Subject: Correct The Record Thursday July 17, 2014 Afternoon Roundup
From: Burns Strider <[email-masked]>
To: CTRFriendsFamily <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2014 14:31:15 -0400
List-Id: <CTRFriendsFamily.americanbridge.org>

**

*Correct The Record Thursday July 17, 2014 Afternoon Roundup:*

*Tweets:*

*Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: On @TheDailyShow, HRC said she is
worried young people no longer believe that they can “make their way up the
ladder”
http://thedailyshow.cc.com/extended-interviews/aw9j6p/exclusive-hillary-clinton-extended-interview
…
<http://t.co/0YgxB5LwL3> [7/16/14, 1:29 p.m. EDT
<https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/489461731425402880>]

*Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: HRC: "The more barriers you can tear
down, the more young people will...engage in economic activity" #HRC365
http://1.usa.gov/U4Q7BX  <http://t.co/Po0mfSLAWZ>[7/16/14, 5:45 p.m. EDT
<https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/489526180341481473>]

*Headlines:*

*Stylist (U.K.): “Hillary Clinton on Criticism, Taking Breaks and Why the
White House Needs a Woman”
<http://www.stylist.co.uk/people/hillary-clinton-on-criticism-taking-breaks-and-why-the-white-house-needs-a-woman#image-rotator-1>*

Sec. Clinton: “Look, clearly I’m thinking about it, and I will continue to
ponder it, but I’m not going to make any decisions yet. I really want to be
a grandmother first. I can’t wait to meet this new person in our family.
This decision I have to make politically is going to be driven by what I
want to do and what I think I can do for the country. And I’ll get to it
when it’s the right time.”

*Politico: “'Ready for Hillary' adviser: No Clinton coronation”
<http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/hillary-clinton-mark-smith-iowa-strategy-109040.html>*

“The top adviser to the super PAC Ready for Hillary believes the former
secretary of state needs to campaign hard in Iowa if she runs in 2016 — but
sees a defeat there, unlikely as that appears now, as potentially less
damaging than it was six years ago.”

*Los Angeles Times: “Clinton's campaign-in-waiting: One group lies low, one
rakes in cash”
<http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/politicsnow/la-pn-hillary-clinton-campaign-in-waiting-20140717-story.html>*

“Two of the most prominent pro-Hillary organizations have taken
intriguingly different approaches this year to tapping into enthusiasm for
her potential candidacy. For one, Ready for Hillary, it is all about raking
in the cash. For another, Priorities USA Action, the strategy is to stay
decidedly low-profile until after the 2014 election -- reflecting
nervousness about the tenuous position of Democrats this year as they face
the prospect of losing their Senate majority.”

*Politico: “Todd Akin: Some of my staff ‘conceived in rape’”
<http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/todd-akin-rape-comment-misspoke-109036.html?hp=f3>*

"The former congressman, who spent 12 years in Congress, stayed on the
attack on Thursday, calling out those from both parties. When Todd asked
why Akin would come back just before the November midterms, a move that
might hurt his party, he slammed the party’s establishment for trying to
weed out conservative challengers."

*Denver Business Journal: “Hillary Clinton edges most Republicans, except
Rand Paul, in latest Colorado presidential poll”
<http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/blog/broadway_17th/2014/07/hillary-clinton-edges-most-republicans-except-rand.html?page=all>*

“Colorado voters narrowly favor Hillary Clinton for president over several
potential Republican candidates except for Rand Paul, who is favored in the
state by 3 percentage points, according to a new poll released Thursday by
Quinnipiac University.”

*Washington Post blog: She The People: “Is the focus on Hillary Clinton’s
wealth sexist or part of the process?”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/wp/2014/07/17/is-the-focus-on-hillary-clintons-wealth-sexist-or-part-of-the-process/>*

"Donna Brazile made this point, when talking about Clinton’s wealth… It’s
this kind of good-for-you-girl argument that could start to benefit Clinton
as the focus on her wealth continues."

*The Atlantic: “Hillary Clinton’s Bizarre Critique of U.S. Foreign Policy”
<http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/07/hillary-clintons-bizarre-critique-of-us-foreign-policy/374618/>*

“For more than five years, the right has claimed the major problem with
American foreign policy is that it’s not sufficiently grounded in the
belief that America is an exceptional nation fated to lift up humanity by
spreading its power, as it did in generations past. Now, bizarrely, Hillary
Clinton is leveling the same critique.”

*Washington Free Beacon: “MSNBC Mocks Hillary’s $275K Speaking Fee at
University At Buffalo”
<http://freebeacon.com/politics/msnbc-mocks-hillarys-275k-speaking-fee-at-university-at-buffalo/>*

“An MSNBC Morning Joe panel mocked Hillary Clinton over the Washington
Post’s report that the University at Buffalo paid her $275,000 to speak on
their campus last year.”

*Articles:*

*Stylist (U.K.): “Hillary Clinton on Criticism, Taking Breaks and Why the
White House Needs a Woman”
<http://www.stylist.co.uk/people/hillary-clinton-on-criticism-taking-breaks-and-why-the-white-house-needs-a-woman#image-rotator-1>*

[No Writer Mentioned]

July 16, 2014

This may be one of the world’s greatest understatements: Hillary Rodham
Clinton is a very busy woman. Over the past eight years her life has been a
whirlwind. As America’s 67th Secretary of State, she travelled almost one
million miles and was responsible for nearly 70,000 employees across the
globe; she’s written an incredibly detailed 600-page memoir while also
working for The Clinton Foundation, the non-profit organisation she runs
with husband Bill and her daughter Chelsea. Oh, and there was that small
matter of running for the US presidency.

To be honest, until a couple of weeks ago I thought of myself as quite busy
too. I edit a weekly magazine, manage 21 people, spend eight hours of my
week commuting on the Tube, have two children under four and find myself
working at odd hours to cram everything in. But I was soon to discover my
life was about to get even busier. At 3pm on 24 June, my colleague Lucy got
the call we’d been waiting for since January: we’d been approved to
interview Hillary Clinton, and we were the only UK consumer magazine to do
so.

An office full of screams later I realised what this meant: I was lined up
to do the interview. I needed to read Hillary’s hefty new book Hard Choices
and start prepping hard. And I would have to do this around my already
unforgiving diary. I started reading and downloaded the 10-hour audiobook
(I was going to have to read or listen at any free moment). That Sunday night,
five days before we would meet, I had a dream that I was interviewing
Hillary. In my dream my boss, Phil, insisted on sitting in to check what I
was asking. And then I forgot to record a word of it. It doesn’t take Freud
to analyse that dream: not only did I have a lot to do, I was nervous too.

As I crammed years of Hillary’s utterly mind-blowing life into just a week,
something else dawned on me. I had never – would never – experience
busyness like Hillary.

Hard Choices details the life of someone special: a woman with a huge
capacity for understanding, a woman with an exceptional EQ and IQ (as
Secretary of State she needed to remember hundreds of people, understand
the intricacies of cultural and societal differences, handle delicate
international business negotiations and, more pertinently, fight for
people’s lives through peace deals). She was responsible for the most
difficult of decisions: those that deal with life and death. It was around
that moment of clarity when I stopped telling people how busy I was.

I finally meet Hillary on Friday 4 July, US Independence Day. I have the
last interview slot of her UK publicity tour. She has been in London for
just two days and has already been on Woman’s Hour, This Morning and Loose
Women, as well as meeting broadsheet journalists. A tiring schedule for
anyone.

Yet when I meet Hillary she is anything but weary. As I walk into her suite
on the fifth floor of Claridge’s, she heads straight towards me, beaming,
hand outstretched in greeting, before introducing me to her team – press
secretary Nick Merrill and Huma Abedin, her long-standing chief of staff,
who sit in on all her interviews. “Thank you so much for coming to meet me
today,” she smiles, before guiding me towards an overly plush sofa. Sat
facing me in a chair, she is poised but relaxed, engaged and eager to talk.
I have met countless celebrities who by this point in a publicity tour are
monosyllabic. Hillary is anything but.

“I love the colour of your dress,” she starts, settling in for our chat.
“What would you call that? Lemon?”

“Neon lemon?” I proffer back.“It’s certainly not subtle, is it?” she
chuckles. I soon learn that laugh is a signature move: warm, relaxed and
utterly disarming.

Even sitting in front of her, it’s hard to imagine what life has been like
for Hillary Rodham Clinton. She has spent the past 38 years in the public
eye, working on education and health reforms, being a truly involved First
Lady, becoming the first female senator of New York, and winning more
primaries and delegates in the Democratic presidential primaries in 2008
than any other female candidate in American history. Did she ever imagine
she would be the world’s most powerful woman? The ultimate role model?

“One of the lessons my parents really drilled into me [was]: you’ve been
given a lot and you’re supposed to give back. I always wanted to help
people, but I didn’t imagine anything beyond that.”

The turning point came when she first arrived in the White House. “It felt
strange... It felt odd,” she tells me, genuinely churning it over in her
head. “I’ve always judged myself and other people on what you do, not who
you are. Not what title you have. So, I was unprepared for being a symbol
to the full extent that a First Lady is and that took some real thinking on
my part to understand and accept.

“When he [Bill] became president I wasn’t fully aware of the expectations
because the First Ladies that I had watched had been so different. And I
saw each of them doing things that I thought were important. And then when
I got to be First Lady, I realised that people were really listening and
watching everything I said and did. It was a surprise for me.”

Hillary’s deep involvement as First Lady in the politics of the White House
came equally as a surprise to those around her. Before his presidency, as
Governor of Arkansas, Bill had tasked her with heading up a committee to
change the standards by which schools operated, which was welcomed by the
State. Upon moving to the White House, Bill set his wife a similar task:
healthcare reform. “I said, ‘Of course, if that’s what I can do to help,
I’ll be glad to.’ [But] there was all of this criticism that I shouldn’t be
taking on such responsibilities,” Hillary says. “That a, quote, ‘First Lady
didn’t have the right to do that’. I was quite bewildered. I learned over
time that if you want to do something, and you can make a contribution, you
have to be aware of the context in which you’re trying to do that.”

Throughout Hard Choices, Hillary talks of her desire to have smashed the
ultimate glass ceiling by becoming President. She recalls a fragment of the
final speech to her supporters after losing the battle to Obama: “Although
we weren’t able to shatter the hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to
you it’s got about 18 million cracks in it. And the light is shining
through like never before.”

I was struck by her desire to be that woman – to smash the glass ceiling on
behalf of all women. In the UK, our political glass ceiling was shattered
35 years ago by Margaret Thatcher, but unlike Hillary she never claimed to
be a feminist. She openly revealed, “I owe nothing to women’s lib” and
colleagues claimed feminism “left her cold”. Smashing that glass ceiling
didn’t bring true gender quality to the UK, so why does Hillary think
breaking the American one will?

“There’s a great phrase, ‘You cannot be what you cannot see’. If you don’t
have women in high positions that little girls and boys can look at and
understand [as] a role model, how do you convince these children to make
the decision that they have a comparable opportunity in life?

“[The role] has both symbolic and practical importance. This is an
over-generalisation I know, but there are enough studies and observations
that women in very senior positions do have more of a feel for what we
would call the kitchen-table issues. And so they bring their own experience
and sensitivity to the table.

“The reason I’m pro-choice, for example, is that I want women to bring
their own experiences: if they choose to have an abortion or not to have an
abortion, if they choose to have contraception, it’s their choice. A woman
brings that sensibility to that decision.”

Throughout her years, she has campaigned personally and politically for
women’s rights, an issue she still calls “the unfinished business of our
time”. And it’s when talking about women that she becomes most animated and
exemplifies those attributes she so admires in other women: sensitivity,
experience and worldliness.

Throughout my interview with Hillary, she is fiercely engaged; her eyes –
sparkly, wide, alert – remain firmly focused on me. She is warm,
considered, talks slowly and thoughtfully and uses – consciously or not –
tactics that put me at ease. She frequently answers my queries with the
response: “Now, that’s a great question”, she litters her answers with
colloquialisms that put us on a level and, listening back, I am struck by
the amount of times she says, “You know”. And of course there’s that
charming laugh. I can see that these natural skills make her the perfect
diplomat, the ultimate leader. These are the skills she believes women
bring to business. But it would be naive to think that gender differences
still don’t present challenges.

“I think that times have changed, thankfully, but there are still obstacles
to a woman in the public arena. That’s not just about politics. That’s
about business, that’s about journalism, that’s about academia. That’s
about every walk of life,” she says.

Hillary writes about the double-standard that applies to women in politics.
Amusing anecdotes abound in Hard Choices: Putin’s offer to take her husband
out to tag animals in the wild, rather than her; Angela Merkel’s witty gift
to her – the front cover of a German newspaper featuring both women, heads
cropped off, asking readers to spot the difference between the two; the
constant chronicling of her hair and “pantsuits”. She jokes that she even
considered calling her book The Scrunchie Chronicles: 112 Countries And
It’s Still All About My Hair. It is that wry sense of humour that has seen
her through.

She tackles this subject in her book: “I am often asked how I take the
criticism directed my way,” she writes. “I have three answers. First, if
you choose to be in public life, remember Eleanor Roosevelt’s advice and
grow skin as thick as a rhino. Second, learn to take criticism seriously
but not personally... Third, there is a persistent double-standard applied
to women in politics – regarding clothes, body types and hairstyles – that
you can’t let derail you. Smile and keep going.”

“But is it that easy?” I ask. How do you keep going against constant
gender-related, criticism, designed to chip away at your confidence?

“Yes, yes... And where do these criticisms aim?” she replies. “They aim at
appearance. Insecurity is unfortunately part of the game there. And they
also aim at your family... It’s taken so personally. ‘Oh I’m a bad wife,
I’m a bad mother, I’m a bad daughter, I’m just no good.’ Well first of all,
I think you do have to meet your responsibilities, you can’t just shrug
them off and feel good about yourself. But you don’t have to be perfect.
Too many young women judge themselves harshly on their appearance, because
they have one flaw, so minor, no-one else notices. Embrace who you are. If
I could do anything, in giving advice like this, I would try to persuade
young women to be a little easier on themselves. To not be so demanding or
create obstacles where they don’t exist.”

I am curious to know the advice she has given Chelsea, her daughter who,
aged 34, has grown up in the public eye. She is now pregnant with her first
child, due in the autumn, and faces her own hard choices as a woman:
career, motherhood or both.

“Well we’ve been starting to talk about that. But I would tell her to take
deep breaths, slow down, spend time with your husband and friends. You’re
going to have a wonderful experience, you know, becoming a mom. But you’re
also going to continue the work that you love. Everyone takes a while to
get the balance. I’m not going to say one is right and one is wrong because
if it works for you, that’s what you should do.”

And did it work for you, even I often felt the strain and guilt. You always
feel like you’re not doing enough.”

And what is her advice for any woman trying to have it all? “I just think
you’ve got to be smart about how you prioritise, especially for women who
want to have some kind of work that is meaningful to them. But also to have
a family, whether that’s a husband, children, or an elderly relative that
needs your attention, you just have to have a very highly developed sense
of priorities because at certain stages of your life you will be able to do
things, but you might not be able to do them all at the same stage.”

I find it interesting that a woman with so much get-up-and-go, so much
drive and ambition, is quick to advise others to reduce the pressure where
possible. “I think I’m very lucky,” she says again. “Each of us has
talents. I have stamina. I have endurance. I have health and a sense of
mission. And I’ve had that ever since I was a little girl. But it is
something you have to maintain because you can get drained. You have to be
prepared and aware enough to say I need a good night’s sleep, I need a
session of yoga, I need a good long walk. Whatever it is that fills you up
again. I can’t stress that enough.”

It is hard to not see the irony of a woman aged 66 advising others to slow
down as she sets off on a global book tour and, when most people are
retiring, is considering running for President. Does she really practise
what she preaches?

“I think the strong recommendation from most religions is that you take at
least a day off, you know there’s truth to that. Everybody thinks you need
to just keep going and even if you’re resting, people fill their days with
all kinds of stuff that constantly distracts your brain from resting. You
just have to slow down. That takes a while to learn. I’m telling you this
from experience and I think it would do a lot of people good.”

This advice-to-self can be seen towards the end of Hard Choices. She writes
that her reasons for not taking up a second term as Secretary of State are
a need to spend time with her family, to reconnect with her friends.

She resigns, returns home, and then, as I point out, promptly sits down to
the huge undertaking of a 600-page memoir. She laughs. “It’s funny, because
I wrote a book 10 years ago when I was a senator and I wrote that mostly at
night, when I got home from the Senate. So, this felt like a leisurely
pursuit. I was very happy to set my schedule to go up to the little attic
study that I have in our refurbished farm house north of New York. So I
really didn’t feel like it was overwhelming. I had much more time to go for
those walks, go for those dinners, go to those movies, it just seemed much
more of a rhythm that I needed and wanted. I wanted to be in one time zone
for most of my days. And I felt really good about it.”

As way of relaxing, Hillary often references her long walks and
conversations with Bill, yoga, her three dogs, her family. She also stores
up episodes of House Of Cards, which she binge watches. Isn’t that a bit of
a busman’s holiday, I ask? “I’ll give you that,” she chuckles.

It turns out she’s a fan of all political dramas. And while she says House
Of Cards is not a fair reflection of the White House, The West Wing was
“somewhat realistic. There were lots of dramatic plots, but you still had a
feeling it worked. House Of Cards is a Shakespearean version of life in the
White House.”

What else does she do to unwind? “I enjoy music,” she tells me. “I like
three kinds of music: instrumentals of all kinds, women singers and I love
to listen to classical music.” And then, almost cutting across herself, she
raises her hands skywards exclaiming, “And Adele! I love Adele! I adore
Adele!”

I am conscious my time with Hillary is coming to an end, so there is only
one question left to ask: the most obvious, perhaps. “You could be the
first female president, Hillary. The first mother, the first grandmother…”
I start. “How can you not do it?

“Oh gosh,” she laughs, “Look, clearly I’m thinking about it, and I will
continue to ponder it, but I’m not going to make any decisions yet. I
really want to be a grandmother first. I can’t wait to meet this new person
in our family. This decision I have to make politically is going to be
driven by what I want to do and what I think I can do for the country. And
I’ll get to it when it’s the right time.”

And with that she rises from her chair and moves to leave. I ask for a
photo and for her to sign her book to my sons. “Absolutely,” she replies,
“We’ll make the time to do that. Nick, perhaps you could take it, huh?”

Nick obliges with the photo before moving Hillary on, keeping her hectic
schedule on track. I say my goodbyes and watch them disappear down the long
corridor. She’s off to do an interview with an American radio station,
before she jets off to Berlin to start the media-whirlwind all over again.

I make my way out of Claridge’s, so deep in reflection I forget to be
surprised when Ozzy Osbourne pops up in reception. Over the past few weeks
I have scrutinised her life and attempted to understand her, but all I can
say in conclusion is that Hillary was warm, engaging, charismatic,
ambitious, smart, determined and busier than any other woman I am probably
ever likely to meet.

I head home for the weekend and plan to put the finishing touches to this
article. Noting Hillary’s advice about taking a day of rest, I duly follow
it and promptly find myself falling behind schedule. My three-yearold son
is poorly, and after trips to the doctor, I find myself sitting by his bed
at 11.30pm re-reading the epilogue of Hard Choices. I had forgotten that
Hillary quotes her favourite film, a somewhat surprising A League Of Their
Own: “It’s supposed to be hard... Hard is what makes it great.”

Exhausted, ready for bed, and with a deadline fast approaching, I finally
understand... And smile in absolute agreement.

*Politico: “'Ready for Hillary' adviser: No Clinton coronation”
<http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/hillary-clinton-mark-smith-iowa-strategy-109040.html>*

By Maggie Haberman

July 17, 2014, 11:31 a.m. EDT

The top adviser to the super PAC Ready for Hillary believes the former
secretary of state needs to campaign hard in Iowa if she runs in 2016 — but
sees a defeat there, unlikely as that appears now, as potentially less
damaging than it was six years ago.

The comments from Craig Smith, a longtime friend and ally of Bill and
Hillary Clinton dating back to the 1970s, came in an extensive interview
with POLITICO about the group’s activities.

Smith, along with Ready for Hillary founder Adam Parkhomenko and adviser
Tracy Sefl, laid out a view of the emerging 2016 campaign from the
perspective of an outside group devoted to harnessing the grass roots.
Smith has rarely given interviews since joining the group in the early part
of 2013.

Clinton’s loss to then-Sen. Barack Obama in the Iowa caucuses in early 2008
was a pivotal moment in the race, one that gave Obama a huge burst of early
momentum on the way to the nomination. Clinton did not campaign
aggressively in the state for much of the race and was poorly organized
there, and Obama capitalized on a progressive activist base unhappy with
her vote authorizing the Iraq War.

“I think she should compete everywhere,” Smith said during the interview at
a diner in Midtown Manhattan, when asked whether Clinton should handle the
Hawkeye State differently this time. “There are delegates everywhere — we
need them all.”

And what would a loss there mean this time around?

“I don’t think it would be as damaging as it was in 2008, just because I
think in 2008 they hadn’t prepared for what comes next,” he said, referring
to the lack of caucus organizing in other states.

But he added, “I still think she should [campaign] hard and heavy there.”
His comments echo the sentiment among a number of Democrats who believe she
needs to campaign as if she’s the challenger as opposed to the runaway
front-runner.

The Clintons are not historically fans of the caucus system. Both the
former president and former secretary have described the process as
undemocratic and unaccessible for certain groups of voters.

But Smith, a political director in Bill Clinton’s White House, said, “We
don’t necessarily make the rules, we just gotta play by them.”

Smith’s comments come as Clinton supporters are beginning to turn their
attention to Iowa, where a highly competitive Senate race is unfolding for
the open seat of retiring Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin. Harkin is holding the
last steak fry of his career in the fall, an event that always attracts
potential candidates as headliners, including Vice President Joe Biden last
year.

Clinton remains at the top of public opinion polls for the Democratic
nomination, surveys that are meaningless in terms of long-range predictions
but that show a yawning gap between the former first lady and any other
potential candidate.

Still, Smith rejects the idea that there’s a coronation at work.

“Anybody who thinks there’s inevitability in our party forgot 2008 very
quickly,” he said. “There’s going to be a primary. Lord knows how many
people are going to be in it. But you know, I think voters want to see
somebody who’s going to work for it.”

Ready for Hillary has been busy compiling a detailed list of supporters
that it intends to sell to an eventual Clinton campaign. That’s been the
group’s goal for the past 18 months, a period during which it survived
early questions about its work and went on to earn support from a number of
top Clinton advisers.

The pro-Clinton organization just completed its best-ever fundraising
quarter, raking in $2.5 million. It has had a bus traveling around the
country to stops along Clinton’s recent book tour, collecting email
addresses from people who turn out to the events. Ready for Hillary has
held events in 84 of Iowa’s 99 counties, part of an effort by organizers to
show they are providing the likely candidate with infrastructure and
grass-roots outreach that she didn’t have last time.

The group also spent $10,000 to have a presence at Netroots Nation, a
gathering of progressive activists in Detroit this week.

Smith got involved, he said, when he saw a proliferation of super PACs
cropping up under Clinton’s name shortly after she left the State
Department. He reached out to Clinton adviser Minyon Moore, who suggested
he connect with Parkhomenko.

Smith insists the energy level surrounding a potential Clinton candidacy
has remained high throughout the book tour, despite her widely covered
gaffes about her personal wealth and controversy over her hefty speaking
fees. Smith insisted he hasn’t heard any regular voters bring up her
missteps during his travels around the country.

“I don’t think I’ve had a single one of them comment on the kind of press
that’s been going on,” said Smith, who pointed out that he hasn’t spoken to
Clinton in a year and a half, to avoid questions about improper
coordination. “It’s just not something that comes up in conversation with
these people. And I talk to party chairs and [major] donors … it just
doesn’t come up. They were glad that she was out there because they hadn’t
seen her out there in a way that was with real people [in years].”

As for Ready for Hillary, he said the group’s plan “has always been that we
go out of business” if and when she launches an official campaign. The
group would transfer some assets, such as a Facebook page with 3 million
followers, to another outside group. But the group’s mission as the super
PAC collecting small-dollar donations will change, Smith said.

“Because this is the rationale: Once she becomes — if she becomes a
candidate,” Smith said, catching himself, “the small-dollar fundraising we
do needs to be done by the campaign. At this point, the plan is still we go
out of business.”

*Los Angeles Times: “Clinton's campaign-in-waiting: One group lies low, one
rakes in cash”
<http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/politicsnow/la-pn-hillary-clinton-campaign-in-waiting-20140717-story.html>*

By Maeve Reston

July 17, 2014, 7:00 a.m. EDT

When Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart was trying to pry clues from Hillary
Rodham Clinton with career aptitude test Tuesdaynight, she allowed that she
was surprised by the size of the industry that has sprung up around her
potential White House plans.

As 2016 approaches, the Hillary machine has not only sprung up but shows no
signs of slowing down, having gained steam during her recent book tour. All
those iPhone cases, magazine covers, book-length exposes and expanding
staffs at various pro-Hillary super PACs are beginning to add up to
millions of dollars in spending premised on a second presidential bid.

“If you said, 'I am not running for president,' it all stops,” Stewart
suggested to Clinton during her appearance on "The Daily Show," pointing to
all of those making money speculating about her past, present and future.

“I think a lot of people would lose their jobs if it all stopped,” Clinton
said with a smile.  “I’ve been amazed by what a cottage industry it is, and
so I kind of expect it would continue. So I’m not really paying a lot of
attention to it.”

Two of the most prominent pro-Hillary organizations have taken intriguingly
different approaches this year to tapping into enthusiasm for her potential
candidacy. For one, Ready for Hillary, it is all about raking in the cash.
For another, Priorities USA Action, the strategy is to stay decidedly
low-profile until after the 2014 election -- reflecting nervousness about
the tenuous position of Democrats this year as they face the prospect of
losing their Senate majority.

The Ready for Hillary super PAC announced this week that it had raised an
additional $2.5 million in the second quarter of this year, bringing its
fundraising total to $8.25 million over its 18 months in existence. On its
way to amassing a list of supporters that could be sold or rented to a
potential Clinton campaign, the group has collected contributions from
about 90,000 donors and says it has built a list of more than 2 million
supporters.

Most donors have given $100 or less, the group says. Along with dog collars
and dog bowls, as well as sturdy 2016 Hillary White House totes, the group
is raking in cash by offering  seasonal items like “RFH” Mason jars. (A set
of four of those glass jars goes for the symbolic price of $20.16.)

By contrast, the super PAC that could be around for the duration of the
2016 campaign, Priorities USA Action—the likely vehicle for big-dollar
donations and television ads to boost a potential Clinton campaign—is
keeping a far lower profile this year.

Sources familiar with the group’s plans have said that top advisors were
worried about distracting attention from the candidacies of vulnerable
Democrats if they began an all-out fundraising campaign to get ready for
2016. The group's leaders have instead devoted their efforts to planning
and getting organized. They are meeting with donors, for example, but
gathering pledges rather than hard dollars — to be ready at whatever point
Clinton announces her plans.

Priorities USA Action’s latest finances appear to reflect that strategy. In
the second quarter, the group raised a mere $1,845. It disbursed about a
million dollars this year, with half of that directed toward the House
Majority PAC and the Senate Majority PAC, which are working to reelect
Democrats this fall. Priorities USA Action gave an additional $100,000 to
the Missouri Early Voting Fund, a group working to allow voters to cast
absentee ballots in that state.

The group’s spokesman, Peter Kauffmann, said it was continuing “to focus
our efforts on supporting Democrats in 2014.” They reported about $1.48
million in cash on hand.

*Politico: “Todd Akin: Some of my staff ‘conceived in rape’”
<http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/todd-akin-rape-comment-misspoke-109036.html?hp=f3>*

By Jonathan Topaz

July 17, 2014, 10:39 a.m. EDT

A defiant Todd Akin on Thursday conceded he “misspoke some words” regarding
his infamous 2012 comments on rape, but cast blame on those in both parties
for politicizing them.

In an interview on MSNBC, the 2012 Missouri Republican Senate nominee
didn’t spare anyone criticism, calling out by name Bill and Hillary
Clinton, the Democratic Party, Karl Rove, Senate Republican leadership and
the political media.

That’s as far as his remorse went, though, as the conservative firebrand
continues his re-emergence to promote his new book and rail against the
political establishment that largely abandoned him after his controversial
comments.

On Thursday, Akin addressed his remarks right off the bat, saying
“Legitimate rape is a law enforcement term, and it’s an abbreviation for
legitimate case of rape. Do you know anybody who thinks rape is legitimate?
That doesn’t even make sense. I know no conservatives who think rape is
legitimate,” he said.

After winning an upset victory in the Missouri Republican primary, Akin was
asked about abortion in the case rape. “First of all, from what I
understand from doctors, that’s really rare,” he said in August 2012. “If
it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole
thing down.” The candidate apologized and ultimately lost to incumbent
Democrat Sen. Claire McCaskill.

But in his new book, “Firing Back” — a publishing decision that is greatly
upsetting Republicans ahead of the November midterm elections trying to
combat accusations from Democrats of a war on women — Akin said he retracts
his apology and blamed others for twisting his words.

Akin showed no discomfort speaking about the subject of rape on Thursday,
even mentioning that some members of his staff were “conceived in rape.”

The former congressman, who spent 12 years in Congress, stayed on the
attack on Thursday, calling out those from both parties. When Todd asked
why Akin would come back just before the November midterms, a move that
might hurt his party, he slammed the party’s establishment for trying to
weed out conservative challengers.

“You’ve got Karl Rove and certain people in the Senate leadership, they
don’t believe anymore in the process of what we call a primary election,”
he said in reference to the Fox News contributor and Republican strategist.
“They think that the people in primaries in various states are too stupid
to pick the right person, so they’re putting a tremendous amount of
Republican money in a primary.”

Akin also took aim at Democrats manufacturing the war on women, echoing a
few claims he leveled in his book. He criticized the party for welcoming
former President Bill Clinton to the 2012 Democratic National Convention,
citing several “examples of Bill Clinton being involved in assault on women
or indecent behavior with women.” He also referenced recent reports that
former Secretary of State and potential 2016 Democratic presidential
frontrunner Hillary Clinton legally represented an accused rapist in her
early career.

Thursday’s interview was at times contentious, with the MSNBC host citing
scientific studies that stress and adrenaline levels have no bearing on
pregnancy and that Akin was endangering the party that has largely
denounced him.

When Todd at the interview said it sounded as though Akin still wanted to
run for office, the embattled former congressman said: “No, I’m just taking
one thing at a time.”

*Denver Business Journal: “Hillary Clinton edges most Republicans, except
Rand Paul, in latest Colorado presidential poll”
<http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/blog/broadway_17th/2014/07/hillary-clinton-edges-most-republicans-except-rand.html?page=all>*

By Mark Harden

July 17, 2014, 8:01 a.m. MDT

Colorado voters narrowly favor Hillary Clinton for president over several
potential Republican candidates except for Rand Paul, who is favored in the
state by 3 percentage points, according to a new poll released Thursday by
Quinnipiac University.

The survey presented 1,147 registered Colorado voters with potential
matchups in the November 2016 presidential election between Democrat
Clinton -- the former U.S. secretary of state, U.S. senator and first lady
-- and possible GOP opponents.

Pollsters did not ask about any other potential Democratic candidates.
Clinton has not yet said whether she will run for president.

According to results of the July 10-14 survey, Paul, a U.S. senator from
Kentucky, is favored by 43 percent of Colorado voters polled to Clinton's
40 percent.

But in other potential matchups, Clinton leads narrowly:

Clinton over New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, 42-20 percent.

Clinton over former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, 44-40 percent.

Clinton over former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, 44-41 percent.

Colorado voters split 48-48 percent on whether they view Clinton favorably
or unfavorably -- a less positive result for Clinton than in earlier
Quinnipiac surveys dating back to June 2013.

Paul and Huckabee are the only Republican potential candidates viewed
favorably by more Colorado voters than unfavorably. But for each of the GOP
politicians in the survey, hefty percentages of voters said they don't know
enough about the candidates to form an opinion.

Separately, Quinnipiac asked Colorado voters about President Barack Obama's
performance.

Thirty-nine percent said they approve of how Obama is handling his job, and
58 percent disapprove. That's a slightly higher approval rating for Obama
than in three previous Quinnipiac Colorado surveys dating back to last
November, but below the president's approval ratings in the low 40s in
mid-2013.

And 40 percent of Colorado voters say they support the federal health care
law passed in 2010, sometimes called Obamacare, while 57 percent oppose it.
The result was similar to previous surveys.

The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.

*Washington Post blog: She The People: “Is the focus on Hillary Clinton’s
wealth sexist or part of the process?”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/wp/2014/07/17/is-the-focus-on-hillary-clintons-wealth-sexist-or-part-of-the-process/>*

By Nia-Malika Henderson

July 17, 2014, 11:50 a.m. EDT

Hillary Clinton makes a lot of money. Much, much, much more than the
average American.  But not as much as Mitt Romney.  The latest headline
from our colleague Philip Rucker is that the University at Buffalo paid
$275,000 for a Hillary Clinton speech, with much of that fee going to the
Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, the family’s non-profit
philanthropic organization.

The revelations about Clinton’s University at Buffalo speaking fee come as
Clinton has been on clean-up duty because of her “inartful” statements
about being “dead broke” and as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is making
progressives swoon. Political pundits and reporters, familiar with all the
ways that presidential candidates have tripped up over their bank accounts,
are suggesting that Clinton has a tin ear when it comes to the wealth
issue.  Some say a better move for Clinton, whose net worth combined with
her husband’s is estimated to be $100 million, would be to speak for free.

In a recent post, columnist Ruth Marcus wrote this:

Which gets me to the second set of issues: how you’re continuing to vacuum
up the money, and the aura of greediness it exudes. Madam Secretary, enough
already. This behavior borders on compulsion, like refugees who once were
starved and now hoard food. You’re rich beyond your wildest imaginings! You
don’t need any more! Just. Stop. Speaking. For. Pay.

Some context about speaking for pay.  Everyone does it.  And by everyone, I
mean famous people who have had fancy jobs, won NBA championships, and
regularly appear on television. (Former White House press secretary Jay
Carney is set to make $100,000 per speech according to Politico, FYI.)
But,  the luminaries who collect speaking fees aren’t possibly preparing
for a White House run, when the dominant mood of the country is fed-up
populism and a sense that the rich just keep getting richer and the poor
and middle class are simply stuck. This is where Clinton is possibly
vulnerable.

This week, Clinton gave her best answer to the wealth question on the
“Daily Show”, saying that she is grateful for her financial success, but
the focus should be on whether others are able to achieve the same.

“I’m worried that other people and particularly younger people are not
going to have the same opportunities we did,” she said.

That’s a good pivot.

But, as the debate about her wealth rages on, there’s this question too:
Is the focus on her wealth at all sexist?  Or more specifically, if there
is a downside to being wealthy and running for president, is there a bigger
downside for a wealthy woman running for president?

We know, for instance, female politicians are judged more harshly on how
they look.

We also know that when women who are running for office go negative on
their opponents, it’s also perceived in a harsher light than when male
candidates go negative.

So, it could also be that for a wealthy woman running for president, there
is a higher penalty as well.

Now, wealthy women have run for office before, Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina,
Linda McMahon come to mind.  And four out of the top 20 wealthiest members
of Congress are women. But if Clinton runs and wins the Democratic
nomination, she would be a trailblazer, and a point of pride for many women.

And it could be that even those huge speaking fees could be seen in the
same way.

Donna Brazile made this point, when talking about Clinton’s wealth.

“I hope Hillary never apologizes for trying to earn a living,” Brazile
said. “She’s no different than [former secretary of state] Colin Powell, no
different than [former Florida governor] Jeb Bush, no different than
anybody else who’s left public office and looked for ways to make an
income. . . . What is wrong with a woman having the same earning potential
as any man?”

It’s this kind of good-for-you-girl argument that could start to benefit
Clinton as the focus on her wealth continues.

*The Atlantic: “Hillary Clinton’s Bizarre Critique of U.S. Foreign Policy”
<http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/07/hillary-clintons-bizarre-critique-of-us-foreign-policy/374618/>*

By Peter Beinart

July 17, 2014, 12:10 p.m. EDT

[Subtitle:] Is patriotic storytelling really the solution to America's
international relations problem?

Tuesday night on The Daily Show, Hillary Clinton showed why she gives a
great interview. When Stewart mocked the pretense that she’s not yet
decided to run for president, Hillary didn’t stiffen or get flustered. She
impishly played along with the gag, displaying a relaxed self-awareness
rarely evident during her 2008 presidential run.

On style, she was terrific. It was when the conversation turned substantive
that the problems began.

Near the end of the interview, Stewart asked a broad question that ended,
“What is our foreign policy anymore?” Here’s the key chunk of Hillary’s
reply.

“What I found when I became secretary of state is that so many people in
the world—especially young people—they had no memory of the United States
liberating Europe and Asia, beating the Nazis, fighting the Cold War and
winning, that was just ancient history. They didn’t know the sacrifices
that we had made and the values that motivated us to do it. We have not
been telling our story very well. We do have a great story. We are not
perfect by any means, but we have a great story about human freedom, human
rights, human opportunity, and let’s get back to telling it, to ourselves
first and foremost, and believing it about ourselves and then taking that
around the world. That’s what we should be standing for.”

As a vision for America’s relations with the world, this isn’t just
unconvincing. It’s downright disturbing. It’s true that young people
overseas don’t remember the Cold War. But even if they did, they still
wouldn’t be inspired by America’s “great story about [promoting] human
freedom, human rights, human opportunity.” That’s because in the developing
world—where most of humanity lives—barely anyone believes that American
foreign policy during the Cold War actually promoted those things. What
they mostly remember is that in anticommunism’s name, from Pakistan to
Guatemala to Iran to Congo, America funded dictators and fueled civil wars.

Barack Obama has acknowledged as much. He begins the foreign policy chapter
of The Audacity of Hope by discussing his boyhood home of Indonesia, a
country that for much of the Cold War was ruled by a “harshly repressive”
military regime under which “arrests and torture of dissidents were common,
a free press nonexistent, elections a mere formality.” All this, Obama
notes, “was done with the knowledge, if not outright approval, of the U.S.
administrations.” Hillary Clinton, by contrast, in her interview with
Stewart, painted the Cold War as a glorious freedom struggle through which
America inspired the globe.

For Hillary, America’s current problem is that once the Cold War ended, we
“withdrew from the information arena.” As a result, across the world, a new
generation no longer remembers the great things we supposedly did in the
past, and America has stopped telling them about the great things we are
still doing today. Her answer: “get back to telling” the story of America’s
greatness, not only to the rest of the world but “to ourselves first and
foremost.”

Really? Is America’s biggest post-Cold War foreign policy problem really
that we’ve failed to adequately remind others, and ourselves, how good we
are? After all, George W. Bush told Americans endlessly that the “war on
terror” was another grand American crusade for freedom, in the tradition of
World War II and the Cold War. In his second inaugural address and other
thundering rhetorical displays, he announced to the world that America
would champion liberty far and wide, as in days of old.

The problem isn’t that Bush didn’t tell foreigners about all the good
America was doing. It’s that in their eyes, Bush’s behavior massively
contradicted his rhetoric. In Iraq, most foreign observers saw America
spreading not democracy and freedom, but violence and chaos. In many
developing countries, people noticed that their dictatorships were using
“antiterrorism” as an excuse to repress domestic opposition, in the same
way they had used “anticommunism” during the Cold War. In the Bush years,
in other words, America’s problem wasn’t insufficient self-confidence. It
was a president whose blind faith in American virtue kept him from seeing
what his own government was doing to besmirch it. In 2005, when Amnesty
International said American detention policies violated human rights, Bush
replied, “It’s an absurd allegation. The United States is a country that
promotes freedom around the world.”

If Hillary’s charge that America doesn’t believe sufficiently in its own
virtue—and doesn’t sufficiently preach it to the world—was aimed at the
Obama administration, then the critique becomes even stranger. First of
all, because Obama is the best public spokesperson in American history.
Never before has an American president been better positioned—by virtue of
his biography, cultural sensitivity, and eloquence—to plead America’s case
overseas. The problem is that however much non-Americans admire Obama
personally, many don’t see his actual policies—from drones to Guantanamo to
spying to Israel-Palestine—as much different from Bush’s.

But the really weird part of Hillary Clinton’s claim that America must “get
back to telling” the story of how great we are “to ourselves” is how much
it echoes the right’s attack on Obama. Since Obama took office, a parade of
conservative politicians and pundits have accused him of insufficient faith
in America’s greatness. Mitt Romney entitled his campaign book No Apology:
Believe in America. In 2013, Dick Cheney declared, “I don’t think that
Barack Obama believes in the U.S. as an exceptional nation.”

For more than five years, the right has claimed the major problem with
American foreign policy is that it’s not sufficiently grounded in the
belief that America is an exceptional nation fated to lift up humanity by
spreading its power, as it did in generations past.

Now, bizarrely, Hillary Clinton is leveling the same critique. Which still
doesn’t make it right.

*Washington Free Beacon: “MSNBC Mocks Hillary’s $275K Speaking Fee at
University At Buffalo”
<http://freebeacon.com/politics/msnbc-mocks-hillarys-275k-speaking-fee-at-university-at-buffalo/>*

By Washington Free Beacon Staff

July 17, 2014, 9:04 a.m. EDT

[Subtitle:] Chuck Todd: 'Ex-presidents make money like this, not candidates'

[VIDEO]

An MSNBC Morning Joe panel mocked Hillary Clinton over the Washington
Post’s report that the University at Buffalo paid her $275,000 to speak on
their campus last year.

“At the first whiff of this story, it’s kind of shocking, $275,000 for an
hour speech,” said host Mika Brzezinski.

Joe Scarborough and GOP campaign strategist Steve Schmidt both said they
were surprised by her “tone deafness.”

“Ex-presidents make money like this, not candidates before they run,” Chuck
Todd observed. “I don’t think theres anybody around her that thinks about
the presidency, because if they were, they wouldn’t be making these
mistakes.”

“I think she is substantially weakened from where she was just a couple of
months ago,” Schmidt said. “I mean, she has gone from the most ecumenically
admired figure in American politics and enjoyed huge support among
Republicans, to 30 points in a couple of months, just by being present
talking about politics. It is a remarkable fall.”

Although Clinton says she donates her speaking fees to the Clinton
Foundation, Scarborough noted that voters will still “realize she got paid
more in an hour than some voters get paid in four years.”

“They are worth $100 million. Like, $275,000, that’s a ton of cash, unless
you were worth $100 million. So why do it?” Scarborough wondered.