Subject: ​Correct The Record Thursday October 2, 2014 Morning Roundup
From: Burns Strider <[email-masked]>
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Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2014 08:18:09 -0400
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*​**Correct The Record Thursday October 2, 2014 Morning Roundup:*

*Headlines:*

*Politico: “Michele Bachmann strives to be the ‘anti-Hillary’”
<http://www.politico.com/story/2014/10/michele-bachmann-hillary-clinton-111535.html>*

“‘Michele Bachmann lecturing on foreign policy makes Sarah Palin sound like
Dean Acheson,’ said Adrienne Elrod, a spokeswoman for the pro-Clinton
group, Correct the Record. ‘Hillary Clinton is one of the most admired and
respected public figures throughout the world, who continues to prove her
knowledge and intellect on foreign policy matters. There is simply no
comparison.’”

*BuzzFeed: “Hillary Clinton Gets Close, Candid With Military Families”
<http://www.buzzfeed.com/rubycramer/hillary-clinton-gets-close-candid-with-military-families#2wk3999>*

“It was perhaps Clinton’s most intimate public gathering since she left the
State Department in February of last year — more like the local events she
used to hold as a senator than the large speeches and controlled,
choreographed book tour stops that have occupied the last six months or so
of her time.”

*Politico: “Clinton ‘emotional’ at intimate event”
<http://www.politico.com/story/2014/10/hillary-clinton-111544.html>*

“Members of Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors stood right in front
of Clinton, and she responded by taking their hands or wrapping them
tightly in her arms.”

*Politico: “The Clinton Brand: Centrist populism to celebrity”
<http://www.politico.com/story/2014/10/hillary-clinton-bill-clinton-elections-111528.html>*

"Her backers say the fact that she would be the first female president
creates excitement and gives her a claim on the politics of change and
ideas to an extent the media underestimates. Her sweet spot will be women’s
economic and political rights, the thread that binds together her 1995
Beijing speech, her State Department work and Clinton Foundation work — and
which her allies think will wear well against a Republican field dominated
by men."

*The Hill: “With her eye on 2016, Clinton enters fray”
<http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/219535-with-her-eye-on-2016-clinton-enters-midterm-fray>*

“Clinton has stayed away from conservative-leaning battleground states,
where her popularity is mixed, and stuck instead to important 2016 primary
states and strongholds of support on the East and West coasts.”

*Politico: “Hillary Clinton calls Al Sharpton — for birthday”
<http://www.politico.com/story/2014/10/hillary-clinton-calls-al-sharpton-for-birthday-111543.html#ixzz3ExLUPGlX>*

“The Rev. Al Sharpton got a phone call from Hillary Clinton — and he made
sure people knew it.”

*MSNBC: “Clinton mixes help for Democrats with paid gigs”
<http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/hillary-clinton-mixes-help-democrats-paid-gigs>*

“Hillary Clinton is stepping up her work on behalf of Democratic candidates
locked in tough midterm battles, but she’s often making it worth her while
as well, killing two birds with one stone by giving paid speeches in the
same cities where she holds events to help Democrats.”

*The Daily Beast: “Bubba Goes Back to the Briar Patch: Bill Clinton’s
Arkansas Obsession”
<http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/10/02/bubba-goes-back-to-the-briar-patch-bill-clinton-s-arkansas-obsession.html>*

“Bill Clinton’s name won’t be on the ballot in Arkansas this November, but
you wouldn’t know it from the 42nd president’s schedule, which takes him
back to his home state nearly every month, including next week, when he’ll
headline four—yes, four—rallies to boost fellow Democrats.”

*USA Today: “Bill Clinton makes 2014 ad debut for Alison Lundergan Grimes”
<http://onpolitics.usatoday.com/2014/10/01/bill-clinton-makes-2014-ad-debut-for-alison-lundergan-grimes/>*

“Former president Bill Clinton made his 2014 campaign ad debut in the
latest spot by Kentucky Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes, who is trying to
unseat Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in one of the most-watched
races this year.”

*Washington Post blog: Post Politics: “Pelosi says she’s sticking around,
and lays out a new goal: Majority in 2016”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/10/02/pelosi-says-shes-sticking-around-and-lays-out-a-new-goal-majority-in-2016/>*

“Most people think she's staying around for the chance at winning the
majority in 2016 and possibly going out on her own terms as speaker again,
advancing the agenda of a female Democratic president.”

*MSNBC: “Elizabeth Warren draft campaign gears up in key states”
<http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/elizabeth-warren-draft-campaign-gears-key-states>*

"Warren has repeatedly said she’s not running for president in 2016 and in
August, disavowed Ready for Warren via her lawyer. 'This letter serves as a
formal disavowal of the organization and its activity,' Warren’s attorney
wrote to the Federal Election Commission. 'The Senator has not, and does
not, explicitly or implicitly, authorize, endorse, or otherwise approve of
the organization’s activities.'"

*Washington Post: “Low standing in early 2016 presidential polls ‘doesn’t
terribly worry’ O’Malley”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/low-standing-in-early-2016-presidential-polls-doesnt-terribly-worry-omalley/2014/10/01/3e257e6a-4993-11e4-b72e-d60a9229cc10_story.html>*

“The governor, who is preparing for a possible White House bid, was asked
during an appearance on the Fusion television network about a recent CNN
poll that showed Hillary Rodham Clinton as the favorite among Democrats,
with 53 percent, while he was further back in the pack, with 2 percent.”

*Articles:*

*Politico: “Michele Bachmann strives to be the ‘anti-Hillary’”
<http://www.politico.com/story/2014/10/michele-bachmann-hillary-clinton-111535.html>*

By Lauren French and John Bresnahan

October 2, 2014, 5:06 a.m. EDT

Michele Bachmann will not go gently into the night.

The divisive four-term congresswoman is leaving Capitol Hill in January,
but she has no intention of fading into post-congressional irrelevance.

Instead, the Minnesota Republican is fiercely courting media and speaking
opportunities, likely in Washington, New York or Los Angeles, and looking
to burnish her credentials as a foreign policy expert ahead of the 2016
presidential election. Her hope is to emerge as the “anti-Hillary,” a
female conservative foil to likely Democratic presidential contender and
former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

“I don’t know how you’ll see me, but I would like to be in a situation
where I can offer an opposing viewpoint to Hillary Clinton,” Bachmann said
during a recent interview in her Capitol Hill office.

“There isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between Barack Obama and Hillary
Clinton. She will continue foursquare … and put forward Barack Obama’s
policy in a third and fourth term,” Bachmann added. “If there is anything
that will keep Secretary Clinton from becoming commander in chief, which I
don’t think she should be, … it would be [the] deplorable action on
Benghazi.”

Foreign policy expertise, however, is not a calling card that many
associate with Bachmann, despite her seat on the House Intelligence
Committee and penchant for trips to Iraq, Pakistan and Kuwait. And some
fellow Republicans privately acknowledge that they would just as soon see
Bachmann and her controversial views fade from the scene.

And Democrats, predictably, aren’t exactly quaking in their boots at the
notion of Bachmann being one of the GOP’s key foreign policy voices in 2016.

“Michele Bachmann lecturing on foreign policy makes Sarah Palin sound like
Dean Acheson,” said Adrienne Elrod, a spokeswoman for the pro-Clinton
group, Correct the Record. “Hillary Clinton is one of the most admired and
respected public figures throughout the world, who continues to prove her
knowledge and intellect on foreign policy matters. There is simply no
comparison.”

But even critics have learned to underestimate Bachmann at their peril. To
prepare for the post-congressional transition, Bachmann is working with
conservative heavyweights like former GOP presidential contender Rick
Santorum and Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council. She’s
also working on softening her public persona by repeatedly hitting up
television shows with younger audiences that focus on families.

She’s also staying active on the speaking circuit, with plans to speak at
an event in Cambridge in 2015 and give a major policy address, likely one
of her last as a member of Congress, at The Heritage Foundation in October.
She was a headliner at the Values Voters Summit in D.C. on Sept. 26 and
will speak at a women’s summit at the Reagan Ranch Center in October.

Bachmann’s persona, as she prepares to leave Congress, is as one of her
party’s best-known bomb throwers, famed for wielding the tea party banner
in Congress, as well as making a seemingly never-ending stream of
statements designed to infuriate progressives and rile up conservatives.
She once accused President Barack Obama of holding “anti-American views” —
a statement she later walked backed — and has been one of the leading
opponents of immigration reform in 2014.

Bachmann claimed that health care reform would lead to “gangster
government,” endorsed “intelligent design” as worthy of the same
consideration in schools as evolution, and suggested Obama and the
Democrats secretly wanted to create “re-education camps for young people.”

She has also come under intense scrutiny for alleged ethics violations
connected to her short-lived 2012 presidential campaign. The House Ethics
Committee is conducting a review of allegations that funds from her
leadership PAC were improperly earmarked for the campaign. Bachmann has
denied any wrongdoing.

But for all her critics — and they are legion among establishment
Republicans as well as Democrats — Bachmann has crafted a persona as one of
the most visible and sought-after conservative women in Congress.

Her broad appeal to hard-core GOP voters allows her to be a very successful
fundraiser. Her 2012 congressional race was the third-priciest in the
nation. Bachmann raked in nearly $15 million that cycle — with the bulk of
her big-ticket donations coming from outside Minnesota. Bachmann’s
leadership PAC also raised $1.2 million during 2011-12 but has mostly gone
dormant since she announced her retirement early last year.

“What we know about Michele is that she is attractive, she is very smart,
she’s a very good debater, she’s a very effective public speaker and she
feels passionately about a range of issues,” said Newt Gingrich, a onetime
rival for the GOP presidential nomination.

 “If she picks three or four key areas, and she works on them, I think she
will emerge in the media … making a significant impact,” he said.

Gingrich, who served as speaker of the House from 1995 to 1999, is an
informal adviser to Bachmann, doling out advice on how to maximize her
profile after leaving office. In an interview with POLITICO, Gingrich
suggested Bachmann would be best served by writing a book or finding a job
at a Washington think tank.

Most of all, Gingrich cautioned that Bachmann shouldn’t tone down her
personality just to make a mass appeal for a larger base outside the
Republican Party.

“The more bland you are, the more likely you are to disappear,” Gingrich
said.

Born in Waterloo, Iowa, Bachmann, 58, moved to Minnesota as a teenager.
Bachmann said her parents’ divorce left her family very poor, and she took
up babysitting in order to buy dresses and glasses for school.

“I don’t say that as a hard-luck story,” Bachmann said. “I say it because
it was one of the greatest life lessons I could have had.”

Bachmann was first elected to the House in 2006, a brutal year for
congressional Republicans as the Iraq War and former President George W.
Bush’s sinking poll ratings led to the loss of the House and the Senate.

But it was the 2010 passage of Obamacare that made Bachmann a national
figure. On the day the legislation was printed, Bachmann flew to Minnesota
to appear on Sean Hannity’s show to rail against Obama’s signature health
care law. The appearance helped ignite a massive anti-Obamacare protest
that brought thousands of people to Capitol Hill.

Bachmann also helped launch the term “death panels” into the national
health care debate. While Sarah Palin coined the phrase in referring to the
Independent Payment Advisory Board, an Obamacare provision meant to reduce
Medicare costs, it was Bachmann who used it on the House floor and made it
part of the fight over the Affordable Care Act.

Bachmann’s effort didn’t derail ACA’s passage, but it did ensure her status
as a national anti-Obamacare figure.

“And even though the vote that came after that meant … that Obamcare
passed, it was an earthquake here in D.C.,” Bachmann said. “It let people
know there was a different voice. It was the tea party voice.”

Trying to ride her high profile into the House GOP hierarchy in 2011,
Bachmann unsuccessfully sought a leadership post. She picked some fights
with Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), helped start the Congressional Tea
Party Caucus and held her own response to Obama’s State of the Union
address.

Then came her run for the presidency. Her victory in the Ames Straw poll in
August 2011 momentarily vaulted her to the top of the Republican
presidential heap, but she ended up a disappointing sixth in the January
2012 Iowa caucuses. Bachmann then suspended her campaign, bringing her
White House dream to an end.

Still, Bachmann said her biggest congressional victories were more local
issues — getting daily nonstop flights from St. Cloud to Chicago, expanding
Interstate 94 and building the Stillwater Bridge.

“Transportation issues were a big issue for me,” Bachmann said. “It’s
parochial to us, [but] those are very important.”

She’s also been a staunch advocate for adoption issues — an area that has
helped her develop relationships with Democrats like Rep. Karen Bass of
California. Before running for Congress, Bachmann helped raise 23 foster
children and treated teenage girls with eating disorders in her home.

Bachmann is best known, though, for her unofficial title as “queen of the
tea party” and the national attention that bought her.

“I poured it out for eight years. I gave it absolutely everything. I
redeemed the time. I used the time to its advantage,” Bachmann said.

Former Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-N.Y.) said Bachmann has the potential to emerge
as a national figure but needs to focus on a single issue to make her voice
break through the crowd of conservative pundits.

It helps, Reynolds said, that Bachmann has amassed a substantial mailing
list after her presidential run.

“She’s a younger woman that has options before her. She’s smart, she has
the skill set of understanding the government and she has a certain
following,” he said. “Now it becomes what do you want the venue to be?”

Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert said Bachmann is personable enough to
have a range of options but added that she will very likely need to broaden
her appeal to be a viable messenger for Republicans in 2016.

“I think she needs to develop a broader appeal for moderates and
independents,” Hastert said. “She needs to find a niche … and then, quite
frankly, people will come to her.”

But there are also many within the Republican Party who view Bachmann as a
distraction, someone who spouts off rhetoric that keeps the GOP from
appealing to a wider base of younger and minority voters. A Republican
strategist, who asked to speak anonymously, said Bachmann will be
successful in creating a post-congressional career because Democrats and
much of the media will look to her as a caricature of a Republican.

“Roger Ailes will not give her a job,” the strategist said. “I would not be
very surprised at all if she was very prominently displayed on mainstream
television networks to prove the point that Republicans are out of touch or
closed-minded. “

The strategist dismissed the “cult of personality” that Bachmann has built
as “irrelevant.”

It’s a reputation, Bachmann said, she is trying to disprove. Despite what
he called “unfair” criticism from the media during her presidential
campaign, Bachmann said she has been reaching out to a broader audience by
appearing on less traditional television shows and outlets.

In recent months, she’s discussed adoption and cooked muffins on Hallmark
Channel’s “Home & Family.”

“My preference actually, as fond of I am of Fox [News], is to go on mediums
where I can get to audiences that perhaps have a character view of me,” she
said. “I absolutely love the 18-to-35 set. Absolutely love them, and that’s
a crowd I would like to talk to.”

*BuzzFeed: “Hillary Clinton Gets Close, Candid With Military Families”
<http://www.buzzfeed.com/rubycramer/hillary-clinton-gets-close-candid-with-military-families#2wk3999>*

By Ruby Cramer

October 1, 2014, 9:50 p.m. EDT

[Subtitle:] The event, honoring the families of fallen veterans, was
Clinton’s most intimate, unguarded public appearance since leaving State.
“I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

Hillary Clinton looked down at the photo of the man in uniform.

A woman had emerged from the crush of people around the former secretary of
state to present her with the picture of a young man — her son. Other
mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers gathered around Clinton as she
eyed the photo at a veterans event on Wednesday night in New York City’s
Herald Square.

“This is my son, who committed suicide,” the woman told Clinton.

“This is his year anniversary. Thirty-five.”

“I’m so sorry,” Clinton said. “I’m so, so sorry.”

She held the woman’s hand, held her elbow, rubbed her arm.

The scene played out again and again on Wednesday at Stella 34, the Italian
restaurant inside Macy’s department store, where Clinton accepted a
lifetime service award at an emotional and highly person event for TAPS,
the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors. The 20-year-old organization,
the only veterans group dedicated exclusively to families, worked with
Clinton when she was a U.S. senator from New York. In 2006, she was TAPS’
honorary chair.

It was perhaps Clinton’s most intimate public gathering since she left the
State Department in February of last year — more like the local events she
used to hold as a senator than the large speeches and controlled,
choreographed book tour stops that have occupied the last six months or so
of her time.

When Clinton finished her speech before a crowd of about 150 people, the
TAPS families approached Clinton with their stories, getting close. The
security detail that follows the former secretary of state and first lady
at all of her events did not interfere, and reporters there were not
confined to a designated press area.

One man named Robert Meshanko, who described his nephew’s protracted
struggle with the Department of Veterans Affairs, urged Clinton to run for
president. “If you run, and I hope you do, fix the VA and fix the mental
health system,” he said. “My nephew was lost, and let me tell you
something…he really got screwed.”

“At the VA?” Clinton said, moving closer.

“At the VA. They need to help these people. They need to point them in the
right direction. They pointed him in the wrong direction. He tried to get
help.”

Clinton asked where — in what direction? The “wrong jurisdiction,” Meshanko
replied. “They sent him there, and he went there, and they said, ‘We can’t
help you. You’re out of our jurisdiction.’ Why didn’t someone know that?”

“I don’t know,” Clinton said, shaking her head.

Another woman approached Clinton and told her it had been two years since
her brother committed suicide. “Did he get any help at all?” Clinton asked.

“Not the right help,” the woman said. They took a picture together with the
woman’s cell phone, before Clinton squeezed her arm and said, “Thank you,
dear.”

As a senator, Clinton served on the Armed Services Committee and worked
with TAPS and other veterans groups to increase benefits for families of
fallen service members — a project she highlighted in her speech. “We
fought, we cajoled,” Clinton said, noting that immediate benefits for
families rose from $12,000 to $100,000. She also said she pushed the VA to
better assist survivors with health coverage, home loans, education, and
access to government housing.

Bonnie Carroll, the president and founder of TAPS, said the group had
worked with Clinton to expand its work with survivors to include families
who have lost people serving in the State Department, certain government
contractors, and other government agencies, including the CIA and National
Security Agency.

“We count you as family,” Carroll told Clinton, “and we love you a great
deal.”

*Politico: “Clinton ‘emotional’ at intimate event”
<http://www.politico.com/story/2014/10/hillary-clinton-111544.html>*

By Maggie Haberman

October 1, 2014, 10:54 p.m. EDT

For the first time since she left the State Department, Hillary Clinton
suddenly seemed like the senator from New York on Thursday night, as she
was honored by a group she’s worked with for years that provides support to
families of fallen members of the military.

There was no physical barrier between Clinton and the men and women who
crowded around her after she spoke at the intimate event at Stella’s, a
restaurant in Macy’s Department Store in midtown Manhattan. It was unlike
her book signings or the Tom Harkin Steak Fry in Iowa last month, where
there were metal barricades. Members of Tragedy Assistance Program for
Survivors stood right in front of Clinton, and she responded by taking
their hands or wrapping them tightly in her arms.

It was a small setting, the type in which Clinton was often the most
comfortable as a legislator. The focus was on the families, not Clinton or
her tenure or her book or her past campaign or future plans, and she was
visibly moved as people approached with their stories.

Bonnie Carroll, the TAPS founder who gave Clinton the award, said the
former senator was dear to them, and that the group had begun to include
families of people whose lost relatives had been State Department
employees. Clinton responded in kind.

“It’s … for me, emotional, as we celebrate the birth of our granddaughter,
and as I look out and see all of you who are” changed by the loss of a
relative in the military, Clinton said.

The group has “connected these grieving families with each other, and I’ve
heard stories about how much that has meant — to have someone sitting with
you, holding your hand, their arm around your shoulders, listening to your
story, telling you their story. This kind of community of support and
shared experience has really made all the difference in the lives of so
many,” she said.

“There’s really no words that can ever be adequate to the loss that has
been suffered,” Clinton said. “But having people just be there for you is
really often what makes a difference between being able to get out of bed
or not, being able to go on or not.”

Clinton, a former honorary chairwoman of the group who used to sit on the
Armed Services Committee in the Senate, described bipartisan work with her
fellow senators when, after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it became
clear that resources provided to military members “had not kept pace with
the cost of living.”

“There was something special about working with TAPS, because you were
speaking for the people who we were trying to help,” she said. “We fought,
we cajoled, and eventually we saw that $12,000 become $100,000.”

She quoted Alexis de Tocqueville to describe the “organizing” spirit of
Americans: “[He] couldn’t believe how many of us were joiners.”

Afterward, instead of disappearing behind a curtain, Clinton stayed as
family members swarmed around her to take pictures, show her photos of
their loved ones and thank her for her work. Her omnipresent security
detail stayed close but did not push reporters away.

One woman, who appeared to recognize Clinton from past events, squeezed her
tightly, her eyes filling with tears. Another woman got a hug as they
talked.

“This is my son,” one woman said, pointing to a picture on a button on her
shirt. The son died when his own child was just 10 months old, she told
Clinton. The baby is now 11.

Several people told Clinton about lost family members who struggled with
mental illness.

Robert Meshanko told Clinton he had a nephew who struggled with mental
illness, and that the Veterans Affairs Department needs to be fixed if she
runs.

Another woman showed Clinton a picture of a son who committed suicide.
Still another talked about a brother who had killed himself.

“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” Clinton said, grasping the woman’s hand. She
asked if the man had gotten help. “Not the right kind,” she replied, before
thanking Clinton for her work.

*Politico: “The Clinton Brand: Centrist populism to celebrity”
<http://www.politico.com/story/2014/10/hillary-clinton-bill-clinton-elections-111528.html>*

By John F. Harris and Maggie Haberman

October 2, 2014, 5:06 a.m. EDT

It was a sunny, warm day, still more like summer than fall, in Little Rock
in 1991 when the Arkansas governor, after staying up all night fussing over
his speech, went for an early-morning jog and then over to the Old State
Capitol for the announcement that would shape American politics for the
next generation: He was running for president.

Bill Clinton’s declaration — the 23rd anniversary is on Friday — was
covered with curiosity by a small corps of political reporters but met with
a shrug by the rest of the world. It was a modest beginning for what is
now, amid widespread anticipation of another Clinton presidential run, the
world’s most celebrated political brand.

Hillary Clinton’s public preparations for a 2016 candidacy, however, are
putting parts of her shared history with Bill Clinton in a bright light —
one that in important ways highlights her vulnerabilities despite her
commanding status among Democrats.

The Clinton Brand of 2014 is missing three key elements that vaulted Bill
Clinton to power in 1992. First was new ideas. Second was an authentic
populist connection. Third was the idea of generational change.

Hillary Clinton’s claims on the first two elements are faint, compared to
his in the early ’90s — a technocrat, her ideas since her failed health
care reform effort have typically been smaller-bore and more programmatic
than about sweeping change. And her claim on the third is nonexistent, as a
woman in her late 60s who by 2016 will have been famous for a quarter
century. No longer fresh-faced, Bill and Hillary Clinton long ago stopped
being everyday folks barely getting by on a government salary.

The fact that time marches on has advantages as well. The Clinton Brand
today stands for tested experience, as well as foreign policy expertise, in
ways that are vastly more credible than anything Bill Clinton could boast
when he ran for president. And her potential to shatter the glass ceiling
as the first female president is a compelling measure of change that can
impact how she is perceived.

Still, this week’s anniversary — and the fevered scrutiny surrounding every
step she takes toward another shot at the presidency — shows how, even as
the Clintons endure as political forces, the signature ingredients of their
appeal have changed notably over time.

“Obviously the brand is different; it’s not going to look as fresh,” said
Al From, the creator of the Democratic Leadership Council, from which Bill
Clinton drew a number of policy ideas for his 1992 campaign, who
nonetheless sees parallels in the economic growth concerns of 1992 and
2016. “Her challenge is to define herself for the future.”

Bill Clinton ran in 1992 as an idea politician. He also had a distinct
ideological identity — as a centrist policy innovator willing to distance
himself from liberal special interests both symbolically and substantively.
After eight years as senator and four as secretary of state, plus two books
since leaving the White House, Hillary Clinton is not vividly identified
with new ideas or specific new policies, or even an original rhetorical
perspective on the challenges of the Democratic Party or the country at
large. Her discussions on policy in the last two years have followed the
arrow of the Democratic Party’s drift on social issues and education policy
— gay marriage, student loans, immigration — but have not yet jelled into a
distinct policy profile.

And ahead of a likely second national campaign, she remains clearly uneasy
about navigating the politics of the left, where many activists like the
Clintons personally but don’t like their association with Wall
Street-friendly policies and policymakers, or their initial support in 2002
for George W. Bush’s Iraq War.

Donna Shalala, the former Clinton Health and Human Services secretary who
is currently the president of the University of Miami, said the Clintons
“change with the times. The genius of the Clinton brand is they understand
context, the world that they’re living in and they learn all the time. …
That does not mean they put their finger up to the wind. They’re less
worried about the wind than how the world is changing economically.”

Yet Bill Clinton had an authentic, unforced populist appeal. He was always
a man comfortable moving between worlds; the Yale and Oxford strands of his
biography hardly overshadowed the strands from Hope and Hot Springs. His
salary as governor was $35,000. Paradoxically, even his early campaign
scandals over affairs and draft-dodging helped to cement his credentials as
an apostle of average voters. In a croaking voice, he told Democrats that
his foes would “rather talk about my past than your future” and said he
would be with them “til the last dog dies.”

Hillary Clinton is likewise the product of a middle-class youth. But
decades in power, millions of dollars in wealth and a private-jet lifestyle
have reshaped the Clinton Brand. This was highlighted by her stubbed toe
during the summer book tour about being “dead broke” upon leaving the White
House, an interview she gave amid dozens of paid speeches for more than
$200,000 each. But it is actually underscored just as much by positive
headlines. The annual Clinton Global Initiative has become a kind of
Manhattan Davos, filled with Hollywood celebrities, CEOs, and political and
financial elites. Chelsea Clinton is primarily famous for her lineage, and
the lavish coverage of her recent baby highlighted how the Clintons have
become a kind of American royalty. The child was delivered in the same
hospital where Beyonce gave birth.

“When anyone is on the scene for a long time, that sense of not only
royalism but fatigue does manifest itself,” said Henry Cisneros, the HUD
Secretary under Bill Clinton, who, like Shalala and From, believes Hillary
Clinton can carry the mantle of accomplishing bipartisan change the way her
husband once did.

Finally, Bill Clinton ran in 1992 as the candidate of youth. His actual
age, just 45 when he announced and 46 when he took the oath of office,
served as a powerful metaphor for a change of attitude and direction in
politics.

It’s possible to stand for dramatic change even as an old politician —
Ronald Reagan turned 70 just after taking office. But for Hillary Clinton
the challenge will be harder, because she will be trying to follow an Obama
administration in which she served. Democrats have not, in modern memory,
gone back a generation in search of their nominee.

And after spending four years traveling the globe, she faces an inverse
challenge to what her husband did in 1991 — she needs to come back down to
earth.

Her backers say the fact that she would be the first female president
creates excitement and gives her a claim on the politics of change and
ideas to an extent the media underestimates. Her sweet spot will be women’s
economic and political rights, the thread that binds together her 1995
Beijing speech, her State Department work and Clinton Foundation work — and
which her allies think will wear well against a Republican field dominated
by men.

Yet her pre-campaign period has been defined by a book and a book tour that
lacked a central theme or selling point about the author. Her appearances
have been heavily scripted, and her interactions with the political press
corps that covers her on a daily basis have been close to nonexistent.
“Caution” has often been Hillary Clinton’s political mantra, and the way in
which she has spent her time since leaving the State Department has done
little to dispel that.

While both Clintons were at CGI a week before the anniversary of the 1991
campaign speech, it was Bill Clinton who handled the questions about
politics.

He laid out for interviewer Charlie Rose an agenda for the first 100 days
of the next administration following Obama, with a message that was not
dissimilar to Bill Clinton’s “new covenant” speeches over two decades ago.

Even the manner in which Bill Clinton’s speech came together in 1991
likewise shows how dramatically some parts of the Clinton enterprise have
changed — while some things are strikingly similar.

Unlike the enormous apparatus of operatives, handlers and vaguely familiar
hangers-on that swarms the political life of the Clintons these days, the
group then was intimate. Bill Clinton was joined in his all-nighter by two
aides, the consultant Frank Greer and a young policy wonk named Bruce Reed,
who went on to senior roles in both the Clinton and Obama White Houses.
Hillary Clinton showed a maternal streak, dropping in on the aides with
chocolate chip cookies. Clinton told Reed that he found the process
painstaking because he wasn’t used to working with speechwriters — as
Arkansas governor he simply wrote his own.

But the tussle over what Clinton would say would be familiar to later
veterans of both his and her campaigns — or perhaps to any modern
presidential campaign. Greer kept pushing for more inspiring biographical
detail to humanize the candidate. Reed wanted more policy to emphasize the
candidate’s command of substance and his New Democrat credentials.

“This election is about change: in our party, in our national leadership,
and in our country. … The change we must make isn’t liberal or
conservative,” Bill Clinton said in the speech. “It’s both, and it’s
different.”

For the hometown audience in Little Rock, the actual announcement was both
inevitable — people had been expecting Bill Clinton to run for president
for 20 years — and also hard to believe until it actually happened. Four
years earlier, Clinton had assembled friends in Little Rock to announce a
candidacy, only to change his mind with hours to spare.

Hillary Clinton shelved a potential campaign in 2004 because she didn’t
think she could grab the nomination at a late stage when John Kerry was
poised for the nomination. Her 2008 campaign was pockmarked by caution and
a lack of forward-looking thought beyond strength and experience —
qualities that may help her now, but which don’t form an overarching vision.

Yet a signature of the Clinton brand of the 1990s was a love of the
political game, a point he highlighted in the Charlie Rose interview.

“To be really good at this? You’ve gotta like people. You’ve gotta like
policy. And you’ve gotta like politics,” he said. “You’ve gotta have a pain
threshold. You have to understand there’s a reason this is a contact sport.
And, and yet, there’ve gotta be some things you want to do. To be good at
it.”

To some at CGI as he spoke, his words seemed to be about Obama. But liking
politics has never been a description applied to Hillary Clinton. That, as
much as anything, represents a vulnerable point if she runs again.

Their supporters argue that such an Achilles’ heel will be overshadowed by
the positive aspects of the current Clinton image.

Paul Begala, the former Texas political hand who signed onto Clinton’s 1991
campaign, sees a contiguous frame that Hillary Clinton would use a quarter
of a century later, when women’s issues are no longer in a separate ledger
from economic ones.

“Bill Clinton spoke about his mother and his grandparents and how their
lower-middle class values shaped him. He used the phrase ‘middle-class’ 12
times in his announcement speech,” Begala said. “[Hillary Clinton] is
consistent with that focus, talking about her mother’s difficult childhood,
and calling for ‘family-centered economics’ and ‘inclusive prosperity’” at
a recent speech at the Center for American Progress.

“Sure, she now lives in Chappaqua,” he added, before turning to the
Midwest. “But that kind of focus tells me her heart is still in places like
Chillicothe.”

*The Hill: “With her eye on 2016, Clinton enters fray”
<http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/219535-with-her-eye-on-2016-clinton-enters-midterm-fray>*

By Alexander Bolton

October 2, 2014, 6:00 a.m. EDT

Hillary Clinton has entered the midterm election battle by doing a few
fundraisers for Democratic candidates, but her itinerary seems as much
focused on 2016 as this November.

Clinton has stayed away from conservative-leaning battleground states,
where her popularity is mixed, and stuck instead to important 2016 primary
states and strongholds of support on the East and West coasts.

Her efforts will inoculate her from potential criticism that she did not
help Democrats during the midterm, but if they hang onto the Senate and
pick up seats in the House, she won’t get much credit either.

She headlined two fundraisers in New York Monday for the Democratic
Congressional Campaign Committee and House Democratic candidates in New
York and New Jersey.

The former secretary of State participated in another event for Sen. Jeanne
Shaheen (D-N.H.) in New York on Wednesdayafternoon and will travel to Coral
Gables, Fla., to raise funds for gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist (D)
Thursday.

Clinton is slated to raise money and campaign for embattled Illinois Gov.
Pat Quinn (D) on Oct. 8, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, and will then
head to Nevada to boost the campaign coffers of Senate Majority Leader
Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and state Democrats on Oct. 13.

On Oct. 20, she will attend another fundraiser for the DCCC in San
Francisco. She hosted a fundraiser for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign
Committee’s Women’s Senate Network on Sept. 9 at her multimillion-dollar
home in Washington, D.C.

Some of these events have been thrown together at the last minute, but
Clinton is enough of a star to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars in
pledges over a matter of days.

Chris Korge, a prominent Democratic donor involved in Thursday’s event in
Miami to benefit Crist, said planning for the event began in earnest about
a week ago and estimated it would raise $800,000-$1 million.

He said Clinton and former President Bill Clinton are two of the biggest
fundraising draws in the Sunshine State.

“It’s a tremendous boost for Gov. Crist. For short notice, it’s going to
raise a significant amount of money,” he said. “Secretary Clinton is a huge
draw and immensely popular to the people in Florida.”

Clinton’s fundraising itinerary matches the path she will likely trek
around the country in 2016 to capture the Democratic presidential
nomination.

On Sept. 14, she attended retiring Sen. Tom Harkin’s (D-Iowa) final steak
fry in Indianola, where she talked up the prospects of Senate candidate
Bruce Braley and Staci Appel, who’s running for Iowa’s 3rd District. Iowa
will host the first contest of the 2016 presidential primary. In 2008,
Clinton finished third in the Iowa caucuses.

Shaheen, if she wins reelection, would be a crucial ally in New Hampshire,
which hosts its 2016 primary shortly after Iowa’s caucuses.

Clinton has been conspicuously absent, however, in the battleground states
that will decide control of the Senate: Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado,
Louisiana and North Carolina. She has left it to her husband, who is viewed
as more centrist, to fire up the base and Democratic donors in those states.

The former president was scheduled to attend a fundraising lunch for
vulnerable Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) on Saturday but skipped it because of
the birth of his granddaughter. He headlined fundraisers for Sen. Mark
Pryor (D) in Arkansas in March and is due to attend rallies around the
state on Monday and Tuesday. Bill Clinton also attended a fundraising
luncheon for Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) in Chapel Hill, N.C., on Tuesday and
visited New Orleans on Sept. 6 to juice up a $1,000-per-plate fundraiser
for vulnerable Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.).

In August, he campaigned with Alison Lundergan Grimes, who is trying to
defeat Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky. Rep. John Yarmuth
(D-Ky.) said earlier this year that the former first lady would stump for
Grimes.

Michael Beychok, a Democratic strategist who is working on the Senate
campaigns in Arkansas and Louisiana, said he’s not sure whether Hillary
Clinton visiting those states would necessarily help centrist candidates in
tough races.

“I think the president is very popular. I saw in the newspapers he’s
campaigning for Pryor,” he said of Bill Clinton. “I don’t know if she would
help or hurt.”

Polls conducted in Arkansas, Louisiana and other Senate battleground states
show voters have varied views of Clinton. She has admirers but also elicits
a strong negative reaction.

McClatchy News reported this week that Hillary Clinton would face an
“uphill fight” winning Arkansas in 2016 and that “she didn’t fit in, when
she arrived in Arkansas four decades ago.”

A Talk Business & Politics-Hendrix College Poll from July showed 41 percent
of likely Arkansas voters had a favorable view of her, while 49.5 percent
had an unfavorable view.

A High Point University Poll conducted last month revealed that 49 percent
of North Carolina’s likely voters say there is no chance they would vote
for Hillary Clinton, while 47 percent said they would back her.

A Public Policy Polling (D) survey released this week showed Clinton losing
handily to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas), former
Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) in Louisiana in
hypothetical 2016 presidential match-ups. The poll, however, showed her
narrowly beating New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Louisiana Gov. Bobby
Jindal in the Pelican State.

President Obama has held many more fundraising events to help Senate and
House Democrats. He has done 15 events for the DSCC in the 2014 election
cycle, including 10 this year. He has done nine fundraisers this year for
the House campaign committee, and one more is scheduled.

*Politico: “Hillary Clinton calls Al Sharpton — for birthday”
<http://www.politico.com/story/2014/10/hillary-clinton-calls-al-sharpton-for-birthday-111543.html#ixzz3ExLUPGlX>*

By Maggie Haberman

October 1, 2014, 10:15 p.m. EDT

The Rev. Al Sharpton got a phone call from Hillary Clinton — and he made
sure people knew it.

The activist preacher and MSNBC host, who publicly prodded Clinton to
engage during this summer’s protests in Ferguson, Missouri, but said he
didn’t hear from her, announced via a news release Wednesday that she had
reached out to wish him a happy birthday.

“A half-hour before going on his MSNBC show PoliticsNation with Al
Sharpton, Rev. Sharpton received a call from former Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton, who wished him a happy early birthday (Sharpton will be
sixty this Friday),” said the statement from Sharpton publicist Jacky
Johnson. “Tonight there will be a big party for him at the Four Seasons
Restaurant; attendees include: Governor Andrew Cuomo, Senator Chuck
Schumer, Mayor Bill de Blasio, entertainer Aretha Franklin, filmmaker Spike
Lee and others.

“Mrs. Clinton apologized for not being able to attend but wanted to
personally talk to him before the event,” the statement said. “Rev.
Sharpton told Mrs. Clinton, ‘I will make one birthday vow to you. I will
stay on the front lines of civil rights and activism until your
granddaughter Charlotte gets old enough to vote.’ At which they both
chuckled.”

Sharpton, whose relationship with Hillary Clinton and her husband has
always been fraught, has risen in prominence in the decade since Bill
Clinton left the White House, becoming a key ally of President Barack Obama.

As POLITICO’s Glenn Thrush reported, Sharpton was in constant contact with
top Obama advisers as he went to the Missouri town to address protesters
upset over the fatal police shooting of an unarmed black teen.

While there, Sharpton pushed attention away from Obama and toward the 2016
presidential campaign — calling out potential contenders such as Hillary
Clinton and New Jersey’s Republican Gov. Chris Christie for staying silent.

*MSNBC: “Clinton mixes help for Democrats with paid gigs”
<http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/hillary-clinton-mixes-help-democrats-paid-gigs>*

By Alex Seitz-Wald

October 2, 2014, 7:13 a.m. EDT

Hillary Clinton is stepping up her work on behalf of Democratic candidates
locked in tough midterm battles, but she’s often making it worth her while
as well, killing two birds with one stone by giving paid speeches in the
same cities where she holds events to help Democrats.

On Thursday, the potential 2016 presidential candidate travels to Miami,
Florida for a fundraiser for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Charlie
Crist — the same day she’s being paid to keynote the CREW Network’s 2014
Convention & Marketplace in Miami Beach. She also tacking on another
signing of her book “Hard Choices” at a nearby store, which is expected to
draw 1,000 visitors.

Next week, she heads to Chicago to campaign for Gov. Pat Quinn, a Democrat
facing a tough reelection battle. That same day in the Windy City, she give
a paid keynote to a conference of medical device makers.

The following Monday, she’ll be in Las Vegas for a fundraiser for Senate
Majority Leader Harry Reid. That night, she’ll speak to the University of
Las Vegas Foundation’s Annual Dinner. Her $225,0000 speaking fee for that
event caused controversy this summer, prompting some students to demands
she return the funds. Clinton will donate the fees the Clinton Foundation.

The next day, she’s be in San Francisco to speak at a conference sponsored
by the tech company SalesForce. Four days later in the same city, Clinton
joins House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for a high-dollar fundraising luncheon to
benefit the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, according to an
invitation obtained by msbnc.

Salesforce CEO Mark Benioff has given the maximum $25,000 contribution to
the pro-Clinton super PAC Ready for Hillary, according to campaign finance
reports, and the company’s foundation partnered with the Clinton Foundation
on a job program for young people earlier this year.

On Wednesday, Clinton holds a fundraiser for New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne
Shaheen in New York City. While she’s not giving a paid speech in the city
today, she is appearing at event hosted by the Tragedy Assistance Program
for Survivors to collect an award.

Clinton has faced criticism this year for collecting large speaking fees,
and some Democrats have privately complained that Clinton has not done
enough to campaign for other members of her party in a tough year.

A spokesperson for Clinton declined to comment for this story, but has
noted in the past that her speaking fees are often donated to the Clinton
Foundation. She’s also stepped up her campaigning lately, quietly some
Democrats who worried she’d stay on the sidelines.

All of these paid speaking engagements were booked and announced long
before the political events, which could open her up to criticism that she
planned her help for Democrats around her speaking gigs.

*The Daily Beast: “Bubba Goes Back to the Briar Patch: Bill Clinton’s
Arkansas Obsession”
<http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/10/02/bubba-goes-back-to-the-briar-patch-bill-clinton-s-arkansas-obsession.html>*

By Patricia Murphy

October 2, 2014

[Subtitle:] The former president will headline four home-state events next
week. Think keeping a little blue in this deep-red state matters to him
just a little?

Bill Clinton’s name won’t be on the ballot in Arkansas this November, but
you wouldn’t know it from the 42nd president’s schedule, which takes him
back to his home state nearly every month, including next week, when he’ll
headline four—yes, four—rallies to boost fellow Democrats.

The political trip to the state will be his sixth this cycle, an unusual
pace for any surrogate in a single state. But friends and former associates
say 2014 is no ordinary midterm election in Arkansas, and Bill Clinton is,
of course, no ordinary politician.

“There’s not a picnic or a Labor Day parade that Bill Clinton hasn’t been
in at least three times,” said Vincent Insalaco, the chairman of the
Arkansas Democratic Party who has known Clinton since his 1974 campaign for
Congress. “If you haven’t shaken Bill Clinton’s hand in Arkansas, then
you’ve either been hiding under a rock or you didn’t want to do it.”

Insalaco describes Clinton as an ongoing fixture in the state who “never
really left. That’s the thing most people don’t understand.” Clinton,
Insalaco said, returns for everything from family friends’ funerals to
ribbon cuttings to high school reunions and, of course, campaigns.

This year’s ballot, in particular, is full of friends and foes of the
former president, a dynamic that makes the election unusually personal for
him.

At the top of the ticket is former congressman Mike Ross, Clinton’s
campaign driver from his 1982 gubernatorial run who is running for
governor. Ross’s opponent is Republican Asa Hutchinson, another former
House member who served as an impeachment manager when Clinton faced
impeachment charges in 1998.

“Clinton’s never forgotten that,” says one Arkansas Democrat. “It’s one
thing to vote for impeachment, but to take a leadership role against the
governor of your own state? That’s bullshit and there are a lot of people
who would tell you that.”

Other Clinton allies on the ballot include Sen. Mark Pryor, the son of
former senator David Pryor, one of Clinton’s early mentors, is locked in a
tight race against freshman Republican Rep. Tom Cotton. James Lee Witt,
Clinton’s former FEMA director and a friend since 1974, is running for
Cotton’s open House seat. And Patrick Hays, the former Democratic mayor of
North Little Rock who campaigned for Clinton in 1992 in a merry band of
volunteers known as the “Arkansas Travelers,” is challenging former Bush
adviser Rep. French Hill in the 4th Congressional District.

Clinton will stump for all four Monday and Tuesday in rallies across the
state and is expected to return again before the election, a sign of how
deeply he is invested in the outcome.

Winning in November would not only mean victory for his friends, but also
for his own legacy, preserving the brand of Southern progressive politics
he has championed and installing Clinton allies in important statewide
slots ahead of a potential 2016 presidential bid for Hillary Clinton.

A loss this year for Democrats in Arkansas would complete the political
realignment that began in 2010, when Republicans defeated incumbent Sen.
Blanche Lincoln by more than 20 points, swept all four House seats, and,
two years later, took control of the state legislature for the first time
in more than 100 years.

With President Obama’s approval rating in the state hovering around 30
percent, the Democrats will need all the help they can get, not only to
turn out their base voters but also to appeal to independent voters who
have turned against Obama and possibly other Democrats in the process.

“Everyone in Arkansas knows who Bill Clinton is, and by most folks he is
seen as a statesman,” said Janine Parry, professor of political science at
the University of Arkansas and director of the Arkansas poll. “He’s one of
the few name brands in Arkansas politics that could possibly counter the
new generic preference for the Republican brand that’s developed in the
state.”

Perhaps no area better demonstrates the changing sands of Arkansas politics
than Benton County, the corporate headquarters of  Wal-Mart. The county has
seen a population explosion in the last 15 years, along with a steady march
to the right by the new voters who have moved in from other states. In
1996, Clinton’s last time on the ballot, Benton County voted 51 percent
Republican. By 2012, with its population doubled, Benton County voted 69
percent for Mitt Romney.

Looking to turn back the tide or at least hold it back for one more
election, Clinton will stump in Benton County next week. He’ll also travel
to three college campuses to rally young voters, some of whom were not even
born until after Clinton’s final campaign in 1996.

“Bill Clinton does not forget his friends,” I was told over and over, and
it’s clear his friends in Arkansas have not forgotten him, either. Should
Hillary run in 2016, the same network that Clinton is stumping for next
week will be ready to help her keep Arkansas in play, an impossibility for
any other Democrat who is likely to run. The six electoral votes probably
won’t win the White House for Democrats, but they’re also not the ones
Republicans can afford to lose.

But those are political calculations for another day. This trip, and the
2014 midterms in Arkansas, seem entirely personal for Clinton, whose
“Billgrimages” to the state never really stopped.

Before Vincent Insalaco was the chairman of the Arkansas Democratic Party,
he opened a small community theater in Little Rock and named it in honor of
his late wife. Insalaco asked Clinton if he would attend.

“He did, and 1,100 people showed up to the event as a result,” Insalaco
said. “He didn’t have to do that, but it’s just what he does. He doesn’t
forget.”

*USA Today: “Bill Clinton makes 2014 ad debut for Alison Lundergan Grimes”
<http://onpolitics.usatoday.com/2014/10/01/bill-clinton-makes-2014-ad-debut-for-alison-lundergan-grimes/>*

By Susan Davis

October 1, 2014

Former president Bill Clinton made his 2014 campaign ad debut in the latest
spot by Kentucky Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes, who is trying to unseat
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in one of the most-watched races
this year.

Clinton carried Kentucky twice in his presidential campaigns and remains
popular despite the conservative lean of the state and President Obama’s
unpopularity. In the ad, which will begin airing statewide on Thursday,
Clinton does not name McConnell but takes a swipe at a highly publicized
comment he made about who was responsible for job growth in Kentucky.

“What’s being a senator about, anyway? One candidate believes it’s about
getting new jobs, getting good jobs, giving middle class people a chance to
give their kids a decent life. Nobody can tell me it’s not a senator’s job
to create jobs!” Clinton says in the ad.

McConnell has narrowly led Grimes in every major public poll since July.

The minority leader this week went on the air with a personal ad
highlighting his effort to help a Kentucky woman rescue her kidnapped
daughter from Mali. “I can’t even talk about him without getting emotional.
He cares. He cared about me and my children when other people didn’t,” the
mother says in the ad.

*Washington Post blog: Post Politics: “Pelosi says she’s sticking around,
and lays out a new goal: Majority in 2016”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/10/02/pelosi-says-shes-sticking-around-and-lays-out-a-new-goal-majority-in-2016/>*

By Paul Kane

October 2, 2014, 6:00 a.m. EDT

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was in full force
Wednesday morning,
covering an amazing stretch of issues -- from the Islamic State to the
one-year anniversary of the government shutdown to the baseball playoffs --
in little over 30 minutes.

Just when she could have walked away, Pelosi took one final question about
the 2014 midterm elections -- and, with her answer, provided a glimpse into
what has been a semi-secretive four-year plan for the House Democrats.

Smart strategists for House Democrats have long acknowledged winning the
majority in a six-year-itch midterm would be difficult, but the silver
lining has always been the effort to keep the margin as close as possible
in the belief that a presidential-level turnout -- with the possibility of
another history-making nominee for Democrats -- could provide the tail wind
needed to seize the majority in 2016.

A month before the 2014 elections, Pelosi admitted that was the plan: "This
fall [it] is important for us to come as close to [218 seats] as possible."
Why is that? "Their days are numbered. I know that in two years there will
be a Democratic Congress and a Democratic president. I’d like it to be in
two months," Pelosi said.

This represented a less emphatic goal than what she told The Washington
Post in mid-July, predicting her candidates would claim 25 seats currently
held by Republicans as they worked to defend other seats held by Democrats.

She also gave her most emphatic statement yet that she intends to stick
around at least through 2016, knocking aside earlier than previous years
the whispers that she might retire after another election. "I am staying on
for two more years. I’m running for re-election," she said.

Pelosi did not specifically say whether she would stay on as minority
leader, but it's impossible to think she would leave her leadership post
and return to the rank-and-file after eight years as minority leader and
four more as speaker.

So there is less speculation about Pelosi's future in the runup to this
election than there's been in campaign cycles past. Most people think she's
staying around for the chance at winning the majority in 2016 and possibly
going out on her own terms as speaker again, advancing the agenda of a
female Democratic president.

This could all change, particularly if Republicans gain a large number of
seats on Nov. 4 and the majority appears completely out of reach for years
to come. A few hours after Pelosi's press conference Stuart Rothenberg,
founder of the Rothenberg Political Report, upped his prediction to say
that Democrats stood no chance of a net gain in seats and Republican "gains
in the double digits certainly are possible."

Such a result would hand House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) a majority
with 245 to 250 seats, making 2016 an even steeper mountain for Pelosi's
Democrats to climb: they'd need something in the range of 25 to 30 seats to
win the majority on the possible coattails of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

At the moment there appears to be something akin to mutually assured
destruction on both sides in House races. Republicans cannot get enough of
Pelosi -- and, four years after seizing the majority by running more than
$65 million in anti-Pelosi ads, they are still dipping into that well for
their 2014 campaigns.

House Republican candidates, the National Republican Congressional
Committee and U.S. Chamber of Commerce have run 16 different Pelosi-themed
commercials in more than a dozen competitive races since mid-August alone.
"When Nancy Pelosi acts, Sean Patrick Maloney follows her lead," the
narrator says in a Chamber of Commerce ad running against Rep. Maloney
(D-N.Y.) in his upstate district. Pelosi's image hangs on the screen next
to Maloney's for a full 10 seconds.

Pelosi, the greatest fundraiser in congressional history, revels in being
such a target -- a status that earns her big support from liberal donors.
"They help me raise money every single day," she said Wednesday. "As
Franklin Roosevelt said, I take pride in my enemies."

Deep into year two of her four-year plan, Pelosi is now zeroing in on the
final weeks of this campaign to try to keep the margin as close as possible
so that 2016 can be a truly competitive year.

"These elections are -- just to get to your point, again -- are like the
Olympics," she said. "There’s a game of inches or seconds. You come a
couple seconds behind or an inch behind, you might be seventh, you don’t
even get a medal. So it’s just a question of where we come down, on what
side, how many seats come down."

*MSNBC: “Elizabeth Warren draft campaign gears up in key states”
<http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/elizabeth-warren-draft-campaign-gears-key-states>*

By Alex Seitz-Wald

October 1, 2014, 2:19 p.m. EDT

Ready for Warren, the super PAC formed to draft Democratic Sen. Elizabeth
Warren into the 2016 presidential race, is expanding its team and hiring
organizers in key presidential states, according to a job posting obtained
by msnbc.

The super PAC is hiring a deputy campaign manager, as well as state
coordinators to be based in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, which
hold the first three spots in the presidential nominating contest.

The group is looking for a deputy who can help run day-to-day operations
and work remotely, full or part time.

“An organizer at heart, you should be scrappy and creative, with the
ability to successfully build teams, manage volunteers, and empower
leaders,” founder Erica Sagrans writes in the job posting, sent to a group
of progressive organizers and operatives. Also a must: “[A] commitment to
drafting Elizabeth Warren and pushing for a progressive champion in the
2016 presidential race.”

The state coordinators with be “Ready for Warren’s point person on the
ground in your state,” she continues. Their job will include: Organizing
local events, supporting Warren allies in the 2014 midterm elections,
building a volunteer team, developing relationship with local leaders and
activists, and interfacing with local media. Those are part-time positions.

It’s a major expansion for a super PAC that has been dwarfed by the much
better funded pro-Hillary Clinton effort. Ready for Hillary, which started
first, has had staffers on the ground in key primary and caucus states for
months.

Warren has repeatedly said she’s not running for president in 2016 and in
August, disavowed Ready for Warren via her lawyer. “This letter serves as a
formal disavowal of the organization and its activity,” Warren’s attorney
wrote to the Federal Election Commission. “The Senator has not, and does
not, explicitly or implicitly, authorize, endorse, or otherwise approve of
the organization’s activities.”

When asked about the group that month, Lacey Rose, the senator’s press
secretary, said only, “Senator Warren does not support this effort.”

Sagrans confirmed the expansion to msnbc. “We’ve already seen a huge desire
for a progressive champion like Warren to run in 2016, and this is the next
step to build that into a grassroots campaign that’s ready to get Warren’s
back if she decides to get in the race,” she said in an email.

The group had a small presence at the Iowa Steak Fry last month, signing up
several hundred supporters at the event where Clinton made her
much-anticipated return to the state. Some of those holding pro-Warren
signs said they hoped the effort would move Clinton to the left, even if
Warren didn’t run. Ready for Warren has said that even if their champion
doesn’t run, they hope to “push for a progressive alternative in 2016.”

*Washington Post: “Low standing in early 2016 presidential polls ‘doesn’t
terribly worry’ O’Malley”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/low-standing-in-early-2016-presidential-polls-doesnt-terribly-worry-omalley/2014/10/01/3e257e6a-4993-11e4-b72e-d60a9229cc10_story.html>*

By John Wagner

October 1, 2014, 2:33 p.m. EDT

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) says his low standing in early 2016
presidential polls “doesn’t terribly worry me.”

The governor, who is preparing for a possible White House bid, was asked
during an appearance on the Fusion television network about a recent CNN
poll that showed Hillary Rodham Clinton as the favorite among Democrats,
with 53 percent, while he was further back in the pack, with 2 percent.

“History’s full of instances where candidates that had 2 percent have
nonetheless been able to put forward the best message and the best story
for moving our country forward,” O’Malley host Jorge Ramos while a guest on
his show, “America.”

The segment, on which O’Malley also discussed Maryland’s response to the
wave of unaccompanied child migrants from Central America, aired Tuesday night
and was posted online Wednesday.

Ramos asked O’Malley if his standing in the polls worried him.

“It doesn’t terribly worry me,” O’Malley said. “The people in those early
states in presidential contests take their franchise very seriously. They
get to evaluate every candidate.”

O’Malley recently told The Washington Post that he will “probably” make a
decision about whether to move forward with a presidential bid by the time
his tenure as governor ends on Jan. 21.

The Fusion network, which launched last year, is a a joint venture between
the Disney-ABC Television Group and Univision Communications.

*Calendar:*

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

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

 ·  October 2 – Miami, FL: Sec. Clinton signs “Hard Choices” at Books and
Books (HillaryClintonMemoir.com
<http://www.hillaryclintonmemoir.com/miami_book_signing>)

 ·  October 2 – Miami, FL: Sec. Clinton fundraises for Charlie Crist (
Politico
<http://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/hillary-clinton-charlie-crist-campaign-florida-111229.html>
)

·  October 6 – Ottawa, Canada: Sec. Clinton speaks at Canada 2020 event (Ottawa
Citizen
<http://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/hillary-clinton-speaking-in-ottawa-oct-6>
)

·  October 8 – (Chicago, IL): Sec. Clinton stumps for Illinois Gov.
Quinn (Chicago
Sun-Times
<http://politics.suntimes.com/article/washington/hillary-clinton-hitting-illinois-stump-gov-quinn/mon-09292014-1000am>
)

·  October 8 – (Chicago, IL): Sec. Clinton keynotes AdvaMed 2014 conference
(AdvaMed
<http://advamed2014.com/download/files/AVM14%20Wednesday%20Plenary%20Media%20Alert%20FINAL%209_30_14(1).pdf>
)

·  October 13 – Las Vegas, NV: Sec. Clinton and Sen. Reid fundraise for the
Reid Nevada Fund (Ralston Reports
<http://www.ralstonreports.com/blog/hillary-raise-money-state-democrats-reid-next-month>
)

·  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 1 – New York, NY: Sec. Clinton keynotes a League of
Conservation Voters dinner (Politico
<http://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/hillary-clinton-green-groups-las-vegas-111430.html?hp=l11>
)

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