Subject: CTR Friday August 15, 2014 Afternoon Roundup
From: Burns Strider <[email-masked]>
To: CTRFriendsFamily <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2014 10:57:33 -0700
List-Id: <CTRFriendsFamily.americanbridge.org>

Happy Weekend. Tennessee Williams said, "Time is the longest distance
between two places." True. But, that distance can feel shorter, sometimes,
because we communicate in real time, across any geographic distance...
Immediacy for its own sake. Time is also a blessing, a gift, and its
August; the dog days. Live this time in the moment, with family and
friends. Forward!

Let's go get 'em...

*Correct The Record Friday August 15, 2014 Afternoon Roundup:*

*Tweets:*

*Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: In the Senate, @HillaryClinton
<https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton> fought to expand gay rights and
protect LGBT people from abuse and discrimination.
http://www.advocate.com/commentary/2014/08/14/op-ed-hillary-ready-us …
<http://t.co/DxmCRZGr0O> [8/15/14, 9:05 a.m. EDT
<https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/500267036417986560>]

*Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: .@HillaryClinton
<https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton> passed bill protecting wildlife,
promoting sound water management in Great Lakes #HRC365
<https://twitter.com/hashtag/HRC365?src=hash>
https://beta.congress.gov/bill/110th-congress/senate-joint-resolution/45/cosponsors
…
<https://t.co/cmkgXueSF2> [8/14/14, 9:58 p.m. EDT
<https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/500099209270657024>]

*Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: "Hillary has always stood with ... the
entire LGBT community. And she always will." @AllidaBlack
<https://twitter.com/allidablack> in @TheAdvocateMag
<https://twitter.com/TheAdvocateMag>
http://www.advocate.com/commentary/2014/08/14/op-ed-hillary-ready-us …
<http://t.co/DxmCRZGr0O> [8/14/14, 6:01 p.m. EDT
<https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/500039505517490177>]

*Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: .@HillaryClinton
<https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton>’s actions establish her as one of the
"most visible and heartfelt supporters of the LGBT community.”
http://www.advocate.com/commentary/2014/08/14/op-ed-hillary-ready-us …
<http://t.co/DxmCRZGr0O> [8/14/14, 5:15 p.m. EDT
<https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/500027946338623490>]

*Headlines:*

*New Republic: “Here's Another Sign That Hillary Clinton's the New Boss in
Town”
<http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119097/david-brocks-crew-gig-another-sign-hillarys-new-dem-boss>*

“Brock now controls not only CREW, but also the Democrat-backing nonprofits
and Super PACS Media Matters, American Bridge, American Independent
Institute, and Correct the Record.”

*Washington Post opinion: Aaron David Miller: “If Hillary Clinton had won
in 2008, what would her foreign policy have looked like?”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/if-hillary-clinton-had-won-in-2008-what-would-her-foreign-policy-have-looked-like/2014/08/15/93f0d16a-2313-11e4-86ca-6f03cbd15c1a_story.html>*

“Clinton could never have become Obama’s top diplomat and functioned so
well in that job had they not been largely on the same page in terms of how
they saw the world and what America should do about it. They both are
transactors, not ideological transformers — smart, pragmatic centrists
largely coloring inside the lines in a world of long shots and bad options.
In other words, there’s no need for them to ‘hug it out’ on foreign policy.”

*Politico Magazine: “Is Hillary Too Hawkish to Win in 2016?”
<http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/08/is-hillary-too-hawkish-to-win-in-2016-110054.html#.U-41afldV8E>*

“Today, the friction between the Clinton and Obama camps has attracted most
of the recent media attention. But while Clinton and Obama have their
differences, they only represent different strains within the liberal
interventionist school.”

*Talking Points Memo: “The Clintons Might Already Be Wooing A 2016 Veep
Candidate”
<http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/hillary-clinton-julian-castro-vice-presidential-candidate>*

“President Bill Clinton invited incoming Secretary of Housing and Urban
Development Julian Castro to dine at the Clinton's private D.C. home last
week, the Washington Post reported, making it impossible for the media to
ignore the 2016 implications.”

*CBS News: “Hillary Clinton's lead over potential 2016 GOP foes shrinks:
Poll”
<http://www.cbsnews.com/news/hillary-clintons-lead-over-potential-2016-gop-foes-shrinks-poll/>*

“In the new survey, the former secretary of state outpaces Gov. Chris
Christie, R-N.J., by seven points, 48 to 41 percent. In April. though,
McClatchy found her ahead of Christie by 11 points, 53 to 42 percent. And
in February, the gap between the two was a yawning 21 percent.”

*Articles:*

*New Republic: “Here's Another Sign That Hillary Clinton's the New Boss in
Town”
<http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119097/david-brocks-crew-gig-another-sign-hillarys-new-dem-boss>*

By Jason Zengerle

August 14, 2014

Wednesday night, Politico’s Ken Vogel broke the news that David Brock,
right-wing-hitman-turned-Hillary-Clinton-bodyguard, is taking over the
government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (CREW).
That means Brock now controls not only CREW, but also the Democrat-backing
nonprofits and Super PACS Media Matters, American Bridge, American
Independent Institute, and Correct the Record. It’s a veritable empire of
liberal third-party groups! All of which prompted Vogel to write on
Twitter, immediately after his CREW scoop came out, that Brock is now the
Democrats’ version of Karl Rove.

It’s a title Brock has been gunning for since at least 2010, when, in the
wake of the Republican rout in the midterm elections, he announced his
plans to start American Bridge. Brock, who at the time only counted Media
Matters as a jewel in his crown, initially positioned American Bridge as
the liberal analogue to Rove’s American Crossroads group, the outside
conservative group that played such a key role in the GOP’s 2010 efforts.
In Brock’s vision, American Bridge would be a behemoth that raised and
spent millions of dollars, primarily on television ads, to benefit Barack
Obama and other Democratic candidates in 2012. As he boasted to The New
York Times at the time:

“My donor base already constitutes the major individual players who have
historically given hundreds of millions of dollars to these types of
efforts…. They just need to be asked, and I have no doubt they will step up
at this critical time.”

But then a strange thing happened. Brock’s donors didn’t step up. Although
they were happy to continue to fork over money to Media Matters, they
didn’t want to contribute to American Bridge.

This was partly because they primarily viewed Brock as a media watchdog,
not a political strategist. (After all, they’d come to know him as the
repentant right-wing hit man.) But it had more to do with the fact that
Obama’s political operation—which, in the wake of the 2010 elections, put
out word that it now welcomed Democratic independent-expenditure
groups—didn’t want Brock, who during the 2008 Democratic primaries had been
one of Hillary Clinton’s most diehard supporters, to be in charge of the
I.E. effort.

As one Obama-affiliated Democratic strategist told me at the time, “Do you
think David Plouffe and David Axelrod are going to let David Brock go out
and build an empire to explain Barack Obama’s policies and worldview to
voters?”

In the end, American Bridge was scaled back to be an opposition-research
outfit, while Priorities USA, helmed by former Obama aide Bill Burton,
became the leading Democratic Super PAC for the cycle.

But now, whatever qualms the Obama people might have about Brock are
irrelevant. They’re not making the decisions for 2016; the Clinton people
are. And the Clintons love David Brock. Although there are people in
Hillary’s orbit who remain wary of him, Hillary and Bill themselves are big
fans. Brock tells a great story of visiting the former president in his
Harlem office back in 2002 and noticing an entire cabinet filled with
copies of Brock’s book Blinded by the Right, which Clinton was famous for
pushing on friends.

And so Brock’s ascension to Rove-like status can be taken as yet another
sign that, as today’s Times puts it, “Obama is fast becoming the past, not
the future, for donors, activists and Democratic strategists.” It’s Hillary
Clinton’s—and, by extension, David Brock’s—world now; the rest of the
Democratic Party is just living in it.

*Washington Post opinion: Aaron David Miller: “If Hillary Clinton had won
in 2008, what would her foreign policy have looked like?”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/if-hillary-clinton-had-won-in-2008-what-would-her-foreign-policy-have-looked-like/2014/08/15/93f0d16a-2313-11e4-86ca-6f03cbd15c1a_story.html>*

By Aaron David Miller, a vice president at the Woodrow Wilson International
Center for Scholars, has served as a Middle East adviser for Republican and
Democratic secretaries of state. He is the author of the forthcoming “The
End of Greatness: Why America Can’t Have (and Doesn’t Want) Another Great
President”

Hillary Rodham Clinton seems hung up on smart and stupid.

During her term as secretary of state, Clinton talked a lot about “smart
power” — elevating diplomacy and development alongside military might. Now,
she is distancing herself from the foreign policy of the president she
served, telling the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg that “great nations need
organizing principles, and ‘Don’t do stupid stuff’ is not an organizing
principle.”

But what if she had been the one in the Oval Office since 2009? How
different would her foreign policy be from President Obama’s? These
questions are clearly more than a thought experiment. If she runs in 2016,
potentially the first secretary of state since James Buchanan to ascend to
the White House, voters will want to know the answers.

There would certainly be stylistic differences between Clinton and Obama.
Even on the campaign trail, Clinton seemed more passionate about foreign
policy than Obama, more enthusiastic about creating relationships with
world leaders and playing the politics of diplomacy. She is more sensitive
to America’s image as an indispensable power. And though she’s no reckless
warrior, she is perhaps more inclined to consider using force under
carefully tailored circumstances.

But on substance, Clinton’s policies would probably not have diverged
fundamentally from the ones the president pursued while she was his
secretary of state or those he has embraced subsequently. Indeed, Clinton
could never have become Obama’s top diplomat and functioned so well in that
job had they not been largely on the same page in terms of how they saw the
world and what America should do about it. They both are transactors, not
ideological transformers — smart, pragmatic centrists largely coloring
inside the lines in a world of long shots and bad options. In other words,
there’s no need for them to “hug it out” on foreign policy.

*Iran*

Obama and Clinton were never the Bobbsey twins when it came to Iran.
Clinton has pressed for tough sanctions since she was a senator from New
York. During the presidential debates, she jumped on candidate Obama’s idea
to engage with the Iranians without preconditions. She says in her memoir
“Hard Choices” that she regretted the president’s refusal to take a harder
line with the mullahs in response to their crackdown on the Green
Revolution in 2009. And in the Atlantic interview, she was adamantly
against the idea that Iran has a right to enrich uranium: “The preference
would be no enrichment. The potential fallback position would be such
little enrichment that they could not break out.” The U.S. team currently
negotiating with Tehran has conceded some enrichment as a practical matter,
with limits to be negotiated.

But if Clinton had been president, she probably would have struck the same
deal and followed a similar approach, first seeking an interim accord and
then testing the possibilities through another year of negotiations before
getting to a final agreement. After all, it was she who set the current
talks in motion. She and Obama had agreed on a dual-track strategy of
pressure and engagement. That meant sustained and tougher sanctions, with
the door left open for diplomacy. After the sultan of Oman offered Clinton
a back channel for secret bilateral diplomacy, it was her State Department,
specifically Bill Burns and Jake Sullivan, that staffed it on the U.S. side.

A President Clinton, understanding that the alternative to a deal might be
war — either an Israeli military strike or even a U.S. one — would probably
have gone to great lengths to make sure that every possibility had been
explored before resorting to force. Negotiators get attached to their
negotiations and don’t want to fail. And so Clinton would have probably
authorized the same concessions to Iran as the current negotiating team has.

*Arab-Israeli peace*

Clinton, perhaps with 2016 in mind, has been less critical than Obama of
Israeli policies, especially the military response to Hamas. And unlike
Obama, she has long-established relationships with the players in the peace
process. I accompanied her, when she was first lady, to Leah Rabin’s
funeral and watched her charm and magnetic impact on Israelis regardless of
party. She also has a better sense than Obama of how to deal with Benjamin
Netanyahu — learned in part from watching her husband. “Who’s the f---ing
superpower here?” President Bill Clinton exploded to aides after his
initial encounter with the Israeli prime minister. And still, Bill Clinton
reached two agreements with the Likud leader. A President Hillary Clinton
might have tried harder than Obama has to cement a bond with Netanyahu. And
there might not have been so much broken crockery in the U.S.-Israeli
relationship.

Still, it’s hard to imagine that Clinton would have taken a different
course in pursuing a two-state solution — or achieved different results.
Given the lack of trust between Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud
Abbas, the wide gaps on the core issues and the impossibility of pursuing a
more modest interim deal, the only option available was the one Obama
authorized John Kerry to take: try to mediate a “framework agreement” that
leaves many of the details on core issues such as Jerusalem unresolved. And
even then, failure was virtually guaranteed.

How would Clinton have handled the latest confrontation in Gaza? In 2012
she played an important role in facilitating a cease-fire there, though it
was then-Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi who delivered Hamas. More than
likely, this time around she would have found herself — like Kerry —
without a win. She might have had more influence over Netanyahu. But with
Hamas willing to continue the fight, the odds of a U.S.-brokered success
would still have been low.

(It’s also worth noting on Egypt that as secretary of state, Clinton was
wary of Obama’s efforts to force Hosni Mubarak out too quickly. But in the
wake of Morsi’s disastrous presidency, as president she would have almost
certainly backed the Obama/Kerry decision to improve relations with the new
Egyptian president, the former supreme military commander.)

*Russia and Ukraine*

Clinton has a reputation for being tough on Russia. Indeed, Putin accused
her of orchestrating the 2012 demonstrations against him.

And yet, it’s hard to believe that, as president, the pragmatic Clinton
would have initially pursued something other than a reset policy. U.S.
relations with Russia were at rock bottom after the Georgia war and the
preceding squabbles over Kosovo, missile defense and NATO expansion. With
the ascendance of the seemingly forthcoming Dmitry Medvedev, any American
president would have tried to identify issues on which the United States
and Russia might cooperate — and would have shown resolve if the Russians
pushed back on others.

As president, Clinton might have pivoted sooner to a hard line when it
became clear in 2011 that the reset had run its course. She told the New
York Times’ John Harwood as much.

But it’s unlikely that would have made much difference. None of the
recommendations on Russia contained in her parting memo to Obama —
including rejecting Putin’s invitation to a presidential summit and
avoiding flattering him with high-level attention — would have changed
Putin’s strategy. He simply has more cards and the will to play them.

As for Ukraine, put Clinton in Obama’s shoes during the past several months
of Putin’s adventurism in Crimea and his meddling in eastern Ukraine, and
it’s hard to see what she might have done differently to impose greater
costs on Russia, let alone to counter and reverse Putin’s support for
pro-Russia separatists. Military force isn’t an option. So Clinton, like
Obama, would have fallen back on some package of steps, including
marshaling the Europeans, nonlethal military assistance to Ukraine, tough
rhetoric and sustained sanctions.

*Syria*

In the Atlantic interview, Clinton asserted that the “failure to help build
up a credible fighting force [in opposition to Bashar al-Assad] left a big
vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled.” Clinton called Obama on
Tuesday to say that she didn’t mean to attack his policies. But the two
have long had differences in how to approach the Syrian civil war. As early
as 2012, Clinton wanted to do more to weaken Assad. But more — training and
equipping carefully vetted elements of a dysfunctional and divided
opposition — wasn’t all that far from what Obama eventually came to accept
in 2013.

To change the balance on the battlefield, a President Clinton would have
had to win backing for a more comprehensive military strategy involving not
just arming rebels but also creating no-fly zones and authorizing direct
U.S. military strikes against Syrian regime targets. It’s by no means clear
that she would have gone that far, let alone whether the risk-averse
Pentagon would have supported it.

On the question of chemical weapons, Clinton’s policies would probably have
been very much in line with Obama’s. As secretary of state, she echoed
Obama’s red line. And although she had stepped down by the time of the
Assad regime’s August 2013 attack that killed 1,400 people, she publicly
supported Obama’s decision to seek a congressional vote before launching a
strike. If she’d been president, she might have been more reluctant to go
to Congress and more skeptical that a deal brokered by the Russians would
successfully eliminate Syria’s chemicals. But as Clinton rightly describes
in her memoir, Syria was a “wicked problem.” I’m not at all sure that as
president she would have done much better in trying to deal with it, let
alone resolve it.

This is not in any way to undermine her talents and capacities when it
comes to foreign policy. It is, however, to underscore a critical point
these days when it comes to America’s role in the world. To paraphrase
Marx, men and women make history. But they rarely do so as they please. No
matter how determined she may have been to assert U.S. leadership or to
push her concept of smart power, the cruel and unforgiving nature of the
world would have imposed the same severe constraints. Not every problem
today has a solution that is amenable to U.S. military or diplomatic power
— or to Clinton magic.

*Politico Magazine: “Is Hillary Too Hawkish to Win in 2016?”
<http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/08/is-hillary-too-hawkish-to-win-in-2016-110054.html#.U-41afldV8E>*

By Bill Scher

August 15, 2014

[Subtitle:] Or is Rand Paul too dovish?

Hillary Clinton, after her wide-ranging foreign policy interview with The
Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg roiled both the White House and the anti-war
left, reached out to President Barack Obama to tamp down speculation of a
rift between the two.

She may have hugged it out with the president, but she has not done the
same with the anti-war left.

Clinton does not seem terribly concerned with MoveOn.org scolding her to
“think long and hard before embracing the same policies advocated by
right-wing war hawks.” Or with The Nation slamming her for “hawkish, even
neoconservative-influenced views.” Or with The New Republic warning that
her “blunder” could open the door to a strong primary challenge. Her lack
of interest in winning over these critics suggests this is a fight she is
comfortable waging—and is not worried about losing.

If so, then 2016 might feature an unusually grand bipartisan foreign policy
debate, with an interventionist Clinton squaring off with her party’s
dovish wing, while the isolationist-leaning Sen. Rand Paul sparks a
parallel debate with the militaristic hawks that have long dominated the
Republican Party. In some ways, the discussion recalls the one that
occurred in each party three quarters of a century ago before World War II,
with Clinton cast as the interventionist Franklin Roosevelt facing down
cautious Democrats and Paul playing the part of the isolationist Robert
Taft, who took on Wendell Willkie, a more internationalist Republican
rival, in the fight for the 1940 GOP nomination. Taft lost that battle to
Willkie, moving the country away from its post-World War I isolationism and
freeing up Roosevelt to take the controversial step of compulsory military
service without jeopardizing his campaign for an unprecedented third term.

Today, the friction between the Clinton and Obama camps has attracted most
of the recent media attention. But while Clinton and Obama have their
differences, they only represent different strains within the liberal
interventionist school. Syria, for instance, may highlight Obama’s relative
reluctance to use force, and Iran may indicate the limits of Clinton’s
confidence in diplomacy. But their views converged on the Libyan
intervention and presumably the recent strikes in Iraq, because they both
believe America should play a leading role on the world stage expanding
freedom and protecting human rights beyond our borders. And they believe
that role can include the use of military force, even though liberal
interventionists don’t turn to it as quickly or as unilaterally as their
neoconservative counterparts.

Neither takes the view that America should generally stay out of other
nations’ affairs, an increasingly prevalent view across the partisan
spectrum. As the Pew Research Center found in its December poll,
“Majorities or pluralities of Republicans (52%), Democrats (46%) and
independents (55%) think the U.S. does too much to try to help solve world
problems, and agree that the U.S. should mind its own business
internationally (53%, 46% and 55%, respectively).” The distance between
Clinton and these poll numbers is probably far bigger than the distance
between her and Obama.

Yet Clinton’s interview blows past such poll-driven concerns and
practically dares a fellow Democrat to try to seize an opening on her
foreign policy left. That may seem like a foolish risk for a frontrunner to
take so soon in the campaign season, but her remarks are only a “blunder”
if she can’t defend them from attacks by a yet-to-materialize primary
challenger.

She may sense she has history on her side, as Democratic interventionists
have usually held the upper hand over their intraparty opponents despite
the party’s anti-war reputation. In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson won a
major legislative battle over military preparedness with William Jennings
Bryan, his former secretary of state-turned-isolationist antagonist,
allowing Wilson to lead a unified party in his successful re-election
campaign. In 1946, President Harry Truman took the dramatic step of firing
Commerce Secretary Henry Wallace, FDR’s former vice president, after
Wallace delivered a high-profile speech breaking with Truman’s
anti-communist foreign policy. Truman was reluctant, worried that he would
cause a party split. But the fear was unfounded as Wallace’s third-party
challenge fizzled two years later.

More recently, President Bill Clinton’s bombing campaigns in Bosnia and
Iraq passed without causing a rift with the left, nor did Obama’s
first-term intervention in Libya and protracted involvement in Afghanistan
complicate his re-nomination for a second term. In fact, when the foreign
policy objective is in the compassionate global interest, and not raw
national interest, a considerable portion of the left is routinely willing
to shelve its reluctance to use the military.

But is Hillary Clinton going against a current tide of rising isolationist
sentiment? Not necessarily in her own party. The “blunder” argument from
the New Republic’s Noam Scheiber is based on the notion that “opposition
among Democrats to overseas interventions, particularly in the Middle East,
remains so strong and raw” and “polling overwhelmingly shows the country,
not just Democratic voters, to be weary of foreign-policy interventionism.”

There may, however, be more to the polling numbers than the top line. True,
the Pew numbers showing support for America “mind[ing] its own business”
are at a striking 50-year high. But the recent spike is driven almost
solely by Republicans and independents (a group that leaned right of the
political center in 2012), not Democrats. The percent of Republicans and
independents that want America to mind its business more than doubled from
2002 to 2013. Among Democrats, the number ticked up only six points,
remaining under 50 percent.

In other words, foreign policy attitudes among Democrats haven’t changed
much. Absolutely—there was and is a significant anti-intervention wing.
It’s just not necessarily dominant. Nor is it as rigid as you might think:
Some intervention skeptics will likely give a deeply respected Democrat
such as Hillary Clinton ample latitude in explaining the nuances of her
positions. If she chooses to take the intra-party foreign policy debate
head-on, following the path of Wilson, FDR and Truman, she could earn a
firmer mandate.

Meanwhile, the massive and abrupt shift in attitude among Republicans
presents an opening for Senator Paul to revisit a debate on Republican
foreign policy principles that hasn’t been seriously engaged since the
interventionist General Dwight D. Eisenhower swiped the 1952 presidential
nomination from—once again—the isolationist Taft, then known as “Mr.
Republican.”

Paul would probably bristle at the comparison to Taft, but he has been
pushing his party to rethink its worldview, though rapidly moving events
have complicated his task. In February, a few days before Russia forcibly
seized control of Crimea, Paul told the Washington Post, “Some on our side
are so stuck in the Cold War era that they want to tweak Russia all the
time and I don’t think that is a good idea.” Soon after Crimea, Paul’s tone
shifted, urging sanctions and other measures intended to hurt Russia
economically, such as building the Keystone pipeline.

In June, Paul wrote an oped for the Wall Street Journal titled, “America
Shouldn’t Choose Sides in Iraq’s Civil War,” one week after Islamic State
militants took over key Iraqi cities. Paul chastised Obama’s favoring of
the Syrian rebels, saying it “indirectly aided al Qaeda and ISIS [the
Islamic State] in Syria—the very group some now propose to counter with
U.S. troops [in Iraq].” And he questioned the value of airstrikes, though
stopping short of ruling them out: “What would airstrikes accomplish? We
know that Iran is aiding the Iraqi government against ISIS. Do we want to,
in effect, become Iran’s air force?”

That sparked an op-ed skirmish with potential 2016 rival Gov. Rick Perry,
who replied in the Washington Post: “Paul’s brand of isolationism (or
whatever term he prefers) would compound the threat of terrorism even
further.” Paul gleefully engaged, taking to Politico Magazinelast month to
tweak Perry’s call for ground forces in Iraq: “[In 2012] Perry urged the
United States to return troops to Iraq to act as a balance against Iran …
Does Perry now believe that we should send U.S. troops back into Iraq to
fight the Iranians—or to help Iran fight ISIS?”

But after Obama launched airstrikes against the Islamic State last week,
Paul refrained from criticizing the move, saying on Monday he has “mixed
feelings about it” while reiterating his claim that the United States
“protected” ISIS in Syria. Now, instead of debating the merits of the
military action, he is focusing on another one of his foreign policy
principles: asserting Congress’ authority to declare war under the
Constitution and demanding a vote.

Paul’s hesitancy to criticize Obama over Iraq tracks the latest Fox News
poll, which found that 65 percent of Americans support the air strikes,
including 73 percent of Republicans, a stunning turnaround from the
disastrous polling that greeted Obama’s September 2013 threat to strike
Syria. These numbers should hearten Hillary and make Paul pause. America’s
isolationist moment may be just that—a moment—if voters conclude that
specific global threats and humanitarian crises require an American
response. Moreover, the rapid rise of Republican isolationism in the Pew
poll may prove to be a knee-jerk reaction against Obama, not a fundamental
shift away from the hawkish foreign policy that has defined the party for
70 years.

Of course, the uncertainty of future events cuts both ways. For example,
Clinton’s vocal skepticism of a nuclear deal with Iran may look myopic if
such a deal is struck and helps reduce tensions throughout the Middle East.
If military operations in Iraq drag on and test American voters’ patience,
Paul remains better positioned than any other Republican to take advantage.
The festering crisis of Syria could develop in a myriad of different ways –
the fight with the Islamic State could expand and enmesh Obama into the
Syrian civil war, a friendlier Iran could push the Assad government toward
a settlement – and however Syria looks in 2016 will be stacked against
Clinton and Paul’s past statements.

The volatile nature of foreign policy, along with its lack of direct impact
on voters’ wallets, often prompts presidential aspirants to de-emphasize
the subject. That is one reason why the provocative remarks by Clinton and
Paul are so unusual. The other reason is that for decades neither party has
had a presidential frontrunner challenging its own fundamental foreign
policy principles.

For one party to pursue such a debate risks driving the losing faction into
the arms of the other (Sen. John McCain has already hinted he may prefer
Clinton to Paul; Ralph Nader vice-versa). For both parties to pursue it
simultaneously raises the possibility of a partisan realignment, with
Democrats claiming Ronald Reagan’s mantle of “Peace Through Strength” and
Republicans adopting George McGovern’s call of “Come Home, America.”

That might seem strange to imagine. But Democrats’ comfort with military
action in pursuit of liberal ends has long been part of their history. And
if military action is increasingly perceived as intertwined with liberal
ends, and government incompetence, the Republican Party may reconnect with
its isolationist past. That didn’t work out so well for Robert Taft. But
Rand Paul can hope that Rick Perry is no Wendell Willkie, and Hillary
Clinton is no General Eisenhower.

*Talking Points Memo: “The Clintons Might Already Be Wooing A 2016 Veep
Candidate”
<http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/hillary-clinton-julian-castro-vice-presidential-candidate>*

By Dylan Scott

August 15, 2014, 9:31 a.m. EDT

President Bill Clinton invited incoming Secretary of Housing and Urban
Development Julian Castro to dine at the Clinton's private D.C. home last
week, the Washington Post reported, making it impossible for the media to
ignore the 2016 implications.

Castro, former San Antonio mayor and 2012 Democratic National Convention
keynote speaker, was nominated by President Barack Obama to head HUD in
May. The New York Times noted at the time that he "has often been mentioned
as a potential vice-presidential candidate for the Democrats." The move to
HUD was thought to help bolster Castro's national profile.

The veep speculation is mostly a matter of connecting the dots. Castro is a
young (39) and charismatic Hispanic politician, as is his twin brother
Joaquin, a freshman Texas congressman.

Now Bill Clinton is inviting Castro over for dinner so they can get to know
each other better and Hillary Clinton also spoke with a close Castro friend
at a private lunch in March about Castro's political aspirations, according
to the Post.

Even anonymous sources close to situation are stoking the fire.

“The Clintons are keeping the Castros very close to them," a confidante
told the Post.

Official spokespeople, of course, dismissed the 2016 conjecture.

“Secretary Castro and former president Clinton had a discussion about ways
the agency can expand on the partnership with the Clinton Climate
Initiative to make public housing more energy-efficient,” HUD spokeswoman
Betsaida Alcantara told the Post.

"They didn't talk about 2016," a Clinton aide said.

*CBS News: “Hillary Clinton's lead over potential 2016 GOP foes shrinks:
Poll”
<http://www.cbsnews.com/news/hillary-clintons-lead-over-potential-2016-gop-foes-shrinks-poll/>*

By Jake Miller

August 15, 2014, 11:15 a.m. EDT

The good news for Hillary Clinton in a new McClatchy-Marist poll is that
she's still ahead of all of her potential Republican challengers.

The bad news is that her lead has shrunk - and quickly - as her book tour
and other public events have carried her back into the center of the
political fray.

In the new survey, the former secretary of state outpaces Gov. Chris
Christie, R-N.J., by seven points, 48 to 41 percent. In April. though,
McClatchy found her ahead of Christie by 11 points, 53 to 42 percent. And
in February, the gap between the two was a yawning 21 percent.

Against former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Clinton holds on to a seven point
lead, 48 to 41 percent. In April, she was ahead of Bush by 16 points, 55 to
39 percent.

And matched against Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., Clinton earns 48 percent to
Paul's 42 percent, but in April, she bested Paul by 14 points, 54 to 40
percent.

Lee Miringoff, the director of Marist's polling institute, blamed Clinton's
flagging numbers on the increased publicity generated by her tour promoting
her memoir "Hard Choices," along with a few gaffes she committed along the
way.

Critics pounced in June when Clinton said she and her husband, former
President Bill Clinton, left the White House in 2001 "dead broke." While
the Clintons did leave the White House with a pile of legal debt, they
quickly earned millions from book deals and speaking fees. Clinton later
expressed regret for the comments, calling them "inartful."

"Misstatements, starting with we left the White House broke, aren't
headline grabbers, but they're noticeable," Miringoff, said, according to
McClatchy. "With Hillary Clinton, there's no preseason. She needs a Super
Bowl-like performance from start to finish."

Before any of the Republicans can take the fight to Clinton, though, they
have to emerge from their own scrum - and according to this new poll,
that's going to be no small feat.

Bush and Christie lead the pack at 13 percent apiece, with Texas Sen. Ted
Cruz close behind at 10 percent. The others are mired in single digits,
with Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., at 9 percent,
Paul and Gov. Rick Perry, R-Texas, at 7 percent, and Gov. Scott Walker,
R-Wis., at 4 percent. Twenty-three percent are undecided.