Subject: Correct The Record Monday August 25, 2014 Afternoon Roundup
From: Burns Strider <[email-masked]>
To: CTRFriendsFamily <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 14:51:16 -0400
List-Id: <CTRFriendsFamily.americanbridge.org>

**

*Correct The Record Monday August 25, 2014 Afternoon Roundup:*

*Headlines:*

*Boston Globe: Poll: Mass. Democrats would back Clinton over Warren
<http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/08/25/mass-democrats-would-back-hillary-clinton-over-elizabeth-warren/ovPP3acnx3hxRTVFz9D4uK/story.html>*

“More than three times as many Massachusetts Democrats would vote for
Hillary Clinton if she ran for president in 2016 than would back the
state’s senior senator, Elizabeth Warren, according to a poll released
Monday by Suffolk University and The Boston Herald.”

*National Review: No, Hillary Doesn’t Need to Speak About Ferguson
<http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/386211/no-hillary-doesnt-need-speak-about-ferguson-charles-c-w-cooke>*

“If Hillary Clinton wishes to pronounce upon the topic, I’m sure she will.
If she doesn’t, then she doesn’t have to. Either way, there’s no particular
reason we need to hear her take. She’s not an elected official.”

*The Courier-Journal: Rand Paul labels Hillary Clinton a "war hawk"
<http://www.courier-journal.com/story/politics-blog/2014/08/25/rand-paul-calls-hillary-clinton-a-war-hawk-on-meet-the-press/14564239/>*

“’Senator Paul's foreign policy vision is to retreat from our
responsibilities abroad by ending all foreign aid to our allies – including
Israel,’ charged DNC spokesman Michael Czin.”

*CBS News: Few Americans identify as libertarian, survey finds
<http://www.cbsnews.com/news/few-americans-identify-as-libertarian-survey-finds/>*

“Paul over the weekend said derisively, 'Let the Democrats put forward a
war hawk like Hillary Clinton.' However, Pew found that as many as 43
percent of self-described libertarians think "it is best for the future of
our country to be active in world affairs.”

*Esquire blog: Things In Politico That Make Me Want To Guzzle Antifreeze,
Part The Infinity
<http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/Ghosts_Of_Bill_Clinton_Past>*

“Josh Gerstein, his prose shadowy and performed in the minor key of
innuendo and scandal, has a long piece about the "secret files" stashed at
the Clinton library down in darkest Arkansas, and if you find the general
theme of the piece familiar, you are not alone.”

*Mediaite: Sarah Palin Finally Does ‘That Ice Bucket Water Dump Thing’
<http://www.mediaite.com/online/sarah-palin-finally-does-that-ice-bucket-water-dump-thing/>*

“As for who Palin nominated, she chose former secretary of state Hillary
Clinton and “he whom she recently said is her favorite Republican” (burn),
John McCain.”

*Washington Post: Warren draft group continues ‘full steam ahead,’ despite
senator’s complaint
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/wp/2014/08/25/warren-draft-group-continues-full-steam-ahead-despite-senators-complaint/>*

“Well, Ready for Warren remains undeterred, despite Warren’s pretty clear
and public disavowal. Erica Sagrans, campaign manager for Ready for Warren,
says the Massachusetts is still their choice, and they will still carry on,
with all sorts of activities, including house parties.”

*The Hill: Bernie Sanders headed to Iowa
<http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/215890-bernie-sanders-headed-to-iowa>*

“Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.), an independent who caucuses with Democrats, is
planning a trip to Iowa next month at the same time Hillary Clinton will be
stumping in the battleground state.”

*CNN Money: Hillary Clinton Voted "Most Likely to be President" While Joe
Biden Voted "Class Clown" by Americans
<http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/prnewswire/NY96713.htm>*

•  Most Likely to Succeed: Hillary Clinton (15%) and Chris Christie/Rand
Paul/Elizabeth Warren (7%)

•  Most Likely to be President: Hillary Clinton (34%) and Chris
Christie/Marco Rubio (6%)

•  Most Popular: Hillary Clinton (13%) and Chris Christie (9%)

*Articles:*

*Boston Globe: Poll: Mass. Democrats would back Clinton over Warren
<http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/08/25/mass-democrats-would-back-hillary-clinton-over-elizabeth-warren/ovPP3acnx3hxRTVFz9D4uK/story.html>*

By Jim O’Sullivan

August 25, 2014

More than three times as many Massachusetts Democrats would vote for
Hillary Clinton if she ran for president in 2016 than would back the
state’s senior senator, Elizabeth Warren, according to a poll released
Monday by Suffolk University and The Boston Herald.

Clinton, the former secretary of state and first lady, would garner 55
percent of the vote among 400 Massachusetts Democrats likely to vote in
next month’s gubernatorial primary, while Warren -- who has repeatedly said
that she is not running for president -- would curry 17.25 percent. Vice
President Joe Biden drew just 7.75 percent of the vote. Warren would be the
second choice of 27 percent of those polled, while Biden would get almost
24 percent of the back-up vote.

Warren unseated former Republican senator Scott Brown in 2012, with a
winning margin of 8 percentage points. On the same ballot, President Obama
beat Mitt Romney, the state’s former governor, by 23 percentage points.
Warren has disavowed on multiple occasions interest in running for
president, but has not foreclosed entirely on the option.

The same poll shows Attorney General Martha Coakley leading the
gubernatorial primary with more than 42 percent of the vote, with Treasurer
Steve Grossman at 30 percent -- portraying a race significantly closer than
a series of public polls have showed. Coakley advisers have acknowledged
they expect the race to tighten as the Sept. 9 primary draws near and
Grossman’s on-air presence has outpaced Coakley’s.

Former federal health care administrator Don Berwick drew 16 percent of the
vote. More than 11 percent of voters were undecided. Asked how they would
vote if their preferred candidate loses in the primary, 26 percent of
voters said they were undecided, while 60 percent said they would back the
Democratic nominee.

Conducted Aug. 21 to Aug. 24 among 400 likely Democratic primary voters,
the poll carries an error margin of plus or minus 4.9 percent.

The Suffolk/Herald poll also quizzed 400 Republicans likely to vote in the
GOP primary. More than 70 percent said they planned to vote for venture
capitalist Charlie Baker over Tea Party-affiliated Mark Fisher, who
slightly more than 11 percent of the vote.

When asked to compare Baker to Romney, 44 percent said Romney was a better
statewide candidate. Less than 24 percent selected Baker.

By a smaller margin, less than 5 percentage points, Republican voters said
Brown was a better candidate than Baker.

The poll showed New Jersey governor Chris Christie, former Florida governor
Jeb Bush, Kentucky senator Rand Paul, and Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan,
the GOP’s 2012 vice presidential nominee, clustered atop the leaderboard of
the Massachusetts presidential primary. Each earned between 10 and 11
percent of the vote.

When the question was asked with Romney added to the list, 49 percent said
he would be their first choice, while all the other candidates plunged
below 8 percent.

*National Review: No, Hillary Doesn’t Need to Speak About Ferguson
<http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/386211/no-hillary-doesnt-need-speak-about-ferguson-charles-c-w-cooke>*

By Charles C. W. Cooke

August 25, 2014 10:53 a.m. EDT

In Politico, Maggie Haberman notes that Hillary Clinton has not yet
commented on the situation in Ferguson:

Hillary Clinton ignored reporters’ questions about the racial conflict in
Ferguson, Missouri, on Sunday at the end of a book-signing event in
Westhampton Beach, a vacation enclave near her rented summer house.

Clinton, the potential 2016 Democratic presidential hopeful who has been
vacationing in the Hamptons since the first full week of August, has not
yet commented on the situation in Ferguson, a suburb of St. Louis, where an
unarmed black teenager named Michael Brown was killed by a police officer
two weeks ago.

So what? As a general rule, we really do not need to hear from absolutely
everybody in the political class each and every time that something
dramatic happens. If Hillary Clinton wishes to pronounce upon the topic,
I’m sure she will. If she doesn’t, then she doesn’t have to. Either way,
there’s no particular reason we need to hear her take. She’s not an elected
official. She has no authority over Ferguson, Missouri. She has no more
information than anybody else. She is, for now at least, a citizen of the
United States. Nothing more, nothing less.

Now, it might be politically interesting that she has stayed silent.
Reticence, after all, is not a virtue that is typically associated with the
family. But one suspects that this is not why she is being urged to speak.
Instead, those doing the urging seem to want to add her voice to whatever
agenda they are trying to sell. Haberman writes:

The Rev. Al Sharpton, at a rally in Ferguson last weekend, pushed toward
the future, calling on all the 2016 potential candidates, including Clinton
and Republican Jeb Bush, to comment on the situation. Clinton is the clear
front-runner for the Democratic nomination.

This, frankly, is absurd. At the heart of the situation in Ferguson is a
question that neither Clinton nor Bush can possibly answer. That question:
“Was the killing of Michael Brown justified?” Neither Bush nor Clinton know
the answer to this. Indeed, they cannot possibly know the answer to this.
In consequence, asking them to pronounce upon the secondary issues is
downright silly. What, pray, can they say? They don’t know whether the
protests are justified or misplaced because they don’t know whether there
was any wrongdoing. Presumably neither of them is going to endorse rioting,
nor are they likely to defend some of the poor policing we have seen. Worse
still, anything either one of them were to say would immediately be taken
as an endorsement of one side or another — an endorsement that they cannot
and should not be making at this juncture. Let’s leave the post-mortems to
those involved.

*The Courier-Journal: Rand Paul labels Hillary Clinton a "war hawk"
<http://www.courier-journal.com/story/politics-blog/2014/08/25/rand-paul-calls-hillary-clinton-a-war-hawk-on-meet-the-press/14564239/>*

By James R. Carroll

August 25, 2014, 12:07 p.m. EDT

WASHINGTON - Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is continuing his unrelenting
criticism of former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, saying on
Sunday that she was "a war hawk" who could get the United States involved
in another Middle East conflict.

Paul appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press," interviewed while on his
humanitarian mission to Guatemala performing eye surgeries.

A possible 2016 Republican presidential candidate, Paul went after Clinton,
a possible 2016 Democratic presidential candidate.

"I think that's what scares the Democrats the most, is that in a general
election, were I to run, there's gonna be a lot of independents and even
some Democrats who say, 'You know what, we are tired of war. We're worried
that Hillary Clinton will get us involved in another Middle Eastern war,
because she's so gung-ho,'" Paul told NBC's Chris Jansing.

"If you wanna see a transformational election in our country, let the
Democrats put forward a war hawk like Hillary Clinton, and you'll see a
transformation like you've never seen," the Kentucky senator said.

Paul added that he believes "the American public is coming more and more to
where I am" on American engagement overseas.

The senator also discussed the shooting of an unarmed black teenager in
Ferguson, Mo., that touched off days of protests and unrest, as well as a
military-style response from area police.

Paul has been calling for an overhaul of drug laws and sentencing, saying
that the legal system is disenfranchising minorities far more than whites
and is hurting the ability of those who commit non-violent crimes from
getting jobs.

"Let's say none of this has to do with race," Paul said of the Ferguson
situation. "It might not, but the belief-- if you're African American and
you live in Ferguson, the belief is, you see people in prison and they're
mostly black and brown, that somehow it is racial, even if the thoughts
that were going on at that time had nothing to do with race."

"So it's a very good chance that had this had nothing to do with race, but
because of all of the arrest and the...way people were arrested, that
everybody perceives it as, 'My goodness, the police are out to get us,' you
know? And so that's why you have to change the whole war on drugs. It's not
just this one instance," he said.

"And I don't know what happened during the shooting, so I'm not gonna make
a judgment on the shooting. But I do know what's happening, as far as that
you look at who's in our prisons," Paul said.

But the senator himself came under fire from Michael Gerson, a former
speechwriter for President George W. Bush and now a Washington Post
columnist.

Gerson said on "Meet the Press" that "it is wonderful, what he's doing" in
Guatemala performing eye surgeries for the poor.

"But he's a senator, and a possible presidential candidate, and his policy
views matter," Gerson said.

"He's called for the gradual elimination of all foreign aid. Now, I've seen
its effect in sub-Saharan Africa and other places. This would cause misery
for millions of people on AIDS treatment. It would betray hundreds of
thousands of children receiving, you know, malaria treatment," Gerson said.

"These are things that you can't ignore in a presidential candidate," he
added. "This is a perfect case of how a person can have good intentions but
how an ideology can cause terrible misery. He will need to explain that.
This is his policy views."

The Democratic National Committee, which is responding to Paul just about
every time he makes a public statement, pounced on the senator's criticism
of Clinton.

"Senator Paul's foreign policy vision is to retreat from our
responsibilities abroad by ending all foreign aid to our allies – including
Israel," charged DNC spokesman Michael Czin. "That's the vision he's laid
out and defended time and time again...If Senator Paul wants to have a
debate between his fringe, isolationist vision and that of Democrats who
have restored our credibility around the world and brought countless
service members safely home, that's a debate we're eager to have."

*CBS News: Few Americans identify as libertarian, survey finds
<http://www.cbsnews.com/news/few-americans-identify-as-libertarian-survey-finds/>*

By Stephanie Condon

August 25, 2014, 12:37 p.m. EDT

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., appears to be a competitive contender for the 2016
GOP presidential nomination, but few Americans identify with his political
ideology, according to a new survey.

Only 14 percent of Americans identify as libertarian, according to new Pew
Research Center data. Fewer, just 11 percent, identify as libertarian and
also correctly define the term as "someone whose political views emphasize
individual freedom by limiting the role of government."

Additionally, Pew found that self-described libertarians do not always
subscribe to libertarian views. For instance, libertarianism is often
associated with non-interventionist foreign policy beliefs. Paul over the
weekend said derisively, "Let the Democrats put forward a war hawk like
Hillary Clinton." However, Pew found that as many as 43 percent of
self-described libertarians think "it is best for the future of our country
to be active in world affairs." By comparison, just 35 percent of the
general public said the same.

In other areas, the views held by self-described libertarians were more in
line with typical libertarian believes. As many as 82 percent say
"Americans shouldn't have to give up privacy and freedom in order to be
safe from terrorism." Nearly three-quarters of the general public said the
same thing.

Additionally, more self-described libertarians (56 percent) than the public
overall (47 percent) say government regulation of business does more harm
than good. Self-described libertarians are also more likely than the
general public to disapprove of social safety-net programs and more likely
to support legalizing marijuana.

Pew found that men were twice as likely as women (15 percent compared with
7 percent) to identify as libertarian, while college graduates (15 percent)
were more likely to identify as libertarian than those with just a high
school education (7 percent).

While just 6 percent of Democrats identified as libertarian, 14 percent of
independents and 12 percent of Republicans did so.

Pew's data comes from its political typology and polarization survey
conducted earlier this year, as well as a recent survey of a subset of
those respondents, conducted April 29-May 27 among 3,243 adults.

*Esquire blog: Things In Politico That Make Me Want To Guzzle Antifreeze,
Part The Infinity
<http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/Ghosts_Of_Bill_Clinton_Past>*

By Charles P. Pierce

August 25, 2014

[Subtitle:] Hello, and welcome back to Mena Airport.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

Don't say I didn't tell you that, as soon as Hillary Clinton drifted
anywhere within an area code of running for president, all the
pre-fabricated skeletons would come waltzing out of the closets. Don't say
I didn't caution of the danger inherent in having an entire generation of
political reporters the formative political events of which was the
constant pursuit of former president Clinton by an incredible posse of
grifters, legal highwaymen, Arkansas bunco artists, oppo outlaws, and
political opportunists. (Hi there, Joe Scarborough!) Is this my horn which
I see before me, the handle toward my hand? Come, let me toot thee.

This brings us back to the bait shop in Arkansas. It would be a capital
mistake to believe that Ms. Clinton's years as a senator, and as a
presidential candidate, and as secretary of state - to say nothing of the
postpresidential popularity of her husband - have somehow put all the
ghosts of the 1990s to rest. The political climate is even wilder now, the
political conversation, in many quarters, even further detached from
reality than it was when Rush Limbaugh openly passed along a report that
Vince Foster had died in some Washington pied-à-terre, only to have his
body moved to Fort Marcy Park. There are thousands of little Limbaughs now,
on the radio and on the Internet. A lot of mainstream political journalism
is being practiced by young people whose formative lessons in the business
were not Woodward and Bernstein chasing down lead after futile lead, but
rather Matt Drudge ruling the world in the 1990s, with all the elite press
chasing after him. I would like to believe we all have learned as much as
we've needed to learn from that incredible decade of enabled slander. I
also would like to believe in unicorns.

Still think I was overreacting? Get a gander at Tiger Beat On The Potomac
this morning. Josh Gerstein, his prose shadowy and performed in the minor
key of innuendo and scandal, has a long piece about the "secret files"
stashed at the Clinton library down in darkest Arkansas, and if you find
the general theme of the piece familiar, you are not alone. For more than
20 years, people have treated the Clintons as though they were a subject
for one of those History 2 specials on the Templars, or something to be
discussed by...The Most Awesome Man On Television.

Secrets Of The Clinton Library.

Bwah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah!

There's the usual boilerplate about "transparency" and our Right To Know,
but Gerstein wastes little time getting himself a seat around the fire at
Parker Dozhier's bait shoppe, and he has some tales to tell in the
firelight. Pass that jug over here, Billy Ray.

The pardon feeding frenzy: The last-minute pardon of billionaire financier
Marc Rich became one of the most infamous moments of Clinton's presidency,
sullying the president's reputation as he walked out the door. Less
well-known or remembered is the feeding frenzy of clemency applications
that flowed into the White House in the weeks before Clinton left office.
The list of individuals relaying pardon requests is a who's who of
prominent Democratic Party figures.

Yeah, and your point is? I hate to keep bringing this up, but the
president's power to pardon is absolute -- so, naturally, a lot of people
who know him are going to press their personal cases on him. Even if
Clinton's reputation was "sullied," as though that were ever a concern of
the people who howled about the Rich pardon, so what?

Many of the requests are already public. What's set to emerge in the coming
weeks are the recommendations Clinton got from the Justice Department and
his own staffers, including the pros and cons of the most sensitive pardons.

White House staffers may have disagreed? Glorioski, what was wrong with
those Clintons anyway?

3) Vince Foster: The Clinton Library has never released its key files on
the death of Vince Foster, a White House attorney and former law partner of
Hillary Clinton. Foster killed himself in July 1993 as he was handling
various controversies that enmeshed the Clintons in their early months at
the White House. The event was emotionally scarring for many in the
Clintons' circle and fueled numerous conspiracy theories.

Oh, dear Jesus, can we not go there again? The poor man killed himself in
Fort Marcy Park and, in his suicide note, specifically denounced the Wall
Street Journal under crazoid Bob Bartley, and the Washington press corps
generally, for their tendency to "destroy people for sport." His corpse was
then used by horrible people -- like Rush Limbaugh, and Aqua Buddha's new
pal, David Bossie -- to flog conspiracy theories as a way of throwing sand
in the gears of a Democratic administration. It was the single most
indecent act of ratfking in my memory. And now, apparently, it's back.

At the time of Foster's death, he was deeply involved in responding to a
lawsuit filed against Clinton's Health Care Task Force. One previously
secret document is listed this way in Clinton Library files: "Photcopy
[sic] Note from Vincent Foster to Hillary Rodham Clinton [Re: Health Care
Task Force lawsuit] (1 page)." Of the half-dozen other handwritten notes
Foster saved, several are set for release, but - fueling unending
conspiracy theories - several of his other writings are still slated to be
withheld on privacy grounds. National Archives and Records Administration
records obtained by POLITICO also indicate the forthcoming files include
"White House personnel opinions on what to do about disclosure" relating to
the Foster saga as well as legal memos about strategies to fight Freedom of
Information Act requests seeking White House records about Foster's death.

Just fking shut up, OK, and let the man rest.

6) White House Travel Office affair.

Oh, come on. Really?

Earlier, public statements by the White House downplayed Hillary's role,
but the White House's full records on the controversy - including legal
advice on how to respond to questions about the first lady's actions - have
never been made public. About 2,000 pages of records were withheld from an
investigating congressional committee on executive privilege grounds. Now,
many of those records are set for release.

Neighbor, how stands the Republic?

And then, of course, the big finish.

7) Whitewater: Notably absent from the recent Clinton Library releases: any
of the more than 56,000 pages the White House maintained on the Clintons'
Whitewater land deal and the years of investigations it gave rise to.

All of which came to absolutely nothing.

It's too early in the day for this much whiskey.

*Mediaite: Sarah Palin Finally Does ‘That Ice Bucket Water Dump Thing’
<http://www.mediaite.com/online/sarah-palin-finally-does-that-ice-bucket-water-dump-thing/>*

By Matt Wilstein

August 25th, 2014 11:20 a.m. EDT

You would have thought Sarah Palin would have jumped on this bandwagon ages
ago. But it wasn’t until this weekend that the former governor of Alaska
and current media mogul decided to get in on the summer’s biggest viral
trend after getting nominated by Wasilla Arctic Cat, which makes the
snowmobiles her family loves so much.

“At this stage of my life, of my career, aren’t I a little too prim and
proper for all that ice bucket water dump thing?” Palin asked.

Palin took a page out of Patrick Stewart’s book, putting the emphasis on
the check she was writing (and bragging about doubling the required
amount), then using the ice to make drink (Diet Dr. Pepper instead of
scotch). But don’t worry, thanks to someone off-camera, you still get to
see Palin scream in agony as cold water is abruptly poured over her head,
possibly ruining the whopping $200 check she had just finished writing.

As for who Palin nominated, she chose former secretary of state Hillary
Clinton and “he whom she recently said is her favorite Republican” (burn),
John McCain.

[Video]

*Washington Post: Warren draft group continues ‘full steam ahead,’ despite
senator’s complaint
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/wp/2014/08/25/warren-draft-group-continues-full-steam-ahead-despite-senators-complaint/>*

By Nia-Malika Henderson

August 25 at 12:44 p.m. EDT

Normally, when a draft movement crops up for a potential presidential
candidate, there is a kind of tacit support and agreement between the
would-be candidate and the group,which technically and legally can’t
coordinate with a the would-be candidate. That’s the case with Hillary
Rodham Clinton and Ready for Hillary, a group that has raised millions of
dollars, gathered reams of information on voters and is basically
considered to be Clinton’s 2016 campaign-in-waiting.

Well, things are very different for Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who
progressives really want to draft her for a 2016 presidential run.

Warren, time and time again, has said she has no intention to run.
Progressives don’t care, so they’ve formed Ready for Warren.  But if she’s
not running, what’s the point of Ready for Warren? That’s what Warren wants
to know.

In a letter to the Federal Election Commission dated Aug. 22, Warren,
through her attorneys, again states that there is no Warren 2016.  And to
the group that really hopes she’ll change her mind, she (her lawyers)
essentially says: knock it off.

The Senator has not, and does not, explicitly or implicitly, authorize,
endorse, or otherwise approve of the organization’s formation or
activities.  To the contrary, Senator Warren has publicly announced that
she is not running for President in 2016.  Instead, the Senator hopes this
organization will focus its attention and energy on maintaining Democratic
control of the US Senate and not confuse donors about a non-existent run
for President.

Sounds pretty clear, right?

Well, Ready for Warren remains undeterred, despite Warren’s pretty clear
and public disavowal. Erica Sagrans, campaign manager for Ready for Warren,
says the Massachusetts is still their choice, and they will still carry on,
with all sorts of activities, including house parties.

We will continue full steam ahead with our campaign to draft Senator Warren
to run for president in 2016, because we believe she is the best person for
the job. Senator Warren has devoted her life to fighting for working
families, and is one of the few politicians willing to take on Wall Street
and champion policies that give all Americans a fair shot.

We completely agree with Senator Warren that maintaining Democratic control
of the Senate in 2014 must be a top priority leading up to November.

Sagrans, in a comment to She the People, said: “When she ran for Senate, it
wasn’t her plan. But when she saw that she had a chance to run for Senate
and saw that she could make a difference in that role, she decided to do it
and the same thing could happen here.”

Basically, we’re at square one.  Warren says she isn’t running. Again.
Ready for Warren says they really want her to run.

Here’s the thing about draft movements. They often don’t produce very good
candidates for president. Remember Wesley Clarke? How about that effort to
draft Colin Powell? Didn’t exactly work.

You have to go back to Dwight D. Eisenhower, a military man, who was buoyed
by an army of organizers and elected officials who propelled him to the
White House in 1952. Running for president is about policies, but it’s also
about personality.  It’s about being a good candidate (being good on
television and good at giving speeches and debating helps out with that.)

But to put themselves through a grueling years long process of running,
candidates have to have a burning desire to actually run for president and
to be the president. Warren doesn’t seem to have that. At least not yet.
Maybe Ready for Warren, a group she doesn’t approve of can convince her
otherwise. But beyond that, there’s still a question of whether she would
make a good candidate for president in that backslapping, kissing babies
sort of way.

*The Hill: Bernie Sanders headed to Iowa
<http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/215890-bernie-sanders-headed-to-iowa>*

By Alexander Bolton

August 25, 2014, 1:01 p.m. EDT

Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.), an independent who caucuses with Democrats, is
planning a trip to Iowa next month at the same time Hillary Clinton will be
stumping in the battleground state.

Sanders announced Monday that he will attend a series of town-hall meetings
on Sept. 13 and 14 in Iowa, which will host the first contest of the 2016
presidential primary.

Clinton, the early front-runner in the 2016 Democratic primary, will be in
Iowa the same weekend as Sanders. She plans to attend Sen. Tom Harkin’s
(D-Iowa) annual steak fry.

Sanders has flirted with the idea of running for president, saying he would
consider a campaign if no credible alternative on the left emerged to take
on Clinton. He’s also said Democrats should not anoint Clinton as their
candidate.

And Iowa isn’t the only early-voting state Sanders is visiting.

He will travel this week to South Carolina, an important early primary
state, to speak in Columbia at an event sponsored by Progressive Voters of
America, South Forward and South Carolina Progressive Network.

Sanders also will attend the Fighting Bob Fest, an annual gathering of
progressives in Wisconsin, on Sep. 12 and 13. The event is named after the
late progressive stalwart Sen. Bob La Follette (R-Wis.).

An announcement issued by Sanders’s political operation stated that Sanders
will be in Iowa Sept. 12 and 13, but a senior Sanders aide said his boss
would be there Sept. 13 and 14, instead.

*CNN Money: Hillary Clinton Voted "Most Likely to be President" While Joe
Biden Voted "Class Clown" by Americans
<http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/prnewswire/NY96713.htm>*

[No author mentioned]

August 25, 2014 1:00 p.m. EDT

 [Subtitle:] Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton are the presidents Americans
would most want to have as a high school teacher; Barack Obama the one
Americans would never want to have

NEW YORK, Aug. 25, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- As President Obama continues to
deal with a number of crises, criticism over his vacation and his job
ratings also continue to drift downward. This month, almost one-third of
Americans (32%) give the President positive ratings for the overall job he
is doing, while almost seven in ten (68%) give him negative ratings. This
is down from last month, when 34% gave him positive ratings and 66% gave
him negative marks; this is the second time this year (January being the
other) that his ratings have been this low.

These are some of the results of The Harris Poll® of 2,537 adults surveyed
online between August 13 and 18, 2014. (Full results, including data
tables, available here
<http://www.harrisinteractive.com/NewsRoom/HarrisPolls/tabid/447/ctl/ReadCustom%20Default/mid/1508/ArticleId/1484/Default.aspx>
)

After hitting a "high" mark for the past two years in June with a positive
rating of 10%, Congress also drifts downward. Last month 9% of Americans
gave them positive ratings and this month 8% do so, while 92% of Americans
give them negative marks on the overall job they are doing. Looking at the
country as a whole, one-third of Americans (32%) say things are going in
the right direction in the country, while almost seven in ten (68%) say
things have gotten off on the wrong track. Last month, three in ten (31%)
said things were going in the right direction, while seven in ten (69%)
said things were going off on the wrong track.

If Washington was like a high school yearbook

As kids around the country go back to school, it is interesting to look at
some visible politicians in Washington and around the country and harken
back to those high school yearbook lists. There was that one person who was
class clown and another who was voted most likely to be President. Well,
when given a list of 12 politicians, here is how Americans would vote (top
two for each category shown):

 ·         Class Clown: Joe Biden (21%) and Chris Christie (14%)

 ·         Most Likely to Succeed: Hillary Clinton (15%) and Chris
Christie/Rand Paul/Elizabeth Warren (7%)

 ·         Teacher's Pet: Joe Biden/Nancy Pelosi/Hillary Clinton (9%) and
Harry Reid (7%)

 ·         Best Hair: Marco Rubio/Elizabeth Warren (8%) and Nancy Pelosi
(7%)

 ·         Most Likely to be President: Hillary Clinton (34%) and Chris
Christie/Marco Rubio (6%)

 ·         Most Annoying: Nancy Pelosi (19%) and John Boehner (11%)

 ·         Most Popular: Hillary Clinton (13%) and Chris Christie (9%)

Presidents as High School Teachers

While many U.S. Presidents taught law and at the college level, John Adams,
Millard Fillmore, James Garfield and Chester Arthur taught at the primary
and secondary levels as well. So, what if recent U.S. Presidents were high
school teachers? Are there ones people wish they could have had as a
teacher and ones they never would have wanted to have? Over one-third of
Americans (37%) say they wish they could have had Ronald Reagan as a
teacher, while one-quarter (26%) wish they could have had Bill Clinton.
Just over one in ten wish they could have had Barack Obama (13%) and Jimmy
Carter (12%), while under one in ten wish they could have had George H.W.
Bush (6%) and George W. Bush (5%).

On the other side, two in five Americans (40%) say they would never want to
have had Barack Obama as a teacher, while three in ten (30%) say they same
about George W. Bush. One in ten (10%) say they would not have wanted to
have George H.W. Bush as a teacher, while less than one in ten say that
about Ronald Reagan (7%), Jimmy Carter (7%) and Bill Clinton (6%).

To see how all the politicians stacked up for the high school yearbook
questions as well as other recent Harris Polls, please visit the Harris
Poll News Room.

Methodology

This Harris Poll was conducted online within the United States between
August 13 and 18, 2014 among 2,537 adults (aged 18 and over). Figures for
age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, region and household income were
weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual
proportions in the population. Propensity score weighting was also used to
adjust for respondents' propensity to be online.

All sample surveys and polls, whether or not they use probability sampling,
are subject to multiple sources of error which are most often not possible
to quantify or estimate, including sampling error, coverage error, error
associated with nonresponse, error associated with question wording and
response options, and post-survey weighting and adjustments. Therefore, The
Harris Poll avoids the words "margin of error" as they are misleading. All
that can be calculated are different possible sampling errors with
different probabilities for pure, unweighted, random samples with 100%
response rates. These are only theoretical because no published polls come
close to this ideal.

Respondents for this survey were selected from among those who have agreed
to participate in Harris Poll surveys. The data have been weighted to
reflect the composition of the adult population. Because the sample is
based on those who agreed to participate in our panel, no estimates of
theoretical sampling error can be calculated.

These statements conform to the principles of disclosure of the National
Council on Public Polls.