Subject: Correct The Record Tuesday August 26, 2014 Afternoon Roundup
From: Burns Strider <[email-masked]>
To: CTRFriendsFamily <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2014 14:22:01 -0400
List-Id: <CTRFriendsFamily.americanbridge.org>

**

*Correct The Record Tuesday August 26, 2014 Afternoon Roundup:*

*Tweets:*

*Correct The Record *@CorrectRecord: #WomensEqualityDay
<https://twitter.com/hashtag/WomensEqualityDay?src=hash>
pic.twitter.com/IHb2tKeh9C <http://t.co/IHb2tKeh9C> [8/26/14, 11:27 a.m. EDT
<https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/504289078423351297>]

*Correct The Record *@CorrectRecord: In the Senate, @HillaryClinton
<https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton> promoted energy efficiency in federal
buildings #HRC365 <https://twitter.com/hashtag/HRC365?src=hash>
http://correctrecord.org/hillary-clinton-protecting-the-environment/ …
<http://t.co/HWlR9gKUBN> [8/25/14, 4:06 p.m. EDT
<https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/503996981086552064>]

*Headlines:*

*Washington Post blog: Plum Line: “Hillary Clinton isn’t talking about
Ferguson. That’s not a bad thing.”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/08/26/hillary-clinton-isnt-talking-about-ferguson-thats-not-a-bad-thing/>*

“To be clear, I’m not saying Clinton shouldn’t weigh in if she has
something to say. By all means, she should. But we also shouldn’t act as
though we’ve been deprived of something vital if she doesn’t.”

*Washington Post blog: She The People: “Will Al Sharpton become a thorn in
Hillary Clinton’s side?”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/wp/2014/08/26/will-al-sharpton-become-a-thorn-in-hillary-clintons-side/>*

“Sharpton and Clinton go way back, or rather, Sharpton and the Clintons go
way back.  And Sharpton’s move, and efforts to get Clinton on the record on
Ferguson, now a catchall for race and civil rights, can in many ways be
traced back to Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign.”

*The Hill blog: Twitter Room: “MSNBC host: 'Bizarre' Clinton hasn't made
Ferguson statement”
<http://thehill.com/blogs/twitter-room/215985-msnbc-host-bizarre-clinton-hasnt-made-ferguson-statement>*

“MSNBC host Chris Hayes on Tuesday tweeted it’s “bizarre” that Hillary
Clinton has not weighed in on the situation in Ferguson.”

*Portland Press Herald (M.E.): “Clinton to stump for Michaud as
gubernatorial contest ramps up”
<http://www.pressherald.com/2014/08/26/clinton-to-stump-for-michaud-as-gubernatorial-contest-ramps-up/>*

“Former President Bill Clinton will campaign with Democratic gubernatorial
candidate U.S. Rep. Mike Michaud in Portland next week.”

*The Star-Ledger (N.J.) column: Paul Mulshine: “A foreign-policy debate has
finally begun; where will Chris Christie end up?”
<http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2014/08/a_real_debate_on_foreign_policy_has_finally_begun_but_where_will_chris_christie_end_up_mulshine.html>*

Clinton was secretary of state during Obama’s first term, so she shares
some of the blame. One leading contender for the 2016 Republican
presidential nomination is trying to take advantage of that.

*CNN: “In South Carolina, Rubio heals wounds on the right”
<http://edition.cnn.com/2014/08/26/politics/rubio-sc-fundraiser/index.html?hpt=po_c1>*

“He [Sen. Rubio] did take a moment to bash Hillary Clinton, the putative
Democratic frontrunner. ‘She is responsible for at least four of the six
years of this disastrous foreign policy,’ he said. ‘She was the secretary
of state, the chief foreign policy officer of the Obama administration at a
time when it is now universally accepted that his policy is a fiasco.’”

*Articles:*

*Washington Post blog: Plum Line: “Hillary Clinton isn’t talking about
Ferguson. That’s not a bad thing.”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/08/26/hillary-clinton-isnt-talking-about-ferguson-thats-not-a-bad-thing/>*

By Paul Waldman

August 26, 2014, 12:16 p.m. EDT

Are you dying to hear what Hillary Clinton has to say about the events in
Ferguson, MO? A lot of people seem to be. Here’s an article in Politico
<http://www.politico.com/story/2014/08/hillary-clinton-ferguson-110301.html>
about
the fact that she ignored a reporter’s question about it at a book
signing.Here’s
a CNN panel <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRIjwF-UBdc&feature=youtu.be>
discussing
her silence. Here’s a Huffington Post article
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/19/hillary-clinton-ferguson_n_5691497.html>
on
the same topic.

There’s an assumption here that deserves examination, one articulated by Al
Sharpton last week. “This is now a national, central issue, and anyone
running for president needs to come up with a formula, or, in my opinion,
they forfeit their right to be taken seriously,” Sharpton said. “I’m amazed
that we’re not hearing from leading candidates … Chris Christie or Jeb Bush
or Hillary Clinton.”

Raise your hand if you think that Clinton, not to mention Christie, Bush,
or anybody else thinking about running for president, has something
particularly profound or insightful to add, a comment that would make the
millions who heard it say, “That’s fascinating — I hadn’t thought about it
that way, and this really changes my perspective on the issue.” Anyone?

Obviously, we don’t want presidential candidates to just skate by without
having to take a stand on important controversies. But if we’re going to
say that candidates have to “weigh in” on a topic, then there ought to be a
reason, beyond the simple fact that they might be running. There’s no
shortage of people talking about this subject already, after all.

Here are some good reasons why we should demand that candidates talk about
a particular topic. Perhaps it’s an issue they’ve been vocal about, or
involved in, before. For instance, Jeb Bush wrote a book about immigration
reform, so he should be asked about the current immigration controversies.
Hillary Clinton worked on health care reform in the 1990s, so it’s worth
knowing what she thinks about the state of Affordable Care Act
implementation. Or perhaps it’s an issue that the next president will have
to deal with, like the situation in Iraq and Syria. It most likely won’t be
resolved in the next two years, and we should know what each candidate’s
perspective on it is. Or perhaps there’s an issue of federal law, like the
controversy over tax inversions, and we want to get them on record now so
we can understand what actions they might take. Or perhaps they bring a
unique perspective to it; as the only female (possible) candidate, Hillary
Clinton can speak to issues like discrimination in the workplace in a way
other candidates might not be able to.

But Ferguson doesn’t fall into any of those categories. While it has
brought up the issue of the militarization of law enforcement, the most
important issue at hand is the way Americans of color are treated by police
all over the country. That’s a deep and widely distributed problem, and it
isn’t one Congress can just pass a law to fix.

You could argue Clinton has a special obligation to comment on Ferguson
because it’s of such vital importance to African-Americans, and the
Clintons’ political careers have been built in no small part on their
support from those voters. There’s some merit to that, but the truth is
that it’s Bill Clinton who got where he did with the help of such strong
support from African-Americans. In 2008, the fact that Hillary Clinton
wasn’t able to hold on to them in the face of the challenge from Barack
Obama was one of the main reasons she lost.

No Democratic candidate can win the party’s presidential nomination without
black voters, and every Democrat with their eyes on the White House should
be taking every opportunity they can to communicate to those voters that
they understand their struggles and appreciate their concerns. But that’s a
reason why it would be politically wise for Clinton to talk about Ferguson,
not a reason why she has more of a moral obligation to do so than anyone
else.

To be clear, I’m not saying Clinton shouldn’t weigh in if she has something
to say. By all means, she should. But we also shouldn’t act as though we’ve
been deprived of something vital if she doesn’t.

*Washington Post blog: She The People: “Will Al Sharpton become a thorn in
Hillary Clinton’s side?”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/wp/2014/08/26/will-al-sharpton-become-a-thorn-in-hillary-clintons-side/>*

By Nia-Malika Henderson

August 26, 2014, 12:55 p.m. EDT

When prominent African Americans activists and intellectuals criticized
President Obama on what they viewed as his slow-footed and passionless
response to the shooting of an unarmed teen in Ferguson, Mo. and the unrest
that followed, the Rev. Al Sharpton was not among them.

In fact, Sharpton had a different question: What Hillary Clinton’s response
to Ferguson?

So far, Clinton, on a book tour centered on foreign policy, hasn’t said
anything about Ferguson, but Sharpton said that she, along with other
possible 2016ers, should weigh in.

“I’m in the smoking-out business.  That’s what King did with Kennedy,” he
said.  “That’s what civil rights leaders do. And I’m doing what I do.”

It was a clever political pivot that deflected attention from Obama and
spawned additional segments on MSNBC, several articles and tweet after
tweet, with Clinton characterized as MIA on race and police brutality,
topics du jour among progressives and potential presidential candidate Sen.
Rand Paul (R-Ky.).

Sharpton and Clinton go way back, or rather, Sharpton and the Clintons go
way back.  And Sharpton’s move, and efforts to get Clinton on the record on
Ferguson, now a catchall for race and civil rights, can in many ways be
traced back to Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign.

In 1992, Bill Clinton boldly chose the Rainbow Push convention, where
rapper Sistah Souljah was on the schedule, to criticize both the singer and
the Rev. Jesse Jackson. At the time, Sharpton was working for Jackson, as
the director of the ministers division for the organization.  The
Souljah-Jackson slam was part of Bill Clinton’s effort to appeal to white
blue collar voters, long suspicious of the civil rights movement.

In politics, memories and grievances don’t fade easily.  And that context
and juxtaposition — the Clintons on one side and some civil rights leaders
like Jackson and Sharpton on the other–still hang over the Clinton-Sharpton
relationship.

“I have a cordial relationship with her. When she was the senator here, she
would come speak at National Action Network conferences. We got along
well,” Sharpton said in a telephone interview. “But civility and cordiality
have nothing do with position. There is going to me on the side of civil
rights and others on the side of war.”

Sharpton says that he hasn’t heard from Hillary or Bill Clinton on Ferguson
or much else, even as she seeks to firm up her support among African
Americans in advance of a potential 2016 White House bid.

“I’ve run into them, but we haven’t had any in-depth talks,” he said.  “But
I’m sure we will.”

The Clinton-Sharpton tango, playing out now on MSNBC against the backdrop
of Ferguson and a potential Clinton 2016 bid, raises these questions: Is
Sharpton’s power and relevance real or symbolic?   And, more broadly what’s
Clinton’s next move on Ferguson and on race more broadly?

First, Sharpton. Obama’s advisors clearly believe that having Sharpton as
an ally is important, something they realized during the 2008 campaign,
when they essentially struck a non-aggression pact with him. And given that
his show is beamed into the homes of hundreds of thousands of African
Americans, his voice does resonate with a segment of the population that
that will be key to Clinton’s electoral fortunes.

But, is his footprint overstated, especially among the younger social media
set, and the bloggers and intellectuals who write about race, culture and
politics and also reach a broad audience?

Brittney Cooper, a prominent writer at Salon, wrote a piece called, “Al
Sharpton does not have my ear.  Why we need new black leadership now.”

“Al Sharpton, however, does not have the ear of this generation, and it is
not his leadership that any of us who will live on the planet for the next
half-century or so really needs. To be clear, I do not believe in the
slaying of elders. Black cultural traditions hold within them a serious
reverence for the authority and wisdom of elder people.

“This is not about Sharpton’s age, but rather about how he has positioned
himself in relationship to black politics. My issue with him resides
squarely within the limitations of his moral and political vision for who
and how black people get to be within the American body politic.”

If Ferguson revealed Sharpton’s continued prominence and limitations, it
also revealed the paucity of black leadership more broadly.  Obama’s
election was predicted to usher in a new class of black leaders, but that
simply has not happened. Hillary Clinton might not have said anything on
Ferguson, but Sen. Cory Booker’s (D-N.J.) response, centered around the
treatment of protesters, didn’t break through either.

Obama left Sharpton’s “black leader” label intact and in some ways elevated
it. Clinton could be facing a generation of social media savvy black voters
and other media types who are tired of the idea of a designated “black
leader,” possibly let down by Obama, and who are looking for a more
up-front examination and response to racism.

Though Clinton has a strong record on race–one of her first speeches after
she left the State Department was about voting rights–the 1992 Sistah
Souljah moment shows that often, among centrist Democrats, black issues
have been viewed as an expendable liability, even as black voters are
crucial.

In his way, Obama has had subtle Sistah Souljah moments throughout his
presidency around race, but black voters supported him as he walked that
tightrope.  Should Clinton run, she might have Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on
one side and Sharpton on another, all while trying to stake out a middle
road filled with blue-collar white voters, long since tired of Obama.

It’s a political trick-bag, with no easy answer, a daunting task for even
the most savvy campaigner.  If Clinton runs, Sharpton seems set to pitch a
tent on her left, a quasi-campaign that she would have to contend with as
racial dramas keep flaring up.

“We cannot have the party go back to the center,” Sharpton said. “And we
can’t have Rand Paul talking about Ferguson and race and not Hillary
Clinton, when she is the senator from the state where the [Eric Garner]
chokehold case was. There is always been a battle in the Democratic party
for which way the party is going. It’s an old fight. There will be
flashpoints and she will have to deal with them.”

*The Hill blog: Twitter Room: “MSNBC host: 'Bizarre' Clinton hasn't made
Ferguson statement”
<http://thehill.com/blogs/twitter-room/215985-msnbc-host-bizarre-clinton-hasnt-made-ferguson-statement>*

By Rebecca Shabad

August 26, 2014, 12:50 p.m. EDT

MSNBC host Chris Hayes on Tuesday tweeted it’s “bizarre” that Hillary
Clinton has not weighed in on the situation in Ferguson.

*MSNBC’s Christopher Hayes* @chrislhayes: It is downright bizarre that
Hillary Clinton hasn't at least issued a statement on Mike Brown.
[8/26/14, 9:22
a.m. EDT <https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/statuses/504257570799091712>]

Several news outlets reported the former secretary of State dodged two
reporters’ questions about Ferguson at a book signing in the Hamptons last
weekend.

After Clinton signed more than 700 books at a store in Westhampton Beach,
two reporters asked her to react to the unrest in Missouri, according to
CNN.

Clinton, the likely Democratic front-runner for president if she runs in
2016, ignored their questions and left the bookstore, reports said.

In addition to Hayes’ comment, Rev. Al Sharpton, another host on MSNBC,
said at a Ferguson rally earlier this month, "Jeb Bush, Hillary Clinton,
don’t get laryngitis on this issue…Nobody can go to the White House unless
they stop by our house and talk about policing.”

The civil rights activist has been heavily engaged in Ferguson protests
since the fatal police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown on Aug. 9.

President Obama has weighed in on the case multiple times and sent Attorney
General Eric Holder to Ferguson last week to meet with residents and
Brown’s family.

*Portland Press Herald (M.E.): “Clinton to stump for Michaud as
gubernatorial contest ramps up”
<http://www.pressherald.com/2014/08/26/clinton-to-stump-for-michaud-as-gubernatorial-contest-ramps-up/>*

By Steve Mistler

August 26, 2014, 9:43 a.m. EDT

Former President Bill Clinton will campaign with Democratic gubernatorial
candidate U.S. Rep. Mike Michaud in Portland next week.

Clinton will be the top draw at a rally and reception for Michaud at Ocean
Gateway. The two-term president has attended similar events for other
Democratic candidates seeking high profile seats. In 2010, Clinton
headlined two events for Democratic nominee Libby Mitchell, who eventually
finished third in the five-way contest.

Nonetheless, Clinton’s visit comes as the current race is expected to
increase in intensity. The three major candidates – Michaud, Republican
Gov. Paul LePage and independent Eliot Cutler – have been campaigning for
over a year. However, state elections here tend not to grab the public’s
attention until after Labor Day, the unofficial end of summer.

The event at Ocean Gateway begins at 8 p.m. on Tuesday.

Tickets for the event are free, but individuals must RSVP with the Michaud
campaign by visiting michaud2014.com/Clinton.

*The Star-Ledger (N.J.) column: Paul Mulshine: “A foreign-policy debate has
finally begun; where will Chris Christie end up?”
<http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2014/08/a_real_debate_on_foreign_policy_has_finally_begun_but_where_will_chris_christie_end_up_mulshine.html>*

By Paul Mulshine

August 26, 2014, 11:15 a.m. EDT

A couple of things happened over the past week in the area of foreign
policy.

One was the position of Washington’s deep thinkers and diplomatic geniuses
on the Syrian civil war:

They’re switching sides.

The other was the position of the two political parties on the
interventionism that created the mess in the Mideast.

They seem to be switching sides as well. And that promises to cause a lot
of problems for a certain New Jersey governor who so clearly wants to be
the Republican candidate in the 2016 presidential election.

To the extent he has commented on foreign policy, Chris Christie has seemed
to stick to the mainstream Republican position, a position that is as crazy
as the man who most loudly promotes it, John McCain.

McCain has spent the past couple of years baying for the United States to
topple Syrian strongman Bashar Assad. In this, he’s been joined by the
equally out-of-touch Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina senator who has a
habit of saying things like "Absolutely, you’ve got to get on the ground"
in Syria — without evincing the slightest knowledge that the ground in
question tends to be filled with Islamic fundamentalists who hate the U.S.

Last week we got a graphic example of just what these characters have in
mind for both Syria and neighboring Iraq. It took the video of that
beheading of an American journalist to make the Beltway Republicans
understand what has been evident since the 2003 Iraq invasion: The
Washington crowd is uniquely unqualified to sort out the internal politics
of the Mideast.

But all of the ensuing debacles didn’t stop the politicians and pundits of
both parties from telling us it was essential to topple Assad. Now they’re
desperately trying to figure out how to wipe out Assad’s toughest enemy,
the Islamist radical army called ISIS, or the Islamic State.

But the rise of ISIS was entirely predictable. In 2011, a Damascus-based
news correspondent named Phil Sands quoted an anonymous official of the
ruling Ba’ath Party who predicted it.

"Europe and the U.S. are making a strategic mistake," the unnamed official
said. "They are trying to hand power to the Islamic movements that will be
waging war against them in 10 years from now."

It turns out that guy was an optimist. It took only three years.

The Democrats share equally in the blame, as Hillary Clinton proved when
she took the same tack as McCain and Graham in accusing President Obama of
failing to do enough to help the so-called "moderate" opposition overthrow
Assad.

It’s a little late in history to believe in Mideastern moderates who
magically rise to power the moment a dictator is deposed. In Iraq, the fall
of Saddam Hussein led directly to the rise of an Iranian-allied
Shi’a-majority government that repressed the Sunni minority. This cleared
the way for ISIS to rise in the Sunni areas of Iraq.

And then there’s Libya, where U.S. airstrikes helped topple Moammar
Gadhafi. Islamic militants moved into the vacuum. They took the Tripoli
airport the other day and are threatening to make ISIS-style gains.

Clinton was secretary of state during Obama’s first term, so she shares
some of the blame. One leading contender for the 2016 Republican
presidential nomination is trying to take advantage of that.

On "Meet the Press" Sunday, Rand Paul warned that Clinton might get us into
yet another Mideast war if elected president.

"If you want to see a transformational election in our country, let the
Democrats put forward a war hawk like Hillary Clinton, and you’ll see a
transformation like you’ve never seen," the Kentucky senator said.

This represented a moment we haven’t seen since the Cold War days: an
actual debate between Democrats and Republicans on foreign policy. Until
now, the candidates of both parties backed what the Republicans call
"neoconservatism" and the Democrats call "liberal internationalism."

But polls show the public is fed up with foreign wars, no matter how noble
the alleged motives. So the coming debates could be a real challenge for
Christie, assuming he enters the 2016 race.

So far Christie has been mouthing the standard attacks on Obama’s supposed
failure to lead. But soon enough he will have to start telling us just
where he would lead us.

Down another blind alley?

We will soon find out, I suspect.

ADD: As far back as 2004 it was obvious that this debacle was developing.
In a column in April 2004, I wrote:

“The idea of democracy for Iraq sounds nice. But in a democracy, the
majority rules. And a majority of Iraqis are Shi'a Muslims,
indistinguishable from the Shi'as next door in Iran. Give them the vote and
Iraq may become Iran. We will have spent a couple hundred billion dollars
and hundreds of lives to turn the letter ‘q’ into the letter ‘n.’”

That happened right on schedule. Another thing I predicted that year also
occurred on schedule:

‘A democratic Mideast would almost certainly be taken over by the same
Islamic fundamentalists we are trying to suppress.’

The only other conservative columnist that I know of who noticed this was
Pat Buchanan. As for the rest, they were taken in by those liberal
internationalists posing as ‘neo’ conservatives. I also noticed that 10
years ago:

‘With a few exceptions, conservative pundits have failed to notice that
Bush has gone over to the liberal side on this question, also known as the
Wilsonian side. To put it in historic terms, conservatives in 2000 thought
they were voting for George W. Bush. Instead they got Woodrow Wilson.’

Or in other words, they got a former governor of New Jersey with an
alliterative name and a liberal internationalist view of foreign policy -
but a distinct lack of skill in that field.

Do they need another? That's up to Chris Christie.

And it should be great fun to watch.

*CNN: “In South Carolina, Rubio heals wounds on the right”
<http://edition.cnn.com/2014/08/26/politics/rubio-sc-fundraiser/index.html?hpt=po_c1>*

By Peter Hamby

August 26, 2014

Anderson, South Carolina (CNN) -- Marco Rubio came to South Carolina this
week hoping to win over the kind of conservative hardliners who turned on
him last year as the Senate immigration reform bill he sponsored hit a
roadblock in the Republican-controlled House.

By the time Rubio addressed a massive GOP fundraiser here on Monday
evening, it wasn't his right flank he had to worry about.

The Florida senator and likely presidential candidate was the headline
speaker at a "Faith and Freedom" barbecue fundraiser for Rep. Jeff Duncan,
the tea party-backed congressman who represents what many Republicans
consider the most conservative House district in the state.

After a succession of speeches from South Carolina Republican notables like
Sen. Lindsey Graham and Gov. Nikki Haley, Rubio took the stage in Anderson
to applause, but was quickly interrupted by a group of protestors --
self-identified DREAMers, young immigrants brought to the country illegally
as minors -- who loudly heckled the senator for abandoning last year's
sweeping immigration package when it was met with harsh resistance on the
right.

For an ambitious Republican looking to prove his conservative bona fides
and rub out the stain of working with Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid, the
interruption was something of a gift. A plugged-in Republican operative
turned to a reporter and observed dryly, "I couldn't think of a better way
to make Rubio look good in South Carolina."

The audience of nearly 1,200 conservatives jeered the protestors as Rubio
waited for them to be escorted out of the Anderson Civic Center, scolding
them in the process.

"We are a sovereign country that deserves to have immigration laws," Rubio
said. "You're doing harm to your own cause because you don't have a right
to illegally immigrate to the United States."

The crowd cheered him on. One elderly audience member shoved a protester as
he weaved his way through the tables. Another, 73-year old Army veteran
Turk Culberson, angrily stalked them out of the building, clutching his
cane as if it were a baseball bat.

"I let my temper get the better of me," Culberson said after the incident.
"But there was no place for that kind of thing. If you don't want to hear
what he has to say, don't come."

The remainder of Rubio's speech cemented his standing with the deeply
Republican crowd. A member of the Senate Foreign Relations and Intelligence
committees, Rubio has championed a muscular foreign policy and tapped
hawkish neoconservative thinkers as his foreign policy advisers. He spent
much of the evening lambasting President Barack Obama's handling of
overseas affairs, from the Middle East to Asia. "If you want to know the
state of the world today, it is chaos," he said.

He pivoted to cultural issues, blasting tax laws that discourage marriage
and a culture that regards divorce as no big deal. "The most important job
we have is no congressman or senator or governor," he said. "It's family
and mother and husband and wife."

Though several attendees said they had lingering questions about his
immigration stance and wanted to hear more from him in the coming months,
most of the Republicans who spoke to CNN complimented his speech.

"That crowd was with him 100%," said MaryAnn Riley, a longtime member of
the Spartanburg County Republican Women. Riley, though, cautioned that she
was open to supporting other potential Republican presidential candidates,
naming Rick Perry and even former GOP nominee Mitt Romney as possible
choices.

Duncan, who fiercely opposed Rubio's immigration efforts in 2013, said the
senator "will have to explain" his position to South Carolinians if he
seeks the GOP nomination. But Duncan had kind words for the man who graced
his fundraiser. "Marco Rubio believes in faith and freedom," he said.

Graham, a fellow hawk in the Senate, was more generous in his remarks. He
described Rubio as "the son of Ronald Reagan when it comes to national
security."

Just as important as Rubio's public appearance were the carefully-curated
private meetings that his advisers arranged prior to the dinner speech.

In his first trip to South Carolina since addressing a GOP fundraiser in
Columbia two summers ago, Rubio spent the day in a series of closed-door
sessions with influential local activists and potential financial backers,
specifically courting the Christian conservatives who dominate grassroots
Republican politics in the South Carolina upstate.

Rubio advisers organized a meeting for the senator with senior officials
from Bob Jones University, making Rubio the first Republican presidential
contender to cultivate leaders at the famed Christian university. He also
entertained questions from over 40 social conservatives at the Greenville
home of Lisa van Riper, the well-connected president of South Carolina
Citizens For Life.

Tony Beam, the host of a drive-time Christian talk radio show that
broadcasts throughout the upstate, said Rubio spoke for 10 minutes about
"bedrock conservative values" while at Van Riper's home, stressing his
opposition to same-sex marriage, before taking questions. Beam said he was
"very moved" by Rubio's remarks, comparing the 43-year old Cuban-American
to Ronald Reagan.

"I was very impressed with his grasp of the issues," Beam said. "But the
thing that impressed me most was his optimism and belief in America, the
kind that I first heard from Ronald Reagan when I was a kid in college.
That's what I've been searching for. That's something that's missing in
conservative messaging today. I was very moved."

Rubio, too, held a Greenville fundraiser for his political operation,
Reclaim America PAC, which has so far spent half a million dollars on
behalf of Republican candidates in 2014. The event attracted donors and
business leaders from around the state, as well as another member of the
South Carolina congressional delegation, Rep. Trey Gowdy.

Still, Rubio brushed off questions about his presidential aspirations in a
session with reporters, giving them a pat answer about waiting until after
the midterms before making a decision about a White House run.

He did take a moment to bash Hillary Clinton, the putative Democratic
frontrunner. "She is responsible for at least four of the six yeas of this
disastrous foreign policy," he said. "She was the secretary of state, the
chief foreign policy officer of the Obama administration at a time when it
is now universally accepted that his policy is a fiasco."

As for the immigration flare-up earlier in the evening, Rubio stuck to his
guns, saying that a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants is
impossible without first securing the border and then re-structuring the
current immigration system. "I don't know of anyone in Washington who has
taken more criticism for supporting elements of what they are asking for,"
he said. "But what they are asking for and insisting upon is unrealistic.
This notion that we are going to pass some kind of blanket amnesty is not
realistic."

Outside the civic center, one of the immigration hecklers -- Charlotte,
North Carolina, resident Oliver Merino -- promised to hound Rubio with
similar protests wherever he goes. Merino, a member of the DREAM Organizing
Network, a group that works to halt immigrant deportations, scoffed at the
notion that Rubio could win over Hispanic voters if he secures the
Republican nomination.

"He wants people like me to be deported," Merino said. "He doesn't stand
with our community. We want people to know that. Wherever he goes, we will
let him know that."