyously ran him out of the party
in 2006. Sam Nunn ? The last of the South's great national-security Senate
Democrats retired in 1996. Former Democratic Sen. Pat Moynihan served as a
Republican president's U.N. ambassador. Democratic hawks, or even
half-hawks, aren't an endangered species. They're extinct.

The military types, pundits and big donors who claim to have spotted
appearances of Clinton hawkishness are deluding themselves. Bill Clinton of
Kosovo? In 2008, the progressive activists who organized and financed Mr.
Obama's candidacy overthrew the Clintons ' centrist triangulation machine
and took control of the party. Dutifully, Mrs. Clinton ran as an antiwar
candidate.

Any hawklike initiative she might attempt will be vetted and opposed by the
Obama-Warren Democrats in Congress and across the blogosphere. They abhor
Mrs. Clinton's "international liberalism." The MoveOn.org website has
posted an online petition exhorting President Obama to "Keep America Out of
Iraq!" These hearts and minds belong wholly to the domestic-spending
accounts. National security needs diminish their reason for being.

As to the Republicans, Rand Paul's foreign-policy minimalism remains a
fringe movement, with multiple challengers. The Democrats have the opposite
problem. What ought to be the party's foreign-policy fringe has seized its
center, and no one in the party will challenge it. In times of peace, this
tension between the we-won't-go left and everyone else gets indulged as a
political videogame. Win some, lose some. In a world of spreading disorder,
as now, that is asking too much.

*The Daily Beast: Nick Gillespie: “Hillary's Got a Millennial Problem”
<http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/28/hillary-s-got-a-millennial-problem.html>*

By Nick Gillespie

August 28, 2014

[Subtitle:] The former Secretary of State looks like she’ll clobber a
Republican like Rand Paul in 2016—but only if she doesn’t alienate the
young.

Sure, projecting a winner in a presidential election a couple of years in
advance is a mug’s game. But don’t you know that Hillary Clinton has
already won the 2016 contest? It’s just like 2008 all over again: Hillary
can’t lose.

Seriously, though, it’s obvious Hillary will win, especially when you look
at the way she’s currently trouncing leading Republicans such as Chris
Christie and Rand Paul among young voters. The kids love Hillary, goes this
line of thinking, and since they decided the 2012 election and will only
ever vote Democratic, all we need to do now is reanimate Aretha Franklin,
the Eagles, or one of her other mummified favorite performers for the
inauguration.

But such triumphalism about Clinton and the Democratic stranglehold on
younger voters is premature, to say the least. While there’s no question
that the GOP has managed to alienate millennials, there’s every reason to
believe that top Democrats are doing just about everything they can to
squander their currently commanding advantage.

Over at FiveThirtyEight, Harry Enten averages a bunch of polls taken
earlier this year and finds that the former first lady, senator, and
secretary of state rolls over Christie on average by 10 points with all
voters and a whopping 27 points with “young voters” (ages 18 to 29 or 34,
depending on the poll).

For Paul, the shellacking is even worse, with Clinton beating him by 11
points overall and by 28 points with the kids. Enten argues that even
though 45 percent of Americans have no idea who Rand Paul is, “it’s not
entirely clear Paul’s numbers will drastically improve if young voters
learn more about his positions.” Paul and the kids may be on the same side
when it comes to pot legalization, privacy, and war, but they seem to be at
loggerheads when it comes to immigration, healthcare, and a host of other
issues.

Apart from trying to look two years into the future—where was Barack Obama
in 2006? or Bill Clinton in 1990?—the case against Rand Paul is largely
irrelevant to Hillary Clinton’s and the Democrats’ own burgeoning youth
problem. Thanks to truly epic Republican awfulness on just about every
possible issue from gay marriage to foreign affairs to budget-busting, the
Dems have indeed been able to take the kids for granted inrecent years. But
that hasn’t always been the case. Indeed, Republicans as different as
Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush all managed to win the
youth vote. And consider that in 2000, George W. Bush and Al Gore split the
18-29 year old vote, each pulling 48 percent.

Two wars and The Patriot Act later, John Kerry won 54 percent of the youth
vote in 2004. In 2008, Barack Obama snagged a whopping 66 percent of it,
with John McCain pulling just 32 percent. Then things get interesting,
though. In 2012, Obama pulled a relatively weak 60 percent of the 18-29
vote, with Mitt Romney bucking up to  36 percent. And Obama actually lost
the youth vote among 18, 19, and 20 year olds to Mitt Romney, everyone’s
least favorite grandparent. According to George Washington University
political scientist John Sides, Romney took 57 percent of 18 year olds, 59
percent of 19 year olds, and 54 percent of 20 year olds. It’s not clear how
those kids will vote (or if they’ll vote) in 2016, but there’s no reason to
buy into the idea that the youth vote is locked up by the Democrats.

The Dems do need the youth vote. As Pew has pointed out, despite some
slippage, young people overall still provided the generous cushion by which
Obama beat Romney. Romney, like McCain before him, actually won voters 30
and over. In some important ways, then, the battle for the presidency may
well be the battle for younger voters.

If Obama has lost support among younger voters, it seems likely that
Clinton will also struggle to maintain a connection with them as a
presidential campaign gets underway. To the extent she is a known quantity
to younger voters, it’s as Obama’s secretary of state -- the face of a
foreign policy that is simultaneously a self-evident failure and one that
simply wasn’t bellicose enough for Clinton’s tastes.

Either way, that’s no way to win the youth vote; neither is her generally
uncritical support of a national-security state and her use of Edward
Snowden as a “punching bag.” Assuming that the GOP nominee is someone
around the ages of Christie or Paul, she’ll also be about 15 years older
than her opponent, which flips the age-party relationship of the past two
elections as well. And the Democrats’ problems only get bigger if Clinton
doesn’t run: They’ve got virtually no other obvious ready-to-go candidates
in the wings.

On top of that, there’s still two more years of Obama to suffer through. As
pollster John Zogby has written, the president has already alienated many
young voters for a number of reasons. “First and foremost,” he writes in
Forbes, “is their deep distrust for all political authority and their
disappointment in Mr. Obama himself. Second is the sense of a deep invasion
of privacy and government overreach in their lives. And third is the
Millennial style of wanting immediate answers to problems instead of
bureaucratic stasis, as they see it.”

If the economy stays flat or especially rough for younger Americans, or if
we’re plunged back into aimless wars without end, all that will make things
tougher still for any Democrat in 2016 to easily win the youth vote.
Especially if she is facing a youthful Republican who is OK with pot
legalization and gay marriage, pro-privacy, anti-war, and seems to have a
clue on economic policy.

There’s no question that the Republican Party brand is all but dead to
younger voters. As the recent Reason-Rupe poll on millennials found, just
23 percent of voters between the ages of 18 and 29 identify as Republican
or lean Republican. Millennials are social liberals who favor gay marriage
and pot legalization; if the GOP can’t come to terms with that, its future
is indeed limited.

The corresponding youth-identification number for Democrats is 43 percent,
which sounds good until you realize that it’s still lower than the
percentage of voters 30 years and old who identify as or lean Democratic
(49 percent). Indeed, fully 34 percent of millennials identify as
independent, compared to just 11 percent of older voters. Young voters are
already not willing to vote Republican. In a few years, and absent a
vibrant candidate who speaks to their concerns, they may well decide not to
vote Democratic, either.

Indeed, the great political achievement of the 21st century so far has been
to alienate young voters from the two major parties in the U.S. And the
great task for both Democrats and Republicans in 2016 will be to figure out
how to woo them back.

*Mediaite: “Fox Host Thinks NY Times Is Doing Hillary’s ‘Bidding’ by Not
Endorsing Cuomo”
<http://www.mediaite.com/tv/fox-host-thinks-ny-times-is-doing-hillarys-bidding-by-not-endorsing-cuomo/>*

By Matt Wilstein

August 27, 2014, 6:29 p.m. EDT

On Tuesday, The New York Times editorial board announced that it would not
be endorsing Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) in his upcoming primary bid
because of his “failure” to enact meaningful ethics reform. But Fox News
host Andrea Tantaros thinks the paper declined to endorse Cuomo for a very
different reason.

While Tantaros admitted that Cuomo “has had some shady ethics,” she
wondered aloud, “Isn’t it interesting? Do you think they could be doing the
bidding of, oh, I don’t know, Hillary Clinton to take out somebody who
could potentially be a dark horse for 2016? I do.”

On a related note, Tantaros suggested that New Jersey Governor Chris
Christie was refusing to financially support New York’s Republican
gubernatorial candidate Rob Astorino because he’s “covering” for Cuomo. “I
hope not,” she said.

By Tantaros’ logic, if The New York Times wants to help Hillary Clinton by
hurting Andrew Cuomo, then it would only make sense that Christie would
want to hurt Clinton by helping Cuomo.

Watch video below, via Fox News:

[VIDEO]

*Elle: “There's a Clothing Store Dedicated to Hillary Clinton's Pantsuits”
<http://www.elle.com/news/culture/theres-a-clothing-store-dedicated-to-hillary-clinton>*

By Victoria Hoff

August 27, 2014, 2:00 p.m. EDT

Whether it's political success, her get-it-done attitude, or meta sense of
humor, there are several ways we're sure many people would like to channel
Hillary Clinton. But for those who find themselves constantly inspired by
the former Secretary of State's rotating wardrobe of pantsuits and
conservative formalwear, you're in luck: There is actually a boutique
dedicated to Clinton's aesthetic—and it'll only take you a quick plane ride
to Kosovo to get you there.

In Kosovo's capital city of Pristina, just around the corner from Bill
Clinton Boulevard and a 10-foot statue of its namesake, sits Hillary—not
the person, but the store, whose wares were inspired by the woman herself.
(For those confused with this fondness for all things Clinton, the former
President aided the country in its war with Yugoslavia.)

Yahoo's Jo Piazza not only blessedly alerted us to the boutique's
existence, but also did us a real solid by actually visiting the place in
person. She reports that two photos of the politician and author "hang
proudly above the store's dressing rooms," and that the real highlight of
its existence occurred in 2012, when Hillary herself paid a visit. (She was
presented with a navy pantsuit.)

"We respect her name and her personality here," store owner Besian Morina
told Piazza. "Our clothes are modeled after her own fashion." Hillary
(again, the store, not the person) is apparently a favored destination for
locals and tourists alike.

And the most popular item? A red pantsuit, natch.

*New York Magazine blog: Daily Intelligencer: “Mitt, Again?”
<http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/08/mitt-again.html>*

By Annie Lowrey

August 27, 2014, 12:56 p.m. EDT

Mitt Romney went on "The Hugh Hewitt Show" yesterday to say that he
definitely-certainly-absolutely-not-well-maybe is running for president in
2016.

Hewitt: I wouldn’t presume to ask you to say, “Yeah, I’m in the race.” But
circumstances change. And if you thought that in fact it were not that way,
that you thought you were the only one who could do this, you’d change your
mind, wouldn’t you?

Romney: I’m not going there, Hugh. I know you’re going to press, but you
know, this is something we gave a lot of thought to when early on I decided
we’re not going to be running this time. And again, we said look, I had the
chance of running. I didn’t win. Someone else has a better chance than I
do. And that’s what we believe, and that’s why I’m not running. And you
know, circumstances can change, but I’m just not going to let my head go
there. I remember that great line from Dumb and Dumber, where the…

Hewitt: So you’re telling me I have a chance?

Romney: There you go, you remember. You’re telling me I have a chance?
That’s one of a million.

Hewitt: Hey, all, the takeaway is already circumstances can change. I know
how we’re going to play this.

But here’s the thing. Many Republicans — including, perhaps, Romney himself
— do not believe that any of the candidates the party has on deck have a
better chance than he does.

In part, that is because of the candidates’ various intrinsic weaknesses.
Chris Christie, for instance, seems a bully and a cheat, while Rand Paul
sits too far out on the ideological fringe. And in part, it is because of
Romney’s considerable strengths: his name recognition, his money, his
relatively broad appeal, his ties with party donors and kingmakers, and the
number of his faithful urging him to go for it.

He also has the experience of running two campaigns, making him
battle-tested in a way no other candidate would be. “I hope I would be a
better candidate than I was last time,” Romney said on Hewitt’s show. “I
mean, you hope you learn from your mistakes.”

Some early poll numbers are also fueling the Mittmentum. Right now, Hillary
Clinton is handily beating many of the front-of-the-pack Republican
candidates in the most important swing states, as well as in the general
election. Romney would lose to Clinton in the general, the polls show. But
he would beat Obama, and he has some decent numbers in decisive states like
New Hampshire.

Romney himself keeps on throwing kindling on the fire, too, ginning up
press and winking every time he promises he would never run again. In the
past few days, for instance, he has taken the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge and
then sat down for an interview with the Washington Post. And he’s spent the
past few weeks crisscrossing the country, fund-raising, endorsing, and
making appearances with Republican candidates. Those seem to be the actions
of a restless, handsome billionaire in watchful-waiting mode, more so than
the actions of a restless, handsome billionaire really and truly retiring
from public life.

None of this is to say that Romney is likely to kick off a third campaign.
But, to paraphrase Lloyd Christmas, what I’m saying is there is a chance.

*The Hill: “Could Romney really run?”
<http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/216124-could-romney-run>*

By Peter Sullivan

August 27, 2014, 6:29 p.m. EDT

Mitt Romney is in demand, and it’s raising speculation about another White
House run, however far-fetched that might seem.

The 2012 GOP standard-bearer has been stumping across the country for
Republican Senate candidates, highlighting his popularity two years after
losing the Oval Office to Barack Obama.

A Netflix documentary, “Mitt,” depicted Romney’s run for the White House in
2008 and 2012 and his devotion to his family, warming him to GOP audiences
further.

On policy, Russia’s incursions into Ukraine have vindicated his tough
stance in 2012, something Obama famously used to mock him as out of touch.

It’s all causing the public to give him a second look.

Romney lost badly to Obama in the last presidential cycle, but a CNN/ORC
poll in July found that if the election were held again, 53 percent of
adults would vote for Romney, and just 44 percent for Obama.

Romney has repeatedly said he’s not interested in running again, using the
word “no” 11 times in a row in one January interview with The New York
Times.

On Tuesday, Romney sounded a different note during an interview on “The
Hugh Hewitt Show.”

“Someone else has a better chance than I do,” Romney said of the 2016
campaign, saying “that’s why I’m not running.

“And you know, circumstances can change, but I’m just not going to let my
head go there,” Romney concluded.

It’s just a sliver of an opening, but it got people talking, particularly
given the wide-open race for the Republican nomination, for which there is
no clear front-runner.

Furthermore, Republicans are looking for an establishment candidate as an
option to Tea Party favorites like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and the
libertarian-leaning Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).

It’s led GOP observers to say he has a good chance at the 2016 nomination.

“He's one of the very few people who can run and lock it up very early,”
said Patrick Hynes, a Republican operative in New Hampshire who advised
Romney’s 2012 campaign. “I think there’s a great deal of good will behind
him at the moment because there’s buyer’s remorse about President Obama.”

“There’s no clear frontrunner, so I certainly think he would be one of the
early favorites if he were to decide to get in,” said Bob Rafferty, a
former chief of staff to Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad (R) and a 2012 Romney
supporter.

Hard to believe? Look at the polls.

A Suffolk University poll of Republican Iowa caucus-goers released
Wednesday found
that Romney swamps the rest of the field, at 35 percent, compared to 9
percent for former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who is in second place.

Romney says his reason for passing on another run is not that he does not
want it. “I’d love to run for president. I loved running for president,” he
said in the interview Tuesday.

Instead, Romney says the reason is that someone else has a better chance.

“Had I believed I would actually be best positioned to beat Hillary
Clinton, then I would be running,” Romney said. “But I actually believe
that someone new that is not defined yet, someone who perhaps is from the
next generation, will be able to catch fire, potentially build a movement,
and be able to beat Hillary Clinton.”

The standing of other Republican contenders is far from certain, though.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Wisconsin Gov.
Scott Walker are all tangled in controversies that could lead to criminal
convictions. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush might not even run, and Paul
would have to win over the establishment to views that are out of the
party’s traditional mainstream.

“Let’s say all the guys that were running all came together and said, ‘Hey,
we’ve decided we can’t do it. You must do it.’ That’s the one out of a
million we’re thinking about,” Romney said.

Stu Stevens, a senior adviser to Romney’s 2012 campaign, did not reject out
of hand the possibility of a run when asked in an email for his thoughts on
whether the former Massachusetts governor had a chance of winning the
nomination again.

“Thanks for reaching out. But I pretty much stay away from 2016
speculation,” Stevens wrote in an email.

Another senior adviser, Kevin Madden, said Romney has been clear that he is
not going to run.

“You have to measure the ‘circumstances can change’ comment against a much
larger body of instances where he said emphatically that he’s not going to
run again,” Madden said.

And of course, there are many hurdles Romney would have to face if he ran
again.

His favorability has not improved since the 2012 election, staying fairly
steady at 47 percent favorable and 43 percent unfavorable, in a February
Gallup poll.

The video of his infamous “47 percent” comments still exists, and he still
called for “self-deportation” for people in the country illegally, which
could be major problems in the general election, if not in the primary.

However, Hynes, the New Hampshire operative, argued some of the same
attacks, such as those over his business dealings at Bain Capital, would
not work in another election.

“I don’t think the Bain stuff plays a second time around,” Hynes said.
“Everybody knows who he is. We’re not going to find any new secrets about
his business record.”

How Obama fares in the rest of his second term could also color views of
Romney.

“Seems to me he's pretty clear that he doesn't intend to run, and if he
opened the door at all with his comment it was the tiniest sliver under the
most unlikely of circumstances,” David Kochel, senior adviser for Romney’s
2012 Iowa campaign, wrote in an email.

“That said, he'd make a great president, and I've believed that for a long
time now,” he added. “More Americans believe it too after seeing the
repeated failures of the current president.”

*Calendar:*

*Sec. Clinton's upcoming appearances as reported online. Not an official
schedule.*

·  August 28 – San Francisco, CA: Sec. Clinton keynotes Nexenta’s OpenSDx
Summit (BusinessWire
<http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20140702005709/en/Secretary-State-Hillary-Rodham-Clinton-Deliver-Keynote#.U7QoafldV8E>
)

·  September 4 – Las Vegas, NV: Sec. Clinton speaks at the National Clean
Energy Summit (Solar Novis Today
<http://www.solarnovus.com/hillary-rodham-clinto-to-deliver-keynote-at-national-clean-energy-summit-7-0_N7646.html>
)

·  September 9 – Washington, DC: Sec. Clinton fundraises for the DSCC at
her Washington home (DSCC
<https://d1ly3598e1hx6r.cloudfront.net/sites/dscc/files/uploads/9.9.14%20HRC%20Dinner.pdf>
)

·  September 14 – Indianola, IA: Sec. Clinton headlines Sen. Harkin’s Steak
Fry (LA Times
<http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/politicsnow/la-pn-tom-harkin-clinton-steak-fry-20140818-story.html>
)

·  September 19 – Washington, DC: Sec. Clinton fundraises for the DNC with
Pres. Obama (CNN
<http://edition.cnn.com/2014/08/27/politics/obama-clinton-dnc/index.html>)

·  October 2 – Miami Beach, FL: Sec. Clinton keynotes the CREW Network
Convention & Marketplace (CREW Network
<http://events.crewnetwork.org/2014convention/>)

·  October 13 – Las Vegas, NV: Sec. Clinton keynotes the UNLV Foundation
Annual Dinner (UNLV
<http://www.unlv.edu/event/unlv-foundation-annual-dinner?delta=0>)

·  October 14 – San Francisco, CA: Sec. Clinton keynotes
salesforce.com Dreamforce
conference (salesforce.com
<http://www.salesforce.com/dreamforce/DF14/highlights.jsp#tuesday>)

·  October 28 – San Francisco, CA: Sec. Clinton fundraises for House
Democratic women candidates with Nancy Pelosi (Politico
<http://www.politico.com/story/2014/08/hillary-clinton-nancy-pelosi-110387.html?hp=r7>
)

 ·  December 4 – Boston, MA: Sec. Clinton speaks at the Massachusetts
Conference for Women (MCFW <http://www.maconferenceforwomen.org/speakers/>)