Subject: Correct the Record Saturday July 12, 2014 Roundup
From: Burns Strider <[email-masked]>
To: CTRFriendsFamily <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2014 15:22:50 -0400
List-Id: <CTRFriendsFamily.americanbridge.org>

**

*Correct the Record Saturday July 12, 2014 Roundup:*

*Headlines:*

*Will Republicans Stand by the Benghazi 'Stand-Down Order' Conspiracy?*
<http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/will-republicans-stand-by-the-benghazi-stand-down-order-conspiracy-20140711>

“The White House is pleased with the news, because it backs up the view
that the military's decision to remain in Tripoli and protect Embassy
personnel there, rather than fly to Benghazi after all the Americans had
already been evacuated, made a whole lot of sense. What's more, it makes
GOP Rep. Darrell Issa, who has suggested Hillary Clinton personally gave
this alleged conspiratorial ‘stand-down order,’ look particularly silly.
(As secretary of State at the time, Clinton wasn't even in the chain of
military command.)

But it isn't just Issa and pundits on Fox News who've bolstered this
theory. It's also been promoted by serious-minded Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C.,
chairman of the somewhat newly minted select committee investigating
Benghazi, along with the majority of Republicans serving on it.”

*AP: WHAT THE MILITARY DID WHILE BENGHAZI POST BURNED*
<http://bigstory.ap.org/article/what-military-did-while-benghazi-post-burned>

“The nine officers shed light on the nature of the attacks; speculation
that the military was ordered to ‘stand down’ from helping Americans;
suggestions that the U.S. should have rushed jets or a special operations
team to Benghazi; and early misperceptions that the attack began as a
protest over an anti-Islam video.”

*Clinton's Potential 2016 Rival: We Can't 'Send Children Back to Death'
<http://time.com/2978026/martin-omalley-minors-immigration/>*

“Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley broke publicly with President Barack Obama
and former Secretary of State Hillary ClintonFriday, calling for a more
humane policy toward the tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors who have
illegally crossed into the United States.”

*Rubio: I can beat Hillary*
<http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/212038-rubio-i-can-beat-hillary>

“‘I'd ask her: You were the secretary of State during the first four years
of the Obama administration, name one significant foreign policy
achievement, now or after you left?’, [Rubio] said.”

*CBS News: Hillary Clinton’s book sales barely edging out Ben Carson's*
<http://www.cbsnews.com/news/hillary-clintons-book-sales-barely-edging-out-ben-carsons/>

“Despite the hubbub surrounding the release last month of Hillary Clinton's
memoir ‘Hard Choices,’ new data shows it's barely edging out Ben Carson's
‘One Nation’ in book sales. Nielsen Bookscan figures provided to CBS News
for the week ending July 6 show the former secretary of state clocking in
at 177,000 copies sold; Carson has sold 162,000 copies.”

*Huffington Post Blog: How the Republicans Could -- But Won't -- Beat
Hillary Clinton in 2016*
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lincoln-mitchell/how-the-republicans-could_b_5578635.html>

“The most obvious way to neutralize this advantage is for the Republicans
to nominate a woman for president. Nominating a woman for president is
something very different from finding a previously obscure female
politician, putting her on the ticket at the last minute and hoping for the
best. This is what John McCain did in 2008 and what the Republican nominee,
whoever he is, will likely do in 2016. This strategy will not work against
a Democratic ticket that will be led by a woman, particularly a woman with
the experience and appeal of Hillary Clinton.”

*Clinton takes hit in NH poll, but still leads Dems*
<http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/211939-clinton-ahead-in-nh-but-lead-narrowing>

A Granite State/WMUR poll released Thursday found 59 percent of Democratic
voters there prefer Clinton over other party contenders. That number stood
at 74 percent in January, a drop that reflected in other recent polling.

*Articles:*

*Will Republicans Stand by the Benghazi 'Stand-Down Order' Conspiracy?*
<http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/will-republicans-stand-by-the-benghazi-stand-down-order-conspiracy-20140711>

Lucia Graves

July 11, 2012

One of the many threads in the tapestry of Benghazi conspiracy theories is
the contention that, faced with a terrorist attack on the U.S. Consulate
there, the American military didn't do what it could have to save lives.
Specifically, that a "stand-down order" was issued from on high that
prevented the use of military assets that could have saved the four
Americans who died the night of Sept. 11, 2012.

But hours of transcribed interviews with nine military leaders, conducted
by the House Armed Services and Oversight and Government Reform
committees—and made public for the first time Wednesday night—have yielded
some news. Namely, that this contention appears to be a bunch of hooey,
according to a close examination by the Associated Press.

"The senior military officer who issued the instruction to 'remain in
place' and the detachment leader who received it said it was the right
decision and has been widely mischaracterized," the report found. (More
details about why that's the case are laid out nicely in the AP's report.)

The White House is pleased with the news, because it backs up the view that
the military's decision to remain in Tripoli and protect Embassy personnel
there, rather than fly to Benghazi after all the Americans had already been
evacuated, made a whole lot of sense. What's more, it makes GOP Rep.
Darrell Issa, who has suggested Hillary Clinton personally gave this
alleged conspiratorial "stand-down order," look particularly silly. (As
secretary of State at the time, Clinton wasn't even in the chain of
military command.)

But it isn't just Issa and pundits on Fox News who've bolstered this
theory. It's also been promoted by serious-minded Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C.,
chairman of the somewhat newly minted select committee investigating
Benghazi, along with the majority of Republicans serving on it.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah, who has discussed the "stand-down order" as if
it were fact, is perhaps the most pronounced example of this. "We had
proximity, we had capability, we had four individuals in Libya armed, ready
to go, dressed, about to get into the car to go in the airport to go help
their fellow countrymen who were dying and being killed and under attack in
Benghazi, and they were told to stand down," Chaffetz said over a year ago.
"That's as sickening and depressing and disgusting as anything I have seen.
That is not the American way."

Politifact rated that claim as patently false in May of 2013.

But it didn't stop Gowdy, who has been praised by House Speaker John
Boehner for his "zeal for the truth," from alluding, albeit more
cryptically, to the same unsupported points later that same month. "I think
I'm asked about [Benghazi] because it kind of involves what we believe
about our Republic," he explained in an interview with the Daily Caller,
"which is that we're not gonna send anybody into harms way, under our flag
without adequate protection, and if they get in trouble we are gonna go get
'em. We're gonna save 'em. Or at least we're gonna make a heck of an effort
to do it. So Benghazi kinda undercuts that."

And it didn't stop Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kansas, from suggesting to Hugh
Hewitt that the military "had the opportunity" to take action, but didn't.
Nor did it discourage Republican Rep. Peter Roskam of Illinois from
suggesting in a press release that the military was up to something fishy.

"We all want to believe that our government would do everything to come to
the aid of Americans under threat abroad," said Roskam, before
transitioning to why he couldn't.

Another member of the Benghazi select committee, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio,
suggested that during the attack, there was little effort to fight back,
according to The Columbus Dispatch. "Why weren't we running to the sound of
the guns?" he asked.

Never mind that a House Armed Services subcommittee report from several
months earlier had  found there was no way the U.S. military could have
responded in time to save the four Americans killed in Benghazi. GOP Rep.
Martha Roby of Alabama still delivered the subcommittee's report—which, by
the way, also found that no "stand-down order" was issued—with a hint of
conspiracy. "We did a very thorough job," she told the Montgomery
Advertiser, "but we did leave the door open when we said this was an
interim report and that if information surfaced that there were others we
needed to talk to, we would."

Asking whether these new military testimonies (which largely just confirm
what's been found previously) will change these Republicans' rhetoric feels
something akin to asking what it takes to end a conspiracy theory. A better
conspiracy, perhaps?

*AP: WHAT THE MILITARY DID WHILE BENGHAZI POST BURNED*
<http://bigstory.ap.org/article/what-military-did-while-benghazi-post-burned>

By Connie Cass

July 12, 2014, 9:41 AM

One by one, behind closed doors, military officers explained what they did
and didn't do the night the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, burned.

Together their 30 hours of testimony to congressional investigators gives
the fullest account yet of the military's response to the surprise attacks
that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans the night of
Sept. 11, 2012, and early the next morning.

Transcripts of the interviews, with some names and classified information
blacked out, were released Wednesday

The nine officers, including retired Gen. Carter Ham, then the head of the
military's U.S. Africa Command, described making on-the-fly decisions with
only sparse information about the crisis unfolding at a diplomatic post and
the nearby CIA compound.

None of them was in Benghazi. The closest? Some were 600 miles away in
Tripoli, the Libyan capital; others gave orders from command headquarters
in Germany or Washington.

They did not witness what went on in the White House or at the State
Department. Ex-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, former Defense
Secretary Leon Panetta and others have testified about Benghazi. More
hearings are coming.

The nine officers shed light on the nature of the attacks; speculation that
the military was ordered to "stand down" from helping Americans;
suggestions that the U.S. should have rushed jets or a special operations
team to Benghazi; and early misperceptions that the attack began as a
protest over an anti-Islam video.

Some lingering questions about the Benghazi attacks and what the officers
told the House Armed Services Committee and the House Oversight and
Government Reform Committee this year:

DID MILITARY LEADERS INITIALLY BELIEVE THE TROUBLE RESULTED FROM A STREET
PROTEST?

Some heard that, some didn't; nothing was clear about events on the ground
at first.

One of the earliest reports came from Ambassador Chris Stevens, who told
his deputy in a phone call cut short: "We're under attack."

"We started calling it an attack from inception," said Army Lt. Col. S.E.
Gibson, who was at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli. "We never referred to it as
anything else."

Another military official in Tripoli, whose name was withheld, said he
wasn't sure how to interpret that word — "attack" — at first.

He had heard about protesters who scaled the walls of the U.S. Embassy in
Cairo earlier that night. "It could be, you know, vandals are attacking,"
he said.

Retired Vice Adm. Charles "Joe" Leidig Jr., deputy commander of AFRICOM,
said he was awoken in the night at his headquarters in Germany with word
that "there had been protesters, and they had overrun the facility in
Benghazi."

But Ham, who was alerted while visiting the Pentagon, said he heard no
mention of protesters.

So he's sure he didn't pass on anything like that when he informed Panetta
and Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, of the
attack. Dempsey and Panetta personally took word to President Barack Obama
at the White House.

Speaking for the Obama administration, then-U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice
appeared on Sunday talk shows five days later and suggested the attacks
were born from regional protests against an anti-Islamic video. The
administration later recanted that position but never thoroughly
articulated what they believe happened. Republicans say Obama soft-pedaled
a terrorist attack to protect his re-election.

Over the two days when the attacks were occurring, there was "very, very
little discussion that I can recall about why did this happen." Ham said.
"There just wasn't time for that, frankly."

WAS A FOUR-MAN TEAM HEADED FOR BENGHAZI ORDERED TO STAND DOWN?

Technically, no, the team was not ordered, as some have asserted, to stand
by as militants attacked Americans 600 miles away. But they were told not
to go to Benghazi and instead to stay and protect personnel in Tripoli. In
hindsight, the attacks were over by then, anyway.

The special operations officer leading that team and the commander who gave
him the order both told investigators that it was the right decision.

The team, led by Gibson, was in Tripoli to help train Libyan special
forces. When the Benghazi attack began, Gibson's first duty was to protect
the embassy in Tripoli amid fears that it also would be targeted. He helped
evacuate the staff to a classified, more-secure location. Once he felt they
were safe on the morning of Sept. 12, Gibson was ready to rush to Benghazi
to help.

One Libyan plane carrying a six-man U.S. security team already had taken
off. Gibson wanted his group on the second chartered flight. He called the
special operations command center for Africa to say they were heading to
the airport.

He was told, "Don't go. Don't get on that plane."

"Initially, I was angry," he recalled. "Because a tactical commander
doesn't like to have those decisions taken away from him. But then once I
digested it a little bit, then I realized, OK, maybe there was something
going on. Maybe I'm needed here for something else."

Rear Adm. Brian Losey, who gave the order, said he needed Gibson's team in
Tripoli in case trouble started there.

Although some Republican lawmakers have suggested the team might have
helped repel attackers in Benghazi, their flight would have arrived after
the final assault that killed two CIA contractors.

Losey dismissed the notion that the foursome could have been much help in
Benghazi, where Americans already were moving to the airfield for
evacuation with the aid of Libyan forces and the U.S. security team from
the first plane. Losey noted that Gibson's group consisted of a
communications specialist, a medic and a weapons operator with his foot in
a cast.

"That's not a security team," Losey said. Sending them in "didn't make a
lot of sense."

Gibson said if his group had flown to Benghazi, their flight would have
crossed paths with the first plane as it returned bearing wounded
Americans. Because they stayed, his medic was there to meet two seriously
injured people at the Tripoli airport. The medic is credited with saving
one's life.

RIGHT OR WRONG, WASN'T THAT AN ORDER TO "STAND DOWN"?

Not according to Losey and Gibson.

Civilians might say that Losey ordered Gibson to stand down from his race
to the scene. But Losey and Gibson say in their military parlance, standing
down means ceasing operations.

"It was not a stand-down order," Gibson said. "It was not, 'Hey, time for
everybody to go to bed.' It was, you know, 'Don't go. Don't get on that
plane. Remain in place.'"

"It was never an order to stand down," Losey said. "It was an order to
remain in place and continue to provide your security role in Tripoli."

DID CLINTON GIVE A "STAND DOWN" ORDER, AS SOME REPUBLICANS HAVE THEORIZED?

"No," said Losey.

"I never received any orders from the secretary of state or heard of any
orders from the secretary of state," said Leidig, also based in Stuttgart,
Germany.

"No," said Ham, who commanded the Africa operations. "And we would not
receive direct communications from the secretary of state."

Ham said no one else ordered him to stand down, either, and no one tried to
stop him from helping the Americans in Benghazi any way he could.

"The conversation really was more along lines of, you know, 'What do you
need? What can we do?'" he said. "And every request for forces that I asked
of the secretary of defense was approved."

WHAT DID THE MILITARY DO TO HELP?

Following the first report of trouble about 9:40 p.m. local time on Sept. 11,
officials began looking for military planes that could head to Benghazi for
evacuations. None would be available for hours.

An unmanned drone already in Libya was quickly sent to survey the situation
at the diplomatic post. Nighttime darkness limited its usefulness.

Two military members — both from Special Forces — were in the six-man team
that flew from Tripoli to Benghazi aroundmidnight and aided with the
defense and evacuation of the CIA base.

An Air Force C-17 transport plane flew the Benghazi evacuees from Tripoli
to Germany the night of Sept. 12, about 24 hours after the attacks began.

A U.S. anti-terror team sent from Spain arrived in Tripoli after the
evacuees had gone.

Two military teams — one in Croatia and the other in the U.S. — prepared to
go but, as the situation changed, weren't brought to Libya. They would have
arrived too late.

Not until the morning of Sept. 12 was the 31st Fighter Wing in Aviano,
Italy, ordered to get four F-16 jets and four pilots ready to respond if
needed. The call to Benghazi never came.

WHY DIDN'T THEY SCRAMBLE THE F-16 FIGHTERS?

Military leaders decided early on that jets armed with 500-pound bombs were
unsuited for the chaotic crisis in an urban area.

"Ultimately, it was my decision that said no, not the right response in
this circumstance," Ham said.

He didn't have anyone on the ground to provide target information for
airstrikes. He didn't want to harm innocent people or risk inflaming more
Libyans to join the attack. He believed some militants had missiles capable
of downing a plane.

"Had I made a different decision, had strike aircraft deployed, we don't
really know what the outcome would have been," Ham said. "Maybe it would
have been positive, but maybe it would have got shot down. Maybe it would
have killed civilians."

Brig. Gen. Scott Zobrist, then the wing commander at Aviano, had similar
worries. He said that, even if called right away, it would have taken 20
hours to get jets to Benghazi from the base in Italy normally used for
training flights.

Pilots would have to be recalled from their homes, bombs loaded onto
planes, the 1,000-mile route planned. The jets would need refueling along
the way, which meant coordinating with tanker planes stationed in England —
something that typically takes days to plan.

COULD THE MILITARY HAVE DONE MORE?

Perhaps.

In hindsight, Ham said, he should have reached out to his Libyan contacts
and other U.S. officials to get Americans evacuated from Benghazi faster.
That might have saved the two lives that were lost hours after the first
attack at the diplomatic post.

While the evacuation from Benghazi was being planned by the embassy and the
CIA, Ham said, he switched his focus toward gearing up a possible hostage
rescue mission, because the ambassador was still missing.

Meanwhile, surviving U.S. personnel were gathered at the CIA base in
Benghazi. Ham said he believed they were relatively safe. He and other
military leaders said they weren't told that the CIA compound already had
come under gunfire and rocket-propelled grenade attacks in the middle of
the night.

The U.S. security team that arrived at the Benghazi airport after midnight was
detained by Libyan officials for several hours. That delayed the
evacuation, Ham said, and "allowed sufficient time for the second attack to
be organized and conducted."

During that attack, around 5 a.m., mortar fire killed two CIA security
contractors on the roof and wounded other Americans.

Less than an hour later, the evacuation of all American personnel from
Benghazi began.

*Clinton's Potential 2016 Rival: We Can't 'Send Children Back to Death'
<http://time.com/2978026/martin-omalley-minors-immigration/>*

By Zeke Miller

July 11, 2014

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley broke publicly with President Barack Obama
and former Secretary of State Hillary ClintonFriday, calling for a more
humane policy toward the tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors who have
illegally crossed into the United States.

“It is contrary to everything we stand for to try to summarily send
children back to death,” the Democratic lawmaker told reporters. O’Malley
also criticized the “kennels” in which those who have been detained are
being kept and calling for the children to be placed in “the least
restrictive” locations, including foster homes or with family members in
the U.S.

“Through all of the great world religions we are told that hospitality to
strangers is an essential human dignity,” O’Malley said. “It is a belief
that unites all of us. And I have watched the pictures of young kids who
have traveled for thousands of miles. I can only imagine, as a father of
four, the heartbreak that those parents must have felt in sending their
children across a desert where they can be muled and trafficked or used or
killed or tortured. But with the hope, the hope, that they would reach the
United States and that their children would be protected from what they
were facing at home, which was the likelihood of being recruited into gangs
and dying a violent death.”

Speaking to reporters on the margins of the National Governors Association,
O’Malley, who is weighing a bid for the Democratic nomination for president
in 2016, declined to talk about his political future. Still, his response
was a clear effort to distinguish himself from his leading rival and the
incumbent president. Clinton told CNN last month that most of those
detained should be sent back.

“They should be sent back as soon as it can be determined who responsible
adults in their families are,” she said. President Barack Obama said
Wednesday that the parents of the migrants need to know that “it is
unlikely that their children will be able to stay.”

O’Malley went so far as to call the children “refugees,” a term with legal
weight that would allow most of them to remain in the U.S. He called on
Congress and the President to avoid modifying the Trafficking Victims
Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008. That measure requires that children
who are not from Canada or Mexico who have crossed the border to be given
an opportunity to see an immigration judge to make their case for amnesty.
Lawmakers on both sides, as well as the White House, are reviewing ways to
amend that law to ease deportations of the tens of thousands of migrant
children, who are largely from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.

O’Malley said “the whole world is watching” how the U.S. responds to the
humanitarian crisis.

“We have to do right not just by these kids but by our kids and protect the
children who are here, put them in the least restrictive settings, get them
out of these detention centers and these kennels where they are being
cooped up, and operate as the good and generous people that we have always
been,” he added.

“That’s what’s at stake here, as well as the lives of these kids.”

*Rubio: I can beat Hillary*
<http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/212038-rubio-i-can-beat-hillary>

By Rachel Huggins

July 11, 2014, 7:59 PM

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) believes he can beat Hillary Clinton in the race
for the 2016 presidency.

"Multiple people can beat her. Hillary Clinton is not unbeatable," the GOP
presidential hopeful told radio host Hugh Hewitt in an interview Friday.

When asked whether he's concerned about Clinton's extensive foreign policy
background if he or another Republican candidate ran against her, Rubio
quickly slammed the potential Democratic frontrunner.

"I'd ask her: You were the secretary of State during the first four years
of the Obama administration, name one significant foreign policy
achievement, now or after you left?", he said.

"The reset with Russia has been a disaster, the Middle East is more
unstable today than it's been in I don't know when, our relationships with
Latin America and democracy have deteriorated…our partners around the world
view us as less reliable."

The Florida lawmaker also weighed in on Lebron James' surprise move back to
the Cleveland Cavaliers after four seasons with the Miami Heat.

"I read the article he wrote in Sports Illustrated and it's actually very
compelling. And I have a lot of respect," he said.

"The way I view it, he gave us four extraordinary years in Miami, a very
special experience and on a personal note he allowed me, along with his
teammates, to share with my sons memories they'll treasure for the rest of
their lives."

*CBS News: Hillary Clinton’s book sales barely edging out Ben Carson's*
<http://www.cbsnews.com/news/hillary-clintons-book-sales-barely-edging-out-ben-carsons/>

By Lindsey Boerma

July 11, 2014, 12:27 PM

It's not 2016 yet, but the early frontrunner for the Democratic
presidential nomination and one favorite being ardently recruited by
Republicans are already contending for the top spot - on the bookshelf.

Despite the hubbub surrounding the release last month of Hillary Clinton's
memoir "Hard Choices," new data shows it's barely edging out Ben Carson's
"One Nation" in book sales. Nielsen Bookscan figures provided to CBS News
for the week ending July 6 show the former secretary of state clocking in
at 177,000 copies sold; Carson has sold 162,000 copies.

"One Nation," released May 20, has been on the market about three weeks
longer than Clinton's chronicle. But considering the discrepancy in name
brand as well as the flourish and fanfare that led Clinton's ultimately
tumultuous book tour out of the gate, the marginal sales gap is striking.

Simon & Schuster reportedly shelled out a $14 million advance for Clinton's
account of her time at the State Department, which critics have largely
written off as safe and "stodgy."

The figures are good news for Carson, the neurosurgeon credited as the
first person to successfully separate twins conjoined at the head.

Carson saw his star rise in 2013, when he openly lashed out against
President Obama while standing several feet away from him. Ever since,
conservatives starved for diversity have been building the case for the
African-American doctor as a grassroots option for a 2016 White House bid,
going so far as to mount a "Draft Ben Carson" movement.

As for Clinton, who's been unsuccessfully fending off speculation that her
book tour is merely a soft rollout for her own anticipated presidential
run, the relatively sluggish sales could be an indicator that she's not
quite the stimulating public figure she'll need to be if she expects to win
the Oval Office.

Another, somewhat ironic, red flag: On Friday, "Hard Choices" was bumped
from first to second place on the New York Times bestseller list by Edward
Klein's "Blood Feud: The Clintons vs. the Obamas," a garish if sensational
telling of the alleged tensions between Bill and Hillary Clinton and the
current first family.

*Huffington Post Blog: How the Republicans Could -- But Won't -- Beat
Hillary Clinton in 2016*
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lincoln-mitchell/how-the-republicans-could_b_5578635.html>

By Lincoln Mitchell

July 11, 2014 2:21 PM

Hillary Clinton's increasingly likely candidacy for president in 2016 must
be extremely frustrating for Republican strategists. Clinton is a strong
candidate, but she is not invincible. If Clinton runs, she will face
nominal opposition within her own party, but obviously a Republican will
run against her. The most recent polls show her defeating any Republican
challenger by between 7 to 9 points.

What makes Clinton's candidacy frustrating for Republicans is that while
the formulas for beating her are relatively straightforward, the party is
unable to implement them. Much of Clinton's strength comes from her support
among white women, a constituency that Mitt Romney carried in 2012. Clinton
does not, and probably will not, win a majority of these voters in 2016,
but if she comes close, her victory will be all but certain.

The most obvious way to neutralize this advantage is for the Republicans to
nominate a woman for president. Nominating a woman for president is
something very different from finding a previously obscure female
politician, putting her on the ticket at the last minute and hoping for the
best. This is what John McCain did in 2008 and what the Republican nominee,
whoever he is, will likely do in 2016. This strategy will not work against
a Democratic ticket that will be led by a woman, particularly a woman with
the experience and appeal of Hillary Clinton.

With the first primaries only about 18 months away, it is hard not to
notice that there are no women in the field of likely Republican candidates
for president. This reflects the failure of the Republican Party, over the
last decade in particular to recruit and elect women to high level offices.
For example, of the 20 women in the senate, only four are Republicans.
Although there are four Republican governors who are women, none have made
any indication of interest in the presidential race. Although a woman might
provide the best chance for the Republicans to defeat Clinton, it is
unlikely that a strong female candidate will emerge between now and the
primary season, meaning that Clinton's vulnerability from another female
candidate will almost certainly not be exploited by the Republicans in 2016.

Clinton's second vulnerability is not so much a vulnerability, but a
potential Republican strength that is unlikely to be used in 2016. To win
in 2016, the Republicans will have to get a lot of things right. One of
these will be repositioning themselves by moving away from the far right on
every issue and promoting a more libertarian brand of conservatism. There
is increasing support among the American people for a less interventionist
approach to foreign policy and a great deal of anger at the government that
could be harnessed by the right conservative politician. These sentiments
are particularly strong among younger voters.

The problem for the Republican Party is that they remain, at least on the
surface, dominated by social conservatives. This, if left unchecked, will
drag down the Republican Party regardless of its positions on the economy
and foreign policy. The party of opposition to marriage equality, draconian
drug laws, limiting access to contraception and abortion will have a very
difficult time broadening its appeal, particularly among younger voters in
2016 or beyond.

It is unlikely that a Republican candidate will emerge who has the courage
and resources to challenge the social conservatives who are so influential
in the party. The only candidates among the front-runners who might be able
to do this are Chris Christie and Jeb Bush who are, in the context of their
peers, moderate Republicans, and Rand Paul. Paul's libertarian views, not
surprisingly, do not extend to issues involving women's reproductive
health. Christie and Bush will have to exhibit the kind of political
courage that Romney could not summon, and take on the social conservatives
during the primary season. If they don't do this, they will cede the
center, on these issues, to Clinton.

A woman or even a man with moderate views on social issues would be a
formidable candidate against Clinton. In that campaign, Clinton's record
would be scrutinized more vigorously because of the presence of a
legitimate and viable opponent. Finding a candidate like that who at the
very least could make a serious bid for the nomination should not be too
difficult for the Republican Party, but this Republican Party will not be
able to find such a candidate, very likely paving the way for a victory by
a strong Democratic candidate, but one who is a creature of the political
establishment and conventional policy thinking at a time when
anti-government views are quite strong. This will be a missed opportunity
for the Republicans, and probably a win for Clinton and the Democrats in
2016.

*Clinton takes hit in NH poll, but still leads Dems*
<http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/211939-clinton-ahead-in-nh-but-lead-narrowing>

Mario Trujillo

July 11, 2014, 7:16 AM

Hillary Clinton remains the favorite for the 2016 Democratic presidential
nomination in the early primary state of New Hampshire — but her rating has
dropped 15 percent since January, according to a new poll.

A Granite State/WMUR poll released Thursday found 59 percent of Democratic
voters there prefer Clinton over other party contenders. That number stood
at 74 percent in January, a drop that reflected in other recent polling.

Clinton, who has been making a series of media interviews to promote her
new book, is still by far the favorite candidate on the Democratic side.
Some 14 percent of Democrats prefer Vice President Biden, and 8 percent
favor Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.).

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) receives 3 percent and New York Gov. Andrew
Cuomo receives 1 percent. Another 9 percent say they are undecided.

The race is much closer on the Republican end. New Jersey Gov. Chris
Christie leads, with 19 percent of Republicans saying they prefer him. He
is trailed by Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul (14 percent) and former Florida Gov.
Jeb Bush (11 percent).

All other candidates receive less than 10 percent, including Florida Sen.
Marco Rubio (8 percent).

Fifteen percent say they are undecided.

The poll surveyed 669 New Hampshire residents from June 19 to July 1. On
the Democratic side, it has a margin of error of 6.1 percent. On the
Republican side, it has a margin of error of 6.2 percent.