Subject: Correct The Record Monday September 29, 2014 Afternoon Roundup
From: Burns Strider <[email-masked]>
To: CTRFriendsFamily <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2014 13:59:58 -0400
List-Id: <CTRFriendsFamily.americanbridge.org>

*​**Correct The Record Monday September 29, 2014 Afternoon Roundup:*

*Tweets:*

*Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: .@HillaryClinton
<https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton>’s State Department sponsored teacher
exchange programs focused on education for girls.
http://correctrecord.org/hillary-clinton-education-for-girls-futures …
<http://t.co/Nirv28P4Vn> [9/29/14, 12:41 p.m. EDT
<https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/516628743335317504>]

*Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: .@HillaryClinton
<https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton> unveiled a new program to provide
secondary education for 14 million girls over five years.
http://correctrecord.org/hillary-clinton-education-for-girls-futures …
<http://t.co/Nirv28P4Vn> [9/29/14, 11:59 a.m. EDT
<https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/516618184338583552>]

*Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: NEW RECORD ANALYSIS: @HillaryClinton
<https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton> and Education for Girls' Futures
http://correctrecord.org/hillary-clinton-education-for-girls-futures …
<http://t.co/JL2nvF6NW1> [9/29/14, 11:52 a.m. EDT
<https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/516616578147033088>]

*Headlines:*

*Wall Street Journal: “Hillary Clinton Focuses on the Policy, Not the
Personal”
<http://online.wsj.com/articles/hillary-clinton-focuses-on-the-policy-not-the-personal-1412004597>*

“Already one of the country's best-known figures, Mrs. Clinton is playing
down her personal story and instead keeping issues front and center.”

*Chicago Sun-Times blog: Politics: “Hillary Clinton hitting Illinois to
stump for Gov. Quinn”
<http://politics.suntimes.com/article/washington/hillary-clinton-hitting-illinois-stump-gov-quinn/mon-09292014-1000am>*

“Clinton had been on the calendar for Oct. 8--though the birth of her
granddaughter on Friday may change her schedule.”

*CNN: “Obama subtly pushes back against Clinton, Panetta on Syria”
<http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/29/politics/obama-clinton-syria/index.html>*

“President Barack Obama, over the last two years, has seen his top two
former national security Cabinet officials critique his foreign policy
decision in Syria. Now the President has gently pushed back.”

*The Press Trust of India (in The Economic Times): “Prime Minister Narendra
Modi meets Bill and Hillary Clinton”
<http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/prime-minister-narendra-modi-meets-bill-and-hillary-clinton/articleshow/43826987.cms>*

“Former US President Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary Clinton today called
on Prime Minister Narendra Modi here and discussed Indo-US relations.”

*Washingtonian: Capital Comment: “In Virginia’s 10th District, It’s Hillary
Clinton’s Race to Lose”
<http://www.washingtonian.com/blogs/capitalcomment/politics/in-virginias-10th-district-its-hillary-clintons-race-to-lose.php>*

“For more than a year, one name has trumped all others in Virginia
politics: Hillary.”

*Al Jazeera America opinion: Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for
Economic and Policy Research: “Hard choices: Hillary Clinton admits role in
Honduran coup”
<http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/9/hillary-clinton-honduraslatinamericaforeignpolicy.html>*

“Like the 54-year-old failed embargo against Cuba, Clinton’s position on
Latin America in her bid for the presidency is another example of how the
far right exerts disproportionate influence on U.S. foreign policy in the
hemisphere.”

*The Hill blog: Ballot Box: “O’Malley in NH: Nation wants ‘new leaders’”
<http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/219161-omalley-in-new-hampshire-people-want-new-leaders#.VCmELa9jX8R.twitter>*

“Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley (D), who is considering a 2016 presidential
bid, said in New Hampshire that people want to hear from ‘new leaders.’”

*New York Times: “A Record of Resilience at Vanguard of American
Presidential Politics”
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/29/us/a-record-of-resilience-at-vanguard-of-american-presidential-politics.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share&_r=0>*

“Twenty-two years after he won the White House and six years after his
wife’s near miss for the Democratic nomination, former President Bill
Clinton again stands in the thick of the competition for the nation’s
highest office. That makes Mr. Clinton, who addressed his first national
convention at age 33 and on Friday became a grandfather at 68, the most
durable high-stakes player ever in American presidential politics.”

*Articles:*

*Wall Street Journal: “Hillary Clinton Focuses on the Policy, Not the
Personal”
<http://online.wsj.com/articles/hillary-clinton-focuses-on-the-policy-not-the-personal-1412004597>*

By Peter Nicholas

September 29, 2014, 11:29 a.m. EDT

NEW YORK—When he first ran for president, Barack Obama's themes were "hope"
and "change." Hillary Clinton, appearing at a conference last week,
trumpeted what she called "evidence-based optimism."

That isn't a phrase that lends itself to a campaign slogan, but these days
it captures the unsentimental approach Mrs. Clinton is bringing to policy
debates ahead of the 2016 presidential contest.

Already one of the country's best-known figures, Mrs. Clinton is playing
down her personal story and instead keeping issues front and center. Her
message is that she would bring to American politics a competence and
analytical rigor.

Mrs. Clinton's office declined to comment for this article. But to the
degree she is revealing much of anything about her private life, it is to
gush over her growing family. Her daughter, Chelsea, gave birth Friday to
Charlotte Clinton Mezvinsky, making Mrs. Clinton a first-time grandmother
at 66 years old.

In a Saturday tweet—accompanied by a picture of her cradling the baby—Mrs.
Clinton wrote that she and her husband were "over the moon to be
grandparents!" She also has begun emphasizing her roots in the Midwest, a
region that can be a political bellwether.

But while some potential 2016 Republican presidential candidates are
showcasing their personalities as a reason to like and trust them, Mrs.
Clinton for the most part is making clear she would rather talk about
something else.

If the material is distinctly dry and unsexy, Mrs. Clinton doesn't seem to
mind. Mr. Obama defeated her in the 2008 Democratic primary in part because
voters found his message and life story inspiring. But Mrs. Clinton doesn't
seem to be betting that charisma will decide things in 2016. She is
bemoaning what she calls the "evidence-free zone" in American politics
while celebrating "data" as the indispensable tool in choosing the best
options.

"Data, data, data," she said at a Clinton Global Initiative panel
discussion—another phrase not likely to find its way onto a bumper sticker.

She talked about brain "hardware" and "neural connections" during one panel
about childhood development and mused about new ways to measure gross
domestic product during another appearance.

"We obsess over metrics, get excited about data," Mrs. Clinton said in a
closing speech at the conference.

Her focus insulates her to some degree from Republican attacks in the
run-up to her announcement on whether she'll be a candidate once more. It
is hard to muster an attack based on a call for better data in American
policy-making.

What's more, when she has ventured into details about her personal life,
she has gotten into trouble. Some of her former advisers cringed earlier
this year when the former first lady, U.S. senator and secretary of state
said she hadn't driven a car since 1996–a result of her being under
constant Secret Service protection.

And she garnered little sympathy when she told a TV interviewer in June
that she and her husband were "dead broke" when they left the White House
in 2001.

"Once she leaves the policy space and moves into personality, she just
opens herself up to a broad range of attacks," said Tad Devine, who worked
for the presidential campaigns of Democrats Al Gore and John Kerry, among
others. "It is much harder for opponents to deal with you as long as you
occupy the policy space."

"Her comfort zone is talking more about policies and ideas than it is
talking about herself and who she is," said Peter Peyser, a longtime
Democratic lobbyist.

If she runs for president, Mrs. Clinton eventually will need to present
herself as more than a vessel for certain policy ideas, analysts say.
Voters want to feel a connection to presidential candidates, and Mrs.
Clinton would need to give them one.

"She can be wonkette for some time, but running for president requires more
than being a propeller head," said Bill Whalen, who worked for former
Republican President George H.W. Bush's campaign in 1992. "You also have to
propel a personality."

On the Republican side, prospective candidates are doing just that. New
Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is emphasizing his bluntness and candor. Another
potential GOP candidate, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, is underscoring his
independent streak—a willingness to part ways with fellow Republicans who
are quicker to call for U.S. military intervention.

In recent weeks, Mrs. Clinton has dropped hints about the pieces of her
personal life she is likely to showcase on the campaign trail.

Family is emerging as major theme. In addition to talking about her new
grandchild she also has been sharing stories about the hardships her late
mother endured as a child.

Expect Mrs. Clinton to invoke such biographical bits in pressing for
policies that help shore up American families, one member of her circle
said.

"One of the themes you're going to see a lot of is these issues around
family," this person said. "She can talk about that, and in a way, she's
living that."

*Chicago Sun-Times blog: Politics: “Hillary Clinton hitting Illinois to
stump for Gov. Quinn”
<http://politics.suntimes.com/article/washington/hillary-clinton-hitting-illinois-stump-gov-quinn/mon-09292014-1000am>*

By Lynn Sweet

September 29, 2014, 9:00 a.m. CDT

Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, raised in north suburban
Park Ridge, will be stumping for Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn, I've learned.

Quinn is locked in a tight race with GOP nominee Bruce Rauner. This comes
as President Barack Obama hits Chicago on Thursday for Quinn and first lady
Michelle comes home on Oct. 7. Clinton, mulling a 2016 presidential run,
does not need the headache of a GOP governor in Illinois if she makes her
bid.

Clinton had been on the calendar for Oct. 8--though the birth of her
granddaughter on Friday may change her schedule.

*CNN: “Obama subtly pushes back against Clinton, Panetta on Syria”
<http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/29/politics/obama-clinton-syria/index.html>*

By Dan Merica

September 29, 2014, 12:46 p.m. EDT

President Barack Obama, over the last two years, has seen his top two
former national security Cabinet officials critique his foreign policy
decision in Syria.

Now the President has gently pushed back.

In an interview with CBS' "60 Minutes" that aired on Sunday, Obama said
that arming Syrian rebels in 2012 in their fight against President Bashar
al-Assad "would have been counterproductive."

"This is in response to the mythology that has evolved that somehow if we
had given those folks some guns two and a half years ago, than Syria would
be fine," Obama said about the 2012 plans. "For us to just go blind on that
would have been counterproductive and would not have helped the situation.
It also would have committed us to a much more significant role inside of
Syria."

Earlier this month, the President authorized a plan to arm and train rebels
in Syria fighting against ISIS, a terrorist group that has swept into power
in areas in both Syria and Iraq. Obama's plan also authorizes airstrikes
against ISIS targets.

Former top Obama administration officials, including former Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton and former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, have
publicly disagreed with the president on Syria.

Clinton wrote in her memoir "Hard Choices" that she split with Obama on
Syria and urged the president to arm the rebels.

In an interview with The Atlantic in August, Clinton said, "The failure to
help build up a credible fighting force of the people who were the
originators of the protests against Assad ... the failure to do that left a
big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled."

And just last week, at the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative,
the former secretary of state dodged a question on whether arming the
rebels was coming too late, given the recent rise of ISIS in Syria.

"Whatever the debates might have been before, this is a threat to the
region and beyond," Clinton said. "I can't sit here today and tell you that
if we had done what I had recommended we would be in a very different
position. I just can't. You can't go and prove a negative."

Clinton does support Obama's plan to arm rebels and launch airstrikes
against ISIS in Syria.

Panetta echoed Clinton's Syria sentiments and knocked the president in an
interview with "60 Minutes" earlier this month.

"I think that would've helped," the former defense chief said about arming
rebels. "And I think, in part, we pay the price for not doing that in what
we see happening with ISIS."

*The Press Trust of India (in The Economic Times): “Prime Minister Narendra
Modi meets Bill and Hillary Clinton”
<http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/prime-minister-narendra-modi-meets-bill-and-hillary-clinton/articleshow/43826987.cms>*

[No Writer Mentioned]

September 29, 2014, 9:54 p.m. IST

NEW YORK: Former US President Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary Clinton
today called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi here and discussed Indo-US
relations.

The Clinton couple had a 45-minute meeting with Modi, who was accompanied
by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj.

Both the Prime Minister and Swaraj warmly welcomed the Clintons and wished
them on becoming grandparents. Swaraj warmly hugged Hillary.

Chelsea, the daughter of Bill and former Secretary of State Hillary, gave
birth to daughter Charlotte last week.

Known for their love for India, Bill and Hillary were expected to discuss
Indo-US engagements and the priorities of the new government in this regard.

The meeting comes in the backdrop of reports that Hillary may contest the
US Presidential elections in 2016.

*Washingtonian: Capital Comment: “In Virginia’s 10th District, It’s Hillary
Clinton’s Race to Lose”
<http://www.washingtonian.com/blogs/capitalcomment/politics/in-virginias-10th-district-its-hillary-clintons-race-to-lose.php>*

By Harry Jaffe

September 29, 2014

[Subtitle:] Why all local politics in Virginia have become national.

For more than a year, one name has trumped all others in Virginia politics:
Hillary.

“Hillary Clinton’s first test,” was how Politico characterized Governor
Terry McAuliffe’s campaign last summer, suggesting it was merely a dry run
for the consultants, pollsters, bundlers, and other moving parts of
Hillary’s 50-state 2016 vehicle. Or as another website asked: Is McAuliffe
“nothing more than Hillary’s stalking horse?”

Now comes the congressional race in Virginia’s 10th District, in which the
Republican candidate, Barbara Comstock, a flame-throwing conservative
Republican state delegate, embellished her primary win by bashing the
Clintons and vowing to “get to the bottom of the truth in Benghazi.”
Meanwhile, Comstock’s opponent, Fairfax County supervisor John Foust, is
getting help from ’90s-era Bill Clinton aide Paul Begala, who’s been
issuing poison tweets about Comstock.

Virginia’s politics isn’t being stalked; it’s been kidnapped.

The increasingly national flavor of the Commonwealth’s local elections is
partly a function of its DC suburbs. McAuliffe, Comstock, and Begala—as
well as GOP strategist Ed Gillespie, running for the US Senate against Mark
Warner, and Newt Gingrich, a longtime supporter of Comstock—call Northern
Virginia home.

When they run for office, they end up squaring off against old
federal-level foes. As an aide to Representative Frank Wolf in the early
1990s, Comstock made her name investigating the Clintons. She triggered the
minor scandal known as Travelgate and had a hand in Filegate and
Monicagate. “It’s as if these old Beltway grudge matches are being rehashed
where so many of these players now live,” says David Wasserman, with the
Cook Political Report.

Another reason national politics has intruded is that Virginia increasingly
looks like the nation. Once “solid South,” the state has become a
bellwether. “There’s no better laboratory,” says a Democratic Party
operative.

The 10th District is Virginia in microcosm. Spanning the urban-oriented
enclaves of Fairfax and the apple orchards around Winchester, it leans left
on its eastern end and squats solidly Republican in the west. The area in
between, around Dulles and the exurbs of Leesburg, bulges with Asian and
Hispanic newcomers. “If you want to take the temperature of the country,”
says Kyle Kondik of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, “this
might be a good district to pick.”

Those demographics mean the fight for the district’s seat will produce more
partisan heat than its constituents bargained for. The Democratic and
Republican congressional campaign committees have set aside more than $2
million each to contest this small scrap of battleground.

But the 10th’s political diversity may guarantee residents the local
election they deserve. Already, Comstock has ditched her anti-Clinton
rhetoric to appeal to moderate suburbanites. “I’m a doer and not interested
in continuing these fights,” she told Washingtonian.

Foust is still trying to stick Comstock with the GOP’s entire ’90s
tally—“She spent four years and over $80 million to investigate the
Clintons and found basically nothing,” he says—but to win in November,
he’ll also need to address jobs, health care, and traffic.

Not that he’d refuse if Hillary showed up to campaign for him. Says Foust:
“I definitely would welcome that.”

*Al Jazeera America opinion: Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for
Economic and Policy Research: “Hard choices: Hillary Clinton admits role in
Honduran coup”
<http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/9/hillary-clinton-honduraslatinamericaforeignpolicy.html>*

By Mark Weisbrot

September 29, 2014, 6:00 a.m. EDT

[Subtitle:] Clinton’s embrace of far-right narrative on Latin America is
part of electoral strategy

In a recent op-ed in The Washington Post, former Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton used a review of Henry Kissinger’s latest book, “World Order,” to
lay out her vision for “sustaining America’s leadership in the world.” In
the midst of numerous global crises, she called for return to a foreign
policy with purpose, strategy and pragmatism. She also highlighted some of
these policy choices in her memoir “Hard Choices” and how they contributed
to the challenges that Barack Obama’s administration now faces.

The chapter on Latin America, particularly the section on Honduras, a major
source of the child migrants currently pouring into the United States, has
gone largely unnoticed. In letters to Clinton and her successor, John
Kerry, more than 100 members of Congress have repeatedly warned about the
deteriorating security situation in Honduras, especially since the 2009
military coup that ousted the country’s democratically elected President
Manuel Zelaya. As Honduran scholar Dana Frank points out in Foreign
Affairs, the U.S.-backed post-coup government “rewarded coup loyalists with
top ministries,” opening the door for further “violence and anarchy.”

The homicide rate in Honduras, already the highest in the world, increased
by 50 percent from 2008 to 2011; political repression, the murder of
opposition political candidates, peasant organizers and LGBT activists
increased and continue to this day. Femicides skyrocketed. The violence and
insecurity were exacerbated by a generalized institutional collapse.
Drug-related violence has worsened amid allegations of rampant corruption
in Honduras’ police and government. While the gangs are responsible for
much of the violence, Honduran security forces have engaged in a wave of
killings and other human rights crimes with impunity.

Despite this, however, both under Clinton and Kerry, the State Department’s
response to the violence and military and police impunity has largely been
silence, along with continued U.S. aid to Honduran security forces. In
“Hard Choices,” Clinton describes her role in the aftermath of the coup
that brought about this dire situation. Her firsthand account is
significant both for the confession of an important truth and for a crucial
false testimony.

First, the confession: Clinton admits that she used the power of her office
to make sure that Zelaya would not return to office. “In the subsequent
days [after the coup] I spoke with my counterparts around the hemisphere,
including Secretary [Patricia] Espinosa in Mexico,” Clinton writes. “We
strategized on a plan to restore order in Honduras and ensure that free and
fair elections could be held quickly and legitimately, which would render
the question of Zelaya moot.”

This may not come as a surprise to those who followed the post-coup drama
closely. (See my commentary from 2009 on Washington’s role in helping the
coup succeed here, here and here.) But the official storyline, which was
dutifully accepted by most in the media, was that the Obama administration
actually opposed the coup and wanted Zelaya to return to office.

The question of Zelaya was anything but moot. Latin American leaders, the
United Nations General Assembly and other international bodies vehemently
demanded his immediate return to office. Clinton’s defiant and
anti-democratic stance spurred a downward slide in U.S. relations with
several Latin American countries, which has continued. It eroded the warm
welcome and benefit of the doubt that even the leftist governments in
region offered to the newly installed Obama administration a few months
earlier.

Clinton’s false testimony is even more revealing. She reports that Zelaya
was arrested amid “fears that he was preparing to circumvent the
constitution and extend his term in office.” This is simply not true. As
Clinton must know, when Zelaya was kidnapped by the military and flown out
of the country in his pajamas on June 28, 2009, he was trying to put a
consultative, nonbinding poll on the ballot to ask voters whether they
wanted to have a real referendum on reforming the constitution during the
scheduled election in November. It is important to note that Zelaya was not
eligible to run in that election. Even if he had gotten everything he
wanted, it was impossible for Zelaya to extend his term in office. But this
did not stop the extreme right in Honduras and the United States from using
false charges of tampering with the constitution to justify the coup.

In addition to her bold confession and Clinton’s embrace of the far-right
narrative in the Honduran episode, the Latin America chapter is
considerably to the right of even her own record on the region as secretary
of state. This appears to be a political calculation. There is little risk
of losing votes for admitting her role in making most of the hemisphere’s
governments disgusted with the United States. On the other side of the
equation, there are influential interest groups and significant campaign
money to be raised from the right-wing Latin American lobby, including
Floridian Cuban-Americans and their political fundraisers.

Like the 54-year-old failed embargo against Cuba, Clinton’s position on
Latin America in her bid for the presidency is another example of how the
far right exerts disproportionate influence on U.S. foreign policy in the
hemisphere.

*The Hill blog: Ballot Box: “O’Malley in NH: Nation wants ‘new leaders’”
<http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/219161-omalley-in-new-hampshire-people-want-new-leaders#.VCmELa9jX8R.twitter>*

By Peter Sullivan

September 29, 2014, 9:52 a.m. EDT

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley (D), who is considering a 2016 presidential
bid, said in New Hampshire that people want to hear from "new leaders."

The remark will be seen as a criticism of Hillary Clinton, who has been on
the national stage for years, and would be the Democratic frontrunner if
she enters the race.

The trip to New Hampshire, “reinforced the hunch I had that people want to
hear a new perspective, that they want to hear from new leaders,” O’Malley
told New York magazine in a story published Sunday night. “I think that
reality is very much out there," he added.

O'Malley spoke at the Portsmouth, N.H., Democrats' annual dinner on Friday.
The appearance in the home of the nation's first presidential primary
featured a video touting O'Malley's work to turn around Baltimore, as
mayor, and Maryland, as governor.

O'Malley has made no secret of the fact that he is considering a
presidential run. He has sent staff to help on campaigns this year in
states including Iowa and New Hampshire, and has made repeated trips to
both early-voting states.

At this stage, though, polls give him just one or two points of support,
compared to well over 50 percent for Clinton.

*New York Times: “A Record of Resilience at Vanguard of American
Presidential Politics”
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/29/us/a-record-of-resilience-at-vanguard-of-american-presidential-politics.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share&_r=0>*

By John Harwood

September 28, 2014

WASHINGTON — Obscured in all the talk about Hillary Rodham Clinton and the
2016 race is a historical achievement unrelated to gender.

Twenty-two years after he won the White House and six years after his
wife’s near miss for the Democratic nomination, former President Bill
Clinton again stands in the thick of the competition for the nation’s
highest office.

That makes Mr. Clinton, who addressed his first national convention at age
33 and on Friday became a grandfather at 68, the most durable high-stakes
player ever in American presidential politics.

It does not make him the most successful or influential president, and he
tops no academic lists of the all-time greats. Unlike Presidents Franklin
D. Roosevelt and Richard M. Nixon, each of whom appeared on five national
ballots, Mr. Clinton stood for election nationwide only twice.

His stature on leaving office, in contrast to President Ronald Reagan’s,
proved insufficient to secure the election of his vice president to the
White House. He never won a majority of the popular vote, as President
Obama has done twice. And he is one of only two presidents impeached by the
House of Representatives. (Andrew Johnson — who had been Lincoln’s vice
president, and never elected to the top job at all — was the other, more
than century earlier.)

Yet Mr. Clinton’s Cal Ripken-like determination to keep showing up, and a
White House record that glows brighter in memory, have sustained his appeal
across a turn of centuries, three decades and multiple generations of swing
voters. As he played host last week to the current president and perhaps
the next one (his wife) at the Clinton Global Initiative, one historian
likened him to a rare creature built for longevity at high altitudes.

“He’s been a snow leopard longer than any other president,” the historian,
Douglas Brinkley of Rice University, said. “There’s been nobody like Bill
Clinton who’s played that long at the very top.”

Barring a constitutional amendment, Roosevelt will remain the only American
to win the presidency more than twice. But he died in office 13 years after
the first of his four victories in 1932.

Mr. Reagan electrified conservatives on the campaign trail in 1964 on
behalf of the Republican nominee, Senator Barry M. Goldwater of Arizona.
But Mr. Goldwater lost big, and Mr. Reagan did not win the presidency until
1980. Fourteen years later, he announced he had Alzheimer’s disease.

Mr. Nixon ran as Dwight D. Eisenhower’s vice president in 1952, and 1956.
He lost the White House to John F. Kennedy in 1960 before winning in 1968
and 1972 (and resigning in 1974). That run draws comparisons to Mr.
Clinton’s longevity.

Mr. Clinton “wouldn’t like to hear this, but in a lot of ways he’s like
Nixon in that raw determination to keep moving forward,” said Kenneth L.
Khachigian, a former Nixon aide.

The dawning of both Clintons’ careers makes that comparison all the more
striking. In 1974, the year before the Clintons married, Hillary Rodham
worked for the House committee pursuing the impeachment of Mr. Nixon, and
Mr. Clinton fell short as a Democratic congressional candidate seeking to
capitalize on the Watergate scandal.

Mrs. Clinton approaches her decision to run on firmer ground than any
nonincumbent in years. As senator from New York and then secretary of
state, she has built a substantial independent standing and appeal. But Mr.
Clinton has profoundly shaped her ability, as well as that of any modern
Democratic nominee, to compete.

He modernized the aging Roosevelt coalition shattered by Mr. Reagan,
showing Democrats how to win the White House after a 12-year drought. The
economic growth he presided over has produced such nostalgia that
Republicans now invoke him to disparage Mr. Obama.

“Like Reagan’s, Clinton’s historical significance, his consequence, has
become more apparent with the passage of time,” said Richard Norton Smith,
founding director of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.

Presidents can influence contests for the White House in many ways after
they have moved out of it. Mr. Smith, whose book “An Uncommon Man”
chronicled Herbert Hoover’s post-presidency, notes that Democrats used Mr.
Hoover for decades as a cudgel against Republicans. Yet during the 31 years
he lived after returning to private life, Mr. Hoover headed two
presidential commissions on the federal government, and the eponymous
institution he founded at Stanford University influenced the resurgence of
conservatism.

On the other side, former President Jimmy Carter, who turns 90 on Wednesday,
was a consistent Republican target after his 1980 loss to Mr. Reagan. Mr.
Carter has now been an ex-president longer than any in history — surpassing
Mr. Hoover’s record — and he spent the decades focusing on human rights and
the resolution of international conflicts. He won the 2002 Nobel Peace
Prize.

Former President George Bush was unpopular enough within the Republican
Party when he left office that his own son President George W. Bush kept
his political distance. The younger Mr. Bush, himself, has taken up
painting.

Mr. Clinton still savors life on the big stage and the nuts and bolts of
politics. He has courted Reagan Democrats, soccer moms, baby boom yuppies,
tech workers and millennials on his own behalf and for his wife.

His scorecard, despite scandal and strife during his tenure, remains
robust. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll this month showed Mr. Clinton
with a 56 percent favorability rating.

Mr. Brinkley credited it to “a combination of ambition, will, narcissism
and talent.”

Paul Begala, a former Clinton aide, cites the lip-biting empathy that Mr.
Clinton displays, and that late-night comics once mocked, reasoning that
Americans return the apparent concern and affection he has extended to them.

The ex-president benefits, too, from simply having served during the first
Silicon Valley boom. “Those of us who aren’t Clintonites credit most of it
to the fact that a whole new source for our economy was created — and not
by him,” Mr. Khachigian said.

Mr. Clinton himself has since grown wealthy. Yet even adversaries do not
believe that is why he stays in the game.

“He’d probably give it all up,” Mr. Khachigian said, “if he could have a
permanent microphone and an office in the West Wing.”