Subject: ​Correct The Record Wednesday October 29, 2014 Morning Roundup
From: Burns Strider <[email-masked]>
To: CTRFriendsFamily <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2014 08:11:46 -0400
List-Id: <CTRFriendsFamily.americanbridge.org>

*​**Correct The Record Wednesday October 29, 2014 Morning Roundup:*

*Headlines:*

*Politico: “2016: It’s on”
<http://www.politico.com/story/2014/10/2016-its-on-112294.html>*

“The committees that form the core of the Clinton machine – the super PACs
Ready for Hillary, American Bridge and Priorities USA – combined with the
idling Senate committee that houses her once-coveted (and still profitable)
email list brought in $3.8 million in the third quarter alone. The groups
spent $1.4 million in those three months reaching out to existing and
potential supporters and donors.”

*National Journal: “Kirsten Gillibrand: It's 'Vital' That a Woman Becomes
President in 2016”
<http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/kirsten-gillibrand-it-s-vital-that-a-woman-becomes-president-in-2016-20141028>*

“Gillibrand has made it clear that as long as Clinton runs, she won't
be–she told National Journal after the event that she'll support Clinton
‘110 percent.’”

*Fox News column: Media Buzz: Howard Kurtz: “Media pounce on Hillary’s jobs
gaffe, float Jeb’s trial balloon”
<http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/10/29/media-pounce-on-hillarys-jobs-gaffe-float-jebs-trial-balloon/>*

“Never mind that Warren has said again and again she’s fine with Hillary
and isn’t running in 2016, the pundits can’t stand a vacuum. Hillary
cruising to the nomination is kind of a dull story line. So what she says,
especially on economic issues, has to be measured against a hypothetical
Warren candidacy.”

*The Week: “This is how the GOP should respond to Hillary Clinton's
trumpeting of a minimum wage hike”
<http://theweek.com/article/index/270808/this-is-how-the-gop-should-respond-to-hillary-clintons-trumpeting-of-a-minimum-wage-hike>*

“So why am I suggesting that any of this might be good for Clinton? Because
if she is the Democratic nominee, as we all assume she will be, her GOP
opponents will surely be tempted to repeatedly cite her words as proof of
fuzzy, liberal thinking on economic policy. And she might kind of like
that, actually.”

*BuzzFeed: “Rand Paul Is Already Campaigning Against Hillary Clinton”
<http://www.buzzfeed.com/rosiegray/rand-paul-is-already-campaigning-against-hillary-clinton>*

“Hillary Clinton has become the target of ire from Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul
as he stumps for Republican candidates here [in Kansas] after Clinton said
at a recent campaign stop that businesses and corporations do not create
jobs.”

*Wall Street Journal blog: Metropolis: “Bill Clinton Will Stump for Cuomo
Thursday”
<http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2014/10/28/bill-clinton-will-stump-for-cuomo-thursday/>*

“Former President Bill Clinton, who has been stumping for Democrats across
the country , is expected to campaign for Mr. Cuomo on Thursday at a rally
in New York City, according to people familiar with the matter.”

*USA Today: “Democrats, hoping to save Colorado, send Clinton”
<http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/10/28/clinton-colorado-udall-gardner-hickenlooper/18070515/>*

“Democrats are pulling out all the stops, including back-to-back
appearances by former president Bill Clinton, in their suddenly uphill
battle to retain the state's governor's mansion and one of its two Senate
seats.”

*Las Vegas Review-Journal: “Bill Clinton rallies Dems in Vegas”
<http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/las-vegas/bill-clinton-rallies-dems-vegas>*

“On a mission to save Nevada Democrats, former President Bill Clinton on
Tuesday urged supporters at a rally to vote or suffer the consequences: a
GOP-led Congress that would favor the rich over workers, try to repeal
Obamacare and shut down the government ‘over and over and over.’”

*Washington Post column: Ruth Marcus: “Why Jeb Bush should run for
president”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ruth-marcus-why-jeb-bush-should-run-for-president/2014/10/28/e344bbb4-5ec3-11e4-91f7-5d89b5e8c251_story.html>*

“As a general matter — sure, Barbara Bush is right. The more expansive our
political roster, the better. But in the context of 2016 — well, this gets
to my ‘run, Jeb, run’ argument. He and Clinton are two of the
best-qualified candidates.”

*Reuters: “Kerry wants Keystone pipeline decision 'sooner rather than
later'”
<http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/28/us-canada-keystone-kerry-idUSKBN0IH1YP20141028>*

“U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Tuesday during a visit to
Canada that he would like to make a decision soon on TransCanada Corp's
Keystone XL crude oil pipeline.”

*The Hill opinion: Lanny Davis: “To Republicans: Watch out for traps after
midterms”
<http://thehill.com/opinion/lanny-davis/222140-lanny-davis-to-gop-watch-out-for-traps-after-midterms>*

“[Pres.] Clinton’s economic and social policies were progressive by any
definition…”

*Bloomberg: “Why is Hillary Clinton Not Cutting Television Ads?”
<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2014-10-29/why-is-hillary-clinton-not-cutting-television-ads>*

“So, while Democrats at campaign rallies may love Clinton, she remains a
nationally divisive figure, one that's perhaps too divisive for state-wide
television.”

*New York Times: “How Women Use Fashion to Assert Their Power”
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/30/fashion/the-women-fashion-power-exhibition-at-the-design-museum-in-london.html>*

“… it [the museum exhibition] is laid out over almost 6,500 square feet in
three parts: There is an analytic ‘corridor of power’ that identifies 16 of
the most influential dressers in history, starting with Hatshepsut, the
Egyptian queen who used elements of male dress to establish authority after
her husband’s death; culminating with Hillary Clinton…”

*Articles:*

*Politico: “2016: It’s on”
<http://www.politico.com/story/2014/10/2016-its-on-112294.html>*

By Kenneth P. Vogel and Tarini Parti

October 29, 2014, 5:05 a.m. EDT

Prospective presidential candidates and their supporters are spending money
like it’s 2016.

Groups allied with 15 of the top presidential prospects have raised $89
million and spent $87 million this election cycle as they gear up for 2016,
with a focus on building campaign infrastructure and making inroads in key
primary states, according to a POLITICO analysis of reports filed this
month with the Federal Election Commission and Internal Revenue Service.

The groups connected to Hillary Clinton alone have brought in $25 million.

POLITICO’s analysis included committees allied with prospective 2016
Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton, Martin O’Malley, Deval Patrick,
Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and possible 2016 Republicans Paul
Ryan, John Bolton, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, Bobby
Jindal, Rand Paul, Rick Perry, Marco Rubio and Rick Santorum.

The affiliated groups run the gamut from campaign committees to leadership
PACs to technically independent super PACs to non-profits, and mostly have
stated purposes separate from 2016, including helping allies in their 2014
races. They have ramped up activity this summer, raising $16 million
between July 1 and the end of September, and spending $5.4 million
collecting data on donors, voters and grassroots supporters.

Not long ago, that level of campaign finance activity would have been
expected during the campaign itself, but the break-neck pace before the
2014 midterms hints at just how expensive it will be to build a top-tier
presidential campaign operation in 2016.

Anyone hoping to be competitive likely will have to bring in between $100
million and $150 million next year before the first voters even go to the
polls, said Michael Toner, a former FEC Commissioner who served as a top
lawyer on the presidential campaigns of Republicans George W. Bush in 2000,
Fred Thompson in 2008 and Tim Pawlenty in 2012.

“That’s just the entry fee,” Toner said. “It’s what you’re likely going to
need to raise to organize on the ground simultaneously in Iowa, New
Hampshire, South Carolina and other early states, while also getting on the
ballot in those states, which is extremely onerous and expensive.”

Only one of the possible White House aspirants included in the analysis —
Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin — is actually on the ballot Tuesday, and he
faces only token opposition. But major swaths of the spending reflected in
his finance reports — like that of the other groups analyzed — could
unquestionably help form the foundation of a presidential campaign
apparatus.

“The keys to being treated as a viable candidate are raising your national
profile, building a network of donors and building a grassroots network,
and it takes money to do all those things,” said GOP lawyer and fundraiser
Charlie Spies. In 2008 and 2012, Spies helped Mitt Romney build political
operations that elevated presidential campaign preparation into a political
sub-industry unto itself.

The 2014 activity reflected in recent finance reports – likely the last
full round of disclosures before candidates begin declaring for the
presidency – offers a glimpse at how various politicians might approach
their White House bids.

The strategies are as varied as the prospective candidates’ ideologies –
from Florida Sen. Rubio’s flashy $400,000 in reported ad spending boosting
2014 candidates to the $1-million-plus think tank Louisiana Gov. Jindal’s
allies created to promote his policy ideas to the populist barnstorming of
Sens. Sanders of Vermont and Paul of Kentucky. In the third quarter, as
they hopscotched the country rallying voters in targeted races (many of
which just happened to be in key 2016 states), they racked up travel costs
totaling $27,000 and $118,000, respectively, ranging from charter airfare
($11,000 for Sanders and $59,000 for Paul) to rental cars ($700 for Sanders
and $3,000 for Paul).

Paul’s PAC even purchased $337.03 in “apparel” at the Men’s Wearhouse in
Omaha, Neb., around the time the senator, whose offbeat wardrobe has been
the subject of curiosity, swung through town en route to adjacent Iowa to
campaign for Senate candidate Ben Sasse.

Yet none of this is close to the money and activity behind Clinton.

If the former Secretary of State and New York senator wins the Democratic
nomination, the committees supporting her could raise $1.7 billion or more
– far eclipsing the record-breaking $1.2 billion raised by those supporting
President Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection, Toner predicted. In his
estimation, Clinton’s campaign committee alone would have the potential to
raise $1 billion, with an additional $500 million that could come into the
Democratic Party committees, plus $200 million or more going to outside
groups devoted to putting her in the White House.

“She is the 10,000-pound gorilla,” Toner said. Her mere presence in the
primary “would likely have a ripple effect on how much money other
candidates are going to have to raise in 2015 just to be in the ballgame.”

Allies of the putative Democratic frontrunner have already built a shadow
campaign operation unlike anything in modern American political history.

The committees that form the core of the Clinton machine – the super PACs
Ready for Hillary, American Bridge and Priorities USA – combined with the
idling Senate committee that houses her once-coveted (and still profitable)
email list brought in $3.8 million in the third quarter alone. The groups
spent $1.4 million in those three months reaching out to existing and
potential supporters and donors.

Priorities USA, which was created to support Obama’s reelection, after 2012
morphed into the advertising arm of the Clinton apparatus, quietly building
analytical models for an on-air assault to nuke any rival who challenges
the former secretary of state. Last month, it spent $41,000 for research
from NCEC Services, Inc., which specializes in creating voter outreach
strategies. It’s part of an effort “laying the groundwork to run the most
data-driven, targeted independent expenditure in presidential campaign
history,” boasted Priorities spokesman Peter Kauffmann.

Ready for Hillary, which set out to mobilize grassroots support around a
potential Clinton campaign, has the biggest overhead of any of the groups
in this analysis. It has 35 staffers spread across 14 states and owns a bus
that has been crisscrossing the country holding rallies. In the last three
months, it paid nearly $650,000 in salary and human resource-related
expenses and $227,000 in travel costs.

It’s building a voter file it hopes to use to benefit a potential Clinton
campaign, and it paid $45,000 for data from the Democratic parties that
host the first two primary contests – Iowa and New Hampshire. The group’s
spokesman Seth Bringman said that data “enables us to develop an even more
robust database of supporters who can be activated the moment Hillary makes
a decision.”

The group has highlighted its small donor network — an area where Clinton’s
2008 presidential campaign lagged behind Obama’s — but it has also worked
to line up affluent Democrats to support Clinton. In the third quarter, it
spent $160,000 on 10 different finance consultants, plus $596,000 on direct
mail-related costs. Among the new donors from whom it received maximum
$25,000 donations were private space travel entrepreneur Laetitia Garriott
de Cayeux, ESPN executive Marie Donoghue (who oversees Nate Silver’s
fivethirtyeight.com) and CarMax co-founder Austin Ligon.

O’Malley, the Maryland governor who is the Democrat most aggressively
laying the groundwork for a potential challenge to Clinton, has been
working assiduously to boost his national profile among donors and
activists alike.

His O’Say Can You See PAC paid $45,000 in the third quarter to a firm
called Revolution Messaging that created slick movie-trailer-style videos
touting O’Malley’s record. In one gauzy biographical short, a narrator
praises the “assault on hopelessness” O’Malley launched when he ran for
mayor of Baltimore by “walking its mean streets … assaulted by batteries
and bottles hurled by drug dealers angered at having their business
interrupted.”

O’Malley’s PAC also spent $32,000 on a pair of finance consultants who
specialize in part on high-dollar fundraising, with one receiving a $3,000
bonus at the end of last month. The arm of the PAC that can accept
unlimited checks scored sizable contributions from Washington Capitals
owner Ted Leonsis ($10,000), Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele, a
wealthy businessman, ($25,000) and trial lawyer John P. Coale, a longtime
O’Malley friend and the husband of Fox News host Greta van Susteren
($21,715 – mostly in-kind contributions for transportation).

The possible rival Clinton’s backers fear most — Massachusetts Sen. Warren
— has shown little appetite to challenge Clinton, but her political
committees’ reports show why she could be formidable. She has the potential
to raise huge sums from a wide small donor base. Her campaign committee and
PAC in the third quarter raised more than $955,000 — about two thirds of
which came from small donors. While a super PAC formed to coax her into the
race raised only $58,000, it did make its first payment – $6,000 last month
– to a fundraising firm called Bulldog Finance Group focusing partly on
drumming up big-donor support.

The GOP pre-presidential field is much wider open — and more competitive.
Operatives for some of the prospective candidates were reluctant to detail
their fundraising or infrastructure-building strategies for fear of tipping
off competitors to their ideas.

Sens. Paul, Cruz of Texas and Rubio of Florida, along with Rep. Ryan seem
to be in almost a race of sorts to campaign for – and contribute to – as
many GOP candidates as possible in the run-up to the midterms. They all
rushed to embrace a new wrinkle in fundraising – setting up a joint
committee connecting their campaign committees and leadership PACs that can
accept bigger checks than either component committee alone. And many of
them are competing for the attention of the same big donors.

Huckabee – the Fox News host and former Arkansas governor who mounted a
scrappy but under-funded campaign for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination,
has suggested he might run again in 2016 if he had support from rich super
PAC backers. But his Huck PAC committee in the third quarter dropped
$511,000 — three quarters of its total spending — on direct mail
fundraising. While that’s a high burn rate for a PAC that raised less than
$1 million in the less three months, direct mail is considered the most
effective way to cultivate the older voters who seem to form the core of
Huckabee’s fan base and donor network.

Cruz’s three committees spent $119,000 on printing and postage costs often
associated with direct mail and $60,000 on fundraising phone calls (another
go-to technique for reaching older supporters). But Cruz’s groups also
spent $81,000 on database management and digital consulting costs typically
associated with targeting a younger audience.

Likewise, a pair of PACs affiliated with former United Nations Ambassador
John Bolton, who has signaled interest in a run for the GOP presidential
nomination, in the third quarter paid $100,000 to top GOP online
fundraising firm Campaign Solutions and $15,000 to Nova List Company for
lists to prospect. Bolton also scored big checks from Zionist
philanthropist Cherna Moskowitz (who has given $300,000 to his super PAC)
and beer baron Pete Coors ($25,000).

Govs. Jindal and Perry of Texas have created leadership PACs to fund their
political travels and donations, but their supporters also started
non-profit groups registered under a section of the tax code – 501(c)4 –
that allows them to accept unlimited and anonymous checks to promote their
policy platforms and records.

The Jindal-linked 501(c)4, America Next, has raised more than $1 million
since it was founded late last year, according to Timmy Teepell, a former
Jindal chief and staff who is a partner at OnMessage, Jindal’s consulting
firm.

America Next is run by Romney Iowa and New Hampshire alumna Jill Neunaber,
who also runs Jindal’s leadership PAC, which has footed the bill for him to
travel the country and donate to candidates, largely in Iowa and New
Hampshire.

Teepell described the nonprofit as “open source coding for policy
proposals,” such as Jindal’s early support for over-the-counter
contraception. It has recently been championed by Republicans in
high-profile Senate races including Colorado’s Cory Gardner and North
Carolina’s Thom Tillis — both of whom also happen to be OnMessage clients.

Perry’s close confidants last year created Americans for Economic Freedom
with $200,000 of left-over cash transferred from the coffers of a super PAC
that supported his presidential bid in 2012. The nonprofit has run ads
around the country praising Perry’s job creation record.

Perry’s leadership PAC also spent more than $17,000 on fundraising and
digital targeting, including $13,000 to Targeted Victory, the influential
firm that ran Romney’s digital operation, and $4,300 apparently for
tee-shirts featuring his mug-shot from a booking on public corruption
charges that critics contend are politically motivated. The shirts were
offered for sale by the PAC at an event featuring Perry in August in New
Hampshire.

Since July, it’s donated more than $60,000 to Republican candidates in New
Hampshire and more than $30,000 to those in Iowa.

Such donations are the ostensible purpose of the leadership PACs like those
maintained by many would-be 2016 candidates. And while the total sums
donated often pale into the comparison to the amounts spent on fundraising,
travel and overhead, donations can help would-be White House aspirants
collect chits in key states.

Ryan’s committees have given the most in federal campaign contributions –
$826,000 – through the end of last month, followed by Warren’s ($458,000),
Cruz’s ($344,000), Bolton’s ($342,000), Rubio’s ($288,000), Ready for
Hillary ($200,000) and Sanders’ ($179,000).

A committee set up by former Florida Gov. Bush solely to raise money for
GOP Senate candidates had passed through a total of more than $760,000 at
the end of last month to Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Cory Gardner of Colorado,
Joni Ernst of Iowa, Dan Sullivan of Alaska and Monica Wehby of Oregon. And,
while Bush mostly lacks a campaign finance infrastructure to support his
own presidential exploration, Toner asserted Bush could quickly fix that,
and suggested he ultimately may be the only Republican who could keep up
with Clinton in the money race. “He has a wide and deep donor network,”
Toner said.

Likewise, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie lacks an active political
committee of his own, but he has used his work on behalf of the Republican
Governors Association to further cultivate his already strong connections
to major donors. He’s expected to be able to quickly parlay that into an
independent political operation.

It could be trickier for Vice President Joe Biden, who has been privately
suggesting to donors that he’s going to run and that he would be a better
candidate than Clinton. Never a stellar fundraiser in his own right, Biden
resisted calls by his inner circle to establish a leadership PAC last year,
and there’s no evidence that he or his inner circle have taken any steps
towards establishing a campaign vehicle in waiting.

Sources say former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb, who’s more openly considering a
2016 run, is expected to established some sort of political committee after
the midterms to pay for a bare-bones staff and travels around the country
to gauge interest in a potential campaign.

But one operative who has worked with Webb on previous campaigns suggested
he wouldn’t try to catch-up to Clinton or even O’Malley in the pre-campaign
arms race, both because that’s not how he operates, and because it’s not
practical.

“Part of the appeal of Jim Webb is that any call to political service he
has fulfilled has been because he sees a need for leadership and direction
at a specific time, not as part of a lifelong plan,” said the operative.

Plus, the operative added, the rapidly changing campaign finance landscape
makes it difficult to predict what types of preparations will be most
useful for 2016.

“There has been a significant shift in the past four years alone on who is
motivated to give and how, as well as the size and frequency of
contributions,” said the operative. “I can only imagine that evolution will
continue into 2016, especially after campaigns and voters see the outcome
of the midterms and all the analysis is done.”

*National Journal: “Kirsten Gillibrand: It's 'Vital' That a Woman Becomes
President in 2016”
<http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/kirsten-gillibrand-it-s-vital-that-a-woman-becomes-president-in-2016-20141028>*

By Rebecca Nelson

October 28, 2014

[Subtitle:] The junior senator from New York hopes it's Hillary Clinton,
but she's positioning herself well if that doesn't happen.

Speaking to an intimate audience of almost exclusively women on Tuesday,
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand asserted that it was critical not only for
Democrats to nominate a woman in 2016, but also for that woman to become
president.

At a recording of the SiriusXM radio show "The Agenda" put on by the
liberal women's group EMILY's List, where the New York Democrat appeared on
a panel to discuss women's increasing influence in politics, Gillibrand
didn't play coy about who the next woman president should be.

"I am very hopeful that Secretary Clinton will decide to run," she said. "I
think she's the strongest candidate the Democrats could field."

Gillibrand painted herself as one of Clinton's biggest supporters,
emphasizing that she would pledge her full support to a Clinton run. But
she also made sure to highlight her own legislative efforts to help women.
Combatting sexual assault in the military, universal pre-kindergarten, and
paid leave are all central to creating a better country for women, she said.

Less than ten minutes into the discussion, Democratic strategist Bill
Burton, who was on the panel with the senator, made a veiled reference to
the possibility of Gillibrand running. Smiling and angling toward the
senator, Burton said he hopes his three-year-old son will see a woman
president, "whether that's Hillary Clinton or somebody else."

Gillibrand has made it clear that as long as Clinton runs, she won't be–she
told National Journal after the event that she'll support Clinton "110
percent." But her efforts to engage women voters point to a savvy
politician playing the long game. Aligning herself with powerful women's
groups sets her up to be Clinton's heir apparent as the voice for women in
the Democratic party. After Clinton likely takes her turn in 2016,
Gillibrand will be well-prepared to assume that role.

*Fox News column: Media Buzz: Howard Kurtz: “Media pounce on Hillary’s jobs
gaffe, float Jeb’s trial balloon”
<http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/10/29/media-pounce-on-hillarys-jobs-gaffe-float-jebs-trial-balloon/>*

By Howard Kurtz

October 29, 2014

Hillary Clinton’s gaffe about jobs is resonating for several reasons—not
least because the media have decided she’s no Elizabeth Warren.

The media narrative du jour is that Hillary is out of step with the
populist mood of the Democratic Party—as embodied by the Wall
Street-bashing Massachusetts senator who many pundits are still hoping will
challenge her. So they are guaranteed to pounce on any mistake that feeds
Hillary’s image as an establishment figure who is struggling to be more
like Liz.

It’s hard to believe that the former first lady managed to echo Barack
Obama’s “you didn’t build that” blunder, given how long that bedeviled the
president.

“Don’t let anybody tell you that corporations and businesses create jobs,”
Hillary told a Boston rally. “You know that old theory, trickle-down
economics. That has been tried, that has failed. It has failed rather
spectacularly.” Perhaps it was no coincidence that Warren was also there,
stumping for struggling gubernatorial candidate Martha Coakley.

So the overwhelming Democratic front-runner wants it known that she doesn’t
believe American businesses, whatever their faults, generate jobs?

That led to followup stories like this one in Politico:

“Hillary Clinton on Monday mopped up her botched statement from a rally in
Massachusetts last week, making it clear she’d misspoken and hadn’t
intended to deliver a fresh economic policy message.”

At another campaign stop, Clinton said: “Trickle-down economics has failed.
I short-handed this point the other day, so let me be absolutely clear
about what I’ve been saying for a couple of decades. Our economy grows when
businesses and entrepreneurs create good-paying jobs here in America and
workers and families are empowered to build from the bottom up and the
middle out — not when we hand out tax breaks for corporations that
outsource jobs or stash their profits overseas.”

The earlier comment—the one she now says was shorthand—was jarring coming
from an establishment figure who is viewed, fairly or unfairly, as too cozy
with the banking establishment. Hillary has also been collecting six-figure
speaking fees from her appearances before corporate groups.

But the media really love this story because of the contrast with Warren.
The pundits have turned this freshman lawmaker into the purest distillation
of the liberal id, the crusader who wants to whack Wall Street on behalf of
the little people.

Never mind that Warren has said again and again she’s fine with Hillary and
isn’t running in 2016, the pundits can’t stand a vacuum. Hillary cruising
to the nomination is kind of a dull story line. So what she says,
especially on economic issues, has to be measured against a hypothetical
Warren candidacy.

In National Review, Victor Davis Hanson took a swipe at her “plutocrat
populism,” saying she had bemoaned the crushing costs of higher education
in a speech at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas:

“One reason tuition and student indebtedness have soared — UNLV’s tuition
is set to go up by 17 percent next year — is that universities pay
exorbitant fees to multimillionaire speakers like Hillary Clinton. College
foundations sprout up to raise money for perks that might not pass
transparent university budgeting. Clinton — or her own foundation —
reportedly charged a university foundation $225,000 for a talk lasting less
than an hour. For that sum, she could have paid the tuition of over 320
cash-strapped UNLV students…

“Why do so many self-interested plutocrats indulge in populist rhetoric
that is completely at odds with the way they live?”

But the New Republic says the GOP’s “obsession” with Obama’s
you-didn’t-build-that mistake “revealed more damaging truths about the
Republican Party than the gaffe itself revealed about Obama.” Rick Santorum
is quoted as saying the Republican convention showcased all kinds of
business owners but not a single factory worker.

“None of the Republicans pushing the ‘corporations and businesses’ line
actually thinks Hillary Clinton meant to say that investment isn’t a
component of economic growth, just as they know from their perches in
congressional offices and at donor-dependent non-profits that the
entrepreneur isn’t the solitary engine of job creation. But it’s clear they
all still believe that riling up business elites by selectively quoting
Democrats is a key to political success.”

Of course, Hillary may simply have made a verbal error having nothing to do
with Elizabeth Warren. But after that “dead broke” book tour, she needs to
avoid developing a reputation as gaffe-prone.

Meanwhile, Hillary’s possible 2016 opponent showed a deft use of the press.
I have no idea whether Jeb Bush will run, but he certainly sent a signal,
via the New York Times, that he’s leaning that way.

Was this some shadowy source that a reporter met in the Florida Everglades?
Nope, it was the former governor’s son who spoke to Peter Baker.

“‘No question,’ Jeb Jr. said in an interview, ‘people are getting fired up
about it — donors and people who have been around the political process for
a while, people he’s known in Tallahassee when he was governor. The family,
we’re geared up either way.’”

The piece says the two former presidents, George W. and George H.W., very
much want Jeb to run. More important, Jeb’s wife, Columba, who is most wary
of the political pressure-cooker, has given the nod, says Jeb Jr.

To be sure, the Times has a to-be-sure paragraph:

“None of that means Jeb Bush will run. He has said he will decide by the
end of the year, and could simply be keeping the possibility open to
enhance his influence on the political stage. To some who have spoken with
him in recent months, he has not exhibited the same fire that his father
and brother did at this stage.”

But consider this: Jeb Bush’s other son, George P., told ABC’s “This Week”
he thinks it is “more than likely” that his father will run.

You don’t have to be a brilliant political analyst to believe that both
sons aren’t shooting off their mouths without dad’s permission. Jeb is
revving his engines.

*The Week: “This is how the GOP should respond to Hillary Clinton's
trumpeting of a minimum wage hike”
<http://theweek.com/article/index/270808/this-is-how-the-gop-should-respond-to-hillary-clintons-trumpeting-of-a-minimum-wage-hike>*

By James Pethokoukis

October 29, 2014, 6:09 a.m. EDT

[Subtitle:] Instead of blasting her as a leftist Obamacrat, maybe
Republicans ought to rethink their own economic message

Kudos to Hillary Clinton for this clever bit of political jujitsu: At a
rally last week for Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate Martha Coakley,
the presumed 2016 Democratic favorite said it was a higher minimum wage,
not private enterprise, that really creates American jobs.

“Don't let anybody tell you that raising the minimum wage will kill jobs.
They always say that. I've been through this. My husband gave working
families a raise in the 1990s. I voted to raise the minimum wage and guess
what? Millions of jobs were created or paid better and more families were
more secure. … And don't let anybody tell you that, you know, it's
corporations and businesses that create jobs. You know, that old theory,
trickle-down economics. That has been tried. That has failed. It has failed
rather spectacularly.” [Hillary Clinton]

Predictably, Republicans freaked out en masse, from Fox News to the
conservative blogosphere. The consensus opinion: Clinton finally revealed
her true leftist colors, not to mention her profound economic ignorance.
Forget all her talk about hubby Bill's third-way centrism. Hillary Clinton
clearly isn't a Clinton Democrat ready to drag her party back to the
center. She's just another wealth-redistributing Obamacrat.

Clinton has since clarified her remarks to acknowledge that businesses and
"empowered" families have a key role to play in a healthy U.S. economy. But
it makes little political difference. Recall that President Obama also
clarified his "You didn't build that" gaffe during the 2012 election
season. The GOP still flogged the original remark to death, especially
during the Republican National Convention, with both Mitt Romney and Paul
Ryan making reference to Obama's line long after its expiration date.

So why am I suggesting that any of this might be good for Clinton? Because
if she is the Democratic nominee, as we all assume she will be, her GOP
opponents will surely be tempted to repeatedly cite her words as proof of
fuzzy, liberal thinking on economic policy. And she might kind of like
that, actually.

Indeed, maybe the whole point of the original comment was to goad
Republicans into attacking her. Think about it. What did Romney and Ryan
get for all their focus on society's builders and makers? Well, the ticket
lost 81-18 to Obama-Biden among voters seeking a president who "cares about
people like me." Most American aren't CEOs or running tech startups. And
most saw little in Romney-nomics that would directly benefit them or
address their worries about stagnant take-home pay or financing college.

A 2016 GOP campaign centered around "heroic entrepreneurs" rather than
everyday middle-class concerns would probably fail badly again today.
Voters care about economic growth, but they also think redistributionist
policies — like raising the minimum wage and guaranteeing a minimum income
— are better for economic growth than business tax cuts or reducing
high-end personal tax rates. Attacking Clinton for trumpeting a minimum
wage hike would probably backfire on the GOP — at least if all the party
has is criticism.

So how should Republicans react? Surely not by rabidly attacking Clinton —
but also not by reflexively mimicking the Democratic agenda. Instead, there
is an opportunity for a positive, conservative reform message.

As far as the minimum wage goes, its impact on jobs is hardly settled
science, despite Clinton's claim. A study out this week finds "the best
evidence still points to job loss from minimum wages for very low-skilled
workers — in particular, for teens." The U.S. economy generated 41 million
private-sector jobs from 1980 through 2007 even as the minimum wage
declinedby nearly a third in real terms. Clinton may have actually reversed
the linkage between jobs and the minimum wage.

Expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit or some other wage subsidy would
better target low-income workers while also less likely to cost jobs. Such
a plan could be a key element of a new GOP middle-class agenda, along with
tax breaks for parents, making college more affordable, and, yes, business
tax cuts, since research suggests such reforms would raise worker wages.

If a renewed effort to support the beleaguered American middle class is how
the GOP responds to Hillary, then her clever trolling may turn out to be
too clever by half.

*BuzzFeed: “Rand Paul Is Already Campaigning Against Hillary Clinton”
<http://www.buzzfeed.com/rosiegray/rand-paul-is-already-campaigning-against-hillary-clinton>*

By Rosie Gray

October 28, 2014, 9:51 p.m. EDT

[Subtitle:] “Hillary Clinton says, ‘Well, businesses don’t create jobs.’
Anybody believe that?”

OVERLAND PARK, Kansas — A certain likely Democratic presidential candidate
has appeared, rhetorically, on the campaign trail in Kansas.

Hillary Clinton has become the target of ire from Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul
as he stumps for Republican candidates here after Clinton said at a recent
campaign stop that businesses and corporations do not create jobs.

Stumping for Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts and Gov. Sam Brownback on Tuesday,
Paul criticized Clinton for the remark at more than one campaign stop. He’s
one of the most sought-after surrogates for Republicans in the midterms
this year, and is a likely 2016 candidate himself. He told BuzzFeed News
last week that he would be deciding about a potential presidential run in
the spring.

“The president says, you didn’t build that, it just sort of happened,” Paul
said in Wichita in an airport hangar rally at midday. “The plane just sort
of came into being because it was a public road and a public library.”

“Hillary Clinton comes up and she says, ‘Businesses don’t create jobs.’
Anybody here think businesses don’t create jobs?” Paul said. “I’m here
today to endorse Pat Roberts and Sam Brownback, because you know what? They
know that businesses do create jobs, and I hope you know that too.”

Later in the day, in the Kansas City suburb of Overland Park, Paul offered
the line again as he stood next to the podium, sort of in the style of Sen.
Ted Cruz.

“Hillary Clinton says, ‘Well, businesses don’t create jobs.’ Anybody
believe that?” he said. The crowd roared.

At an event for Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate Martha Coakley last
week, Clinton said, “Don’t let anybody tell you that it’s corporations and
businesses that create jobs. You know that old theory, trickle-down
economics. That has been tried, that has failed. It has failed rather
spectacularly.”

Clinton later walked back the remark, arguing that corporate tax breaks are
not the source of economic growth. The former secretary of state has often
been criticized from the left for being too corporate.

Obama and Clinton “are on another page, they’re on another planet, reading
another book,” Paul said.

*Wall Street Journal blog: Metropolis: “Bill Clinton Will Stump for Cuomo
Thursday”
<http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2014/10/28/bill-clinton-will-stump-for-cuomo-thursday/>*

By Erica Orden

October 28, 2014, 1:59 p.m. EDT

On Thursday, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo will get his second Clinton bump
within the span of a week.

Former President Bill Clinton, who has been stumping for Democrats across
the country , is expected to campaign for Mr. Cuomo on Thursday at a rally
in New York City, according to people familiar with the matter.

A spokesman for Mr. Clinton declined to comment.

Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat facing reelection next week, rallied last Thursday
with Hillary Clinton at a campaign event in Midtown, where Mrs. Clinton
endorsed the governor and where Mr. Cuomo played coy about endorsing Mrs.
Clinton for “something really, really, really big.”

Mr. Cuomo often touts his work in the Clinton administration, when he
served as U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, on the campaign
trail, even as in recent weeks he published a memoir that describes his
resentment in 2002 over the Clintons’ reluctance to assist his failed first
gubernatorial bid.

But he has been eager to trumpet their support this time around, and the
Clintons have appeared ready to lend it.

While Mr. Clinton has recently stumped for more embattled Democrats, and in
recent polls Mr. Cuomo maintains a roughly 20-point lead over his
Republican opponent, Rob Astorino, the governor appears to be taking the
advice Mrs. Clinton doled out during the rally last week.

“They think, ‘OK, the election’s over. We know who’s going to be the next
governor,’” she said. “You can’t take anything for granted in an election.
I know that from firsthand experience.”

*USA Today: “Democrats, hoping to save Colorado, send Clinton”
<http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/10/28/clinton-colorado-udall-gardner-hickenlooper/18070515/>*

By Trevor Hughes

October 28, 2014, 5:08 p.m. EDT

LAKEWOOD, Colo. — Democrats are pulling out all the stops, including
back-to-back appearances by former president Bill Clinton, in their
suddenly uphill battle to retain the state's governor's mansion and one of
its two Senate seats.

President Obama won this state in both his presidential races, but now his
unpopularity is weighing down Gov. John Hickenlooper and Sen. Mark Udall.
Their challengers have repeatedly attacked them for being too close to a
president who won this state twice but has seen his popularity plummet
following a string of crises from the botched roll-out of his signature
health care law to a renewed explosion of violence in Iraq.

Udall this summer skipped a rally Obama held on his behalf in Denver, and
Republicans attacked the president for playing pool with Hickenlooper
during a border crisis.

Recent polls show Udall losing to GOP challenger Rep. Cory Gardner, and
Hickenlooper lagging slightly behind Republican Bob Beauprez after an early
campaign in which both Democrats enjoyed broad name recognition and
long-established fundraising systems. Outside groups have poured tens of
millions of dollars into advertising that's been blanketing television,
newspapers, radio and the Internet.

Clinton, the dean of the country's Democrats, appeared at Denver-area
rallies Monday night and Tuesday morning, calling on voters to reject
Republicans and keep the Democrats in office. He said Gardner and Beauprez
are running on platforms that amount to "pop the president one more time."

"In a grown-up country... we join hands and work together. That's what
Washington needs," Obama said Tuesday at a rally in suburban Denver.

Clinton sounded themes he's used for years, and which have proven popular
with voters: community, bipartisanship and shared prosperity, while
attacking trickle-down economics.

Udall's campaign argues that his extensive ground game will push him ahead
of Gardner when the ballots are actually cast and counted, pointing out
that polls in 2010 showed Democrat Michael Bennet losing his race right up
until he won the state's junior senate seat. Bennet won by the equivalent
of one vote in every Colorado precinct.

"In Colorado, like nowhere else, every single vote matters," Udall said.
"We're going to show those outside groups you can't buy an election here.
We are surging. We have momentum.

Hillary Rodham Clinton and Michelle Obama have also both visited Colorado
in the closing weeks of the election.

Last week, a USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll showed Gardner leading Udall
by 46%-39%, a troubling finding for Democrats scrambling to hold control of
the Senate. Five weeks ago, Udall held a 1- percentage-point lead in the
same poll.

The poll also showed momentum for Beauprez: While he trailed Hickenlooper
by 2 percentage points in September, he now leads the governor by 2
percentage points — movement in his direction, although the race is still
well within the survey's 4.4-percentage-point margin of error.

The Udall-Gardner race is important because Colorado, Iowa and North
Carolina have Democratic-held seats at the center of the battle over which
party will control the Senate in January. Republicans, who are likely to
keep control of the House, need to score a net gain of six seats to claim a
majority in the Senate as well.

Republicans have also called in their party's big guns to build on their
momentum: former Florida governor Jeb Bush is coming to the GOP stronghold
of Douglas County on Wednesday, and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is set
to appear with Beauprez Thursday in the traditionally Republican area of
Colorado Springs.

In a statement, Colorado GOP chairman Ryan Call said Clinton may have
appeared with Udall on Tuesday but it's his ties with Obama that voters
truly care about.

"President Clinton can attempt to bail out senator Udall with lofty clichés
and sound bites, but his record speaks louder than words. The fact remains
that senator Udall has forgotten the priorities of Colorado and chosen to
align his votes with the failed policies of President Obama," Call said.

*Las Vegas Review-Journal: “Bill Clinton rallies Dems in Vegas”
<http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/las-vegas/bill-clinton-rallies-dems-vegas>*

By Laura Myers

October 28, 2014, 8:55 p.m.

On a mission to save Nevada Democrats, former President Bill Clinton on
Tuesday urged supporters at a rally to vote or suffer the consequences: a
GOP-led Congress that would favor the rich over workers, try to repeal
Obamacare and shut down the government “over and over and over.”

Clinton also said voters need to back Democratic candidates at the state
and local levels because the policies they oversee affect Nevadans’
everyday lives and Republicans don’t support a minimum-wage hike or equal
pay for women and want to roll back voter rights.

He said just because there’s no presidential election at stake is no excuse
for Democrats to stay away from the polls, which would open the door to GOP
victories on Nov. 4.

“A bunch of your life is shaped by people who aren’t on the ballot when
we’re voting for presidents,” Clinton said, from governor to state
treasurer to legislator. “This is a big deal.”

Laying out the high stakes, Clinton said the election will determine where
Nevada and the nation go from here after recovering from the worst economic
recession since the Great Depression.

“What’s really on the ballot is whether we go back to a trickle-down
economy and whether only the rich get the benefits or whether we have
shared opportunity and shared responsibility and the same rules apply to
one another,” Clinton said.

The Clinton rally was aimed at boosting lackluster Democratic voter turnout
during early voting as the GOP builds a healthy lead that could sweep
Republicans into the state’s five top offices and boot freshman U.S. Rep.
Steven Horsford, D-Nev.

The 4:30 p.m. rally at the Springs Preserve came a week before the Nov. 4
election. Democrats said about 700 people attended the open-air event.

It was scheduled at the last minute after Republicans shocked Democrats by
beating them every day in early voting so far and in every key race. That’s
a reversal of recent trends in the battleground state, which President
Barack Obama won twice.

Statewide, Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than 62,000 registered
voters. But during early voting, Republicans have built a 17,166-ballot
lead over Democrats as of Tuesday morning thanks to an aggressive
registration drive and get-out-the-vote effort.

The GOP is even ahead in Clark County by 2,094 ballots. The Democratic
stronghold, where three quarters of the Nevada population lives, is
normally where the party dominates, building an election firewall, while
the GOP is far stronger in rural Nevada, with Washoe County serving as the
swing county in the swing state.

In Horsford’s district, Republicans had cast 2,094 more ballots than
Democrats so far, although there are some 33,156 more registered Democrats
than Republicans in the 4th Congressional District, which covers northern
Clark County and all or part of six rural counties. Horsford’s GOP opponent
is Assemblyman Cresent Hardy of Mesquite.

The two-week early voting period ends Friday, a few days ahead of Election
Day.

Clinton, in his remarks, defended Obama’s Affordable Care Act. He said
230,000 more people in Nevada have health insurance under Obamacare. He
said premiums are expected to rise 1 percent next year, a far cry from
runaway costs in the past.

“This thing is working, and we need to make it better,” Clinton said,
adding that a GOP-led Congress “will go up there and vote another 50 times”
to kill it.

“They’ll just shut the government down, over and over and over again,” he
added. “They want you to believe it (the election) is about Ebola and ISIS.
If something happens in the paper, it’s the president’s fault and you ought
to vote against Democrats.”

“I don’t like it when these politicians play blame games,” Clinton added.

Clinton said voters shouldn’t think they can’t make a difference.

“It does matter,” he said of the midterm election. “It matters as much as
the next presidential election.”

Clinton’s wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is likely to run
for president in 2016, and Nevada would be key to her hopes of winning the
White House.

Clinton’s appearance came after Democratic candidates urged the crowd to
vote early and to each get 10 people they know to vote to make up for lost
ground against the GOP.

Horsford attended the rally as well as U.S. Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev.,
attorney general candidate Ross Miller, secretary of state candidate Kate
Marshall, lieutenant governor candidate Lucy Flores, and Erin Bilbray, the
Democrat challenging U.S. Rep. Joe Heck, R-Nev., who is expected to win a
third term in the 3rd Congressional District.

This year, Democratic voters haven’t been excited by the midterm election
when there’s no presidential or U.S. Senate contest at stake.

Also, the governor’s race is a sleeper after the Democrats failed to
recruit a top-tier candidate.

As a result, the popular GOP Gov. Brian Sandoval has spent his time
promoting Republican candidates, raising millions of dollars to help GOP
contenders and, behind the scenes, rebuilding the GOP ground game into an
electoral force.

State Sen. Mark Hutchison, R-Las Vegas, who is Sandoval’s pick to become
lieutenant governor, is expected to defeat his Democratic opponent, Flores,
a Latina whose campaign never took off as she was outspent and outgunned.

The other high-profile race on the ballot, between Miller and Republican
Adam Laxalt, has suddenly become one to watch. Miller, the better-known and
better-funded secretary of state, was considered the front-runner, but now
Laxalt, an attorney who moved to Nevada a few years ago, could score an
upset if GOP turnout continues to dominate.

Miller could survive if he gains enough crossover support from Republicans,
something his father and adviser, former Nevada Gov. Bob Miller, enjoyed as
the state’s longest-serving governor from 1989 to 1999. Laxalt is the
grandson of former U.S. Sen. and Gov. Paul Laxalt, who dominated Nevada
politics in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s.

*Washington Post column: Ruth Marcus: “Why Jeb Bush should run for
president”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ruth-marcus-why-jeb-bush-should-run-for-president/2014/10/28/e344bbb4-5ec3-11e4-91f7-5d89b5e8c251_story.html>*

By Ruth Marcus

October 28, 2014, 7:52 p.m. EDT

Run, Jeb, run.

I mean it, despite two powerful arguments against a presidential run by Jeb
Bush — one specific to the former Florida governor, one more generic.

Generic first, because it is the more compelling: The thought of a
Republican president makes me shudder, largely because of the irreparable
harm to the Supreme Court. Legislative and regulatory mistakes can be
fixed, albeit at enormous cost and difficulty. (Think George W. Bush’s tax
cuts.) Foreign policy blunders are harder to repair. (Think George W.
Bush’s war in Iraq.)

But the real risk is the judicial legacy a Republican president would leave
behind. By the time the next president takes office, three of the justices
(Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy) will be in their
80s.

With the exception of Scalia, a Republican replacement of any of them would
likely tip the balance of the court firmly into the hands of its
conservative justices, to the peril of the court and the country. The
impact would be felt when George P. Bush — or Charlotte Clinton Mezvinsky —
is running for president.

The Bush-specific objection is obvious from the previous sentence, and
stated best by the prospective candidate’s own mother: America is not, or
should not be, a dynastic nation.

“If we can’t find more than two or three families to run for high office,
that’s silly,” Barbara Bush told C-SPAN this year. “I refuse to accept that
this great country isn’t raising other wonderful people.”

The weakness of this argument is that it ignores the fact that Jeb Bush
happens to be well-qualified to run for president. And it arises in the
looming shadow of a presidential run by Hillary Clinton, another candidate
whose qualifications extend far beyond her surname.

As a general matter — sure, Barbara Bush is right. The more expansive our
political roster, the better. But in the context of 2016 — well, this gets
to my “run, Jeb, run” argument. He and Clinton are two of the
best-qualified candidates.

My argument for a Jeb Bush candidacy is also twofold: It would be good for
Bush’s party and good for the country.

Good for Republicans not just because it would give them a better shot at
the White House but because the GOP has veered off the ideological rails.

Even the notion that Bush is seriously considering running — his son told
ABC’s Jonathan Karl that it is “more than likely” — is a comforting sign.
Jeb Bush is not naive about the GOP’s loony tendencies and the distorted
ideological landscape of its nominating process. For him to be weighing the
race indicates that he believes those extremist instincts can be tamed.

A Bush candidacy would deviate from party orthodoxy on numerous issues,
most notably immigration and education reform; a Bush nomination would
usefully yank the party toward the center.

On immigration, Bush favors granting undocumented immigrants the
opportunity for legalized status, although not necessarily a path to full
citizenship. “Yes, they broke the law, but it’s not a felony,” he said in
April. “It’s an act of love, it’s an act of commitment to your family.”

He has also been a champion of education reform efforts, including the new
GOP heresy of backing national education standards known as Common Core.

And speaking of heresy: In 2012, when none of the party’s presidential
contenders would back a hypothetical budget deal of $1 in tax increases for
$10 in spending cuts, Bush told the House Budget Committee he’d snap it up.
“Put me in, coach,” he said, adding, “This will prove I’m not running for
anything.”

Make no mistake: Bush is a conservative. But he is a conservative who
believes in the role and capacity of government and in the imperative of
bipartisan cooperation.

“Back to my dad’s time and Ronald Reagan’s time — they got a lot of stuff
done with a lot of bipartisan support,” Bush told Bloomberg View in 2012.
Contrast that with Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz: “I don’t think what
Washington needs is more compromise.”

And this is why a Bush candidacy would be good for the country as well. A
saner Republican Party would produce saner, more productive politics.

A more extreme nominee might be easier for Democrats to beat. But what if
they don’t? I’d rather see the more reasonable Republican candidate,
because I’d rather see the more reasonable Republican president.

Run, Jeb, run.

*Reuters: “Kerry wants Keystone pipeline decision 'sooner rather than
later'”
<http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/28/us-canada-keystone-kerry-idUSKBN0IH1YP20141028>*

[No Writer Mentioned]

October 28, 2014, 3:43 p.m. EDT

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Tuesday during a visit to Canada
that he would like to make a decision soon on TransCanada Corp's Keystone
XL crude oil pipeline.

TransCanada has waited more than six years for the Obama administration to
make a decision on the line, which would take as much as 830,000 barrels
per day of Alberta tar sands crude to refineries on Texas' Gulf Coast.

The State Department is now awaiting the results of a court challenge on
the line's routing through Nebraska and completing its own study on the
need for the line before it makes a final recommendation to President
Barack Obama on whether to grant the project a presidential permit. The
permit would allow the line, which faces criticism from environmentalists,
to cross from Canada into the United States.

While Kerry said he would like a quick decision on the project, he gave no
hint as to when that would come.

"I certainly want to do it sooner rather than later but I can't tell you
the precise date," Kerry told a joint news conference with Canadian Foreign
Minister John Baird.

The delay has pushed up the cost of the line, which would run from
Hardisty, Alberta, to near Houston. The company said last month that
Keystone XL's original $5.4 billion estimate is likely half of what it will
now cost to build the pipeline.

*The Hill opinion: Lanny Davis: “To Republicans: Watch out for traps after
midterms”
<http://thehill.com/opinion/lanny-davis/222140-lanny-davis-to-gop-watch-out-for-traps-after-midterms>*

By Lanny Davis

October 28, 2014, 6:53 p.m. EDT

Most pundits are predicting a Republican takeover of the U.S. Senate next
Tuesday. I am ready to go on record against the conventional wisdom: I
predict Democrats will surprise the pundits on election night and hold the
Senate, if only by a 50-50 margin, with Vice President Biden breaking the
tie.

My slight-underdog picks of the night: Mark Pryor and Michelle Nunn,
because their message of decency and bipartisanship are perfectly aligned
with what voters want not only in their states of Arkansas and Georgia,
respectively, but across the nation.

However, if Republicans win the Senate, I respectfully suggest they avoid
premature celebration, for there are three traps looming for them if they
misread the election results.

First, they could misinterpret their victory as a mandate to implement a
hard-right agenda. Remember the aftermath of Newt Gingrich’s House takeover
in the 1994 midterms. The conservative revolutionaries attempted to pass
draconian budget cuts, including in Medicare and Medicaid, caused two
government shutdowns and attempted to impeach then-President Clinton on an
entirely partisan basis — all contrary to public opinion. As a result, just
four years later in the 1998 midterms, Democrats picked up five seats. This
was the first time in 176 years (since 1822, under President James Monroe)
that the non-presidential party had failed to gain seats in the midterm
elections with a president in his second term.

The second mistake could be that the Republicans who now control both
houses of Congress will be unable to resist the Tea Party base to roll back
Democratic programs on an entirely partisan basis. If they do so, they will
be ignoring all the current polling data showing voters opposing such
partisan power plays. And they will own the results. For example, if
Republicans repeal ObamaCare on party-line votes, they will have to explain
why people with pre-existing conditions will no longer have health
insurance if they attempt to find new insurance after losing their jobs.

Third, once the GOP is the majority party in both houses of Congress,
Republicans will find it more difficult to suppress three powerful
ideological groups within the party whose positions on key issues are way
out of touch with most voters’, according to national polls. These are 1)
Tea Party extremists, who favor dismantling much of the federal government,
including Social Security and Medicare as we know it; 2) Christian right
true-believers, who believe in criminalizing all abortions, including
involving rape and incest; and 3) the New Isolationists, whose positions at
times seem reminiscent of the America First movement of the late 1930s. As
the majority party in both houses, the GOP will have lost its excuses not
to enact legislation consistent with these extreme views, even though doing
so will likely alienate many thoughtful Republican conservatives.

Which leads me to my warning for my fellow Democrats: If we lose the Senate
next Tuesday night, we have to resist the advice of those pundits and
strategists who will misinterpret the results as proof the party needs to
be more strident in demonizing those who disagree with us.

Here it is important to remember the lessons of Bill Clinton’s two
presidential campaigns and two terms as president.

Clinton’s economic and social policies were progressive by any definition:
increasing taxes on the wealthy, pro-choice, pro-environment regulation,
pro-minimum wages, etc. But he also focused during his two presidential
campaigns on unifying themes addressed to the middle class and individual
responsibility. In doing so, he won states now deemed irretrievably “red”
by many, such as West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Arizona,
Arkansas and Montana. Barack Obama’s historic campaigns and brilliant
grassroots organization carried on this broad electoral college base to the
advantage of future Democratic presidential candidates.

It appears that most Democrats are happy with watching the Republicans head
over the cliff trying to prove who has the purest ideology of all and don’t
wish to join them in such an exercise. Of course they want vigorous
competition for the nomination. But unlike Republicans, they prefer
candidates who can civilly debate fact-based solutions and can effectuate
bipartisan compromises to break the gridlock in Washington.

Such Democrats (this writer included) believe, as President Obama has said
frequently, that elections matter.

*Bloomberg: “Why is Hillary Clinton Not Cutting Television Ads?”
<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2014-10-29/why-is-hillary-clinton-not-cutting-television-ads>*

By Lisa Lerer

October 28, 2014, 11:20 p.m. EDT

[Subtitle:] The prospective 2016 presidential candidate is the Democrats
star attraction. So why don't they want her in their television ads?

Hundreds of thousands of ads have run millions of times during the 2014
campaign. Amid that flood of endorsements and attacks, slogans and
statistics, it was easy to overlook the web ad put out on Tuesday by
Kentucky Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes. The web-only spot
features former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at a rally in
Louisville, delivering a impassioned argument for the Democratic challenger.

It's a very standard spot that stands out for one very significant reason:
It's the only ad that Clinton has cut for a candidate this election cycle.

Though she's traveled the country for Democrats, headlining rallies from
Colorado to North Carolina, Clinton has not lent any of her star power to
any televised campaign ads. It's a strange discrepancy: While Clinton is
one of—if not the most—requested surrogates for Democratic congressional
campaigns, many seem far less seem eager to put her in their television ads.

Even the spot for Grimes, a long-time family friend of the Clintons, was
online-only—a far less expensive proposition for a campaign than actually
buying time to place an ad on television. And it used footage captured two
weeks ago at a rally Clinton held for Grimes in Louisville, rather than any
new video.

Old footage of Clinton was also heavily featured in a House Majority PAC
spot, where the Democratic Super PAC slammed Virginia Republican Barbara
Comstock for her work as a congressional staffer in the 1990s focused on
investigating the Clinton administration.

But mostly, Clinton has kept to fundraising appeals and energizing voters.
She's hosted a series of high-dollar fundraisers, including one for female
senate candidates at her home in Washington. Democrats need "all hands on
deck," she wrote in an e-mail sent last month by the Democratic
Congressional Campaign Committee.

While Hillary stays off TV, her husband has been burning up the airways.
He's appeared in at least five ads for candidates.

"Sean Maloney’s got a better jobs plan. He’s got a better budget plan. He’s
got a better education plan.  He’s got a better plan for the future," says
the former president in a spot for the New York congressional candidate, a
former Clinton administration staffer.

In Maryland, he urges voters to back gubernatorial candidate Anthony Brown
in a spot featuring a shot of Clinton walking besides the Democrat.

And he also lent his support for Grimes, who's father was a former state
Democratic party chairman. (As a teenager, Grimes famously handed Clinton a
bouquet of flowers during his inauguration celebration.)

"I chose Alison," Clinton says in a spot for, the Kentucky Democrat running
for Senate.

"I'm honored to approve this message," says Grimes.

Hillary Clinton's spokespeople refused to comment on her ad appearances, or
lack of them. But the answer may be found in her approval rating, which
trails her husband's and has fallen since she left the State Department
early last year.

In the recent Bloomberg News/Des Moines Register poll almost half—49
percent—of likely Iowa voters in the upcoming midterm elections say they
have an unfavorable view of Clinton, while 47 percent rate her favorably.
Fifty-seven percent of likely voters have a positive opinion of her
husband, former president Bill Clinton, and 39 percent view him negatively.

So, while Democrats at campaign rallies may love Clinton, she remains a
nationally divisive figure, one that's perhaps too divisive for state-wide
television. She's in high-demand as a base motivator but faces a steeper
climb with the general public—an issue that will certainly come back up in
any Democratic presidential bid. Especially her own.

*New York Times: “How Women Use Fashion to Assert Their Power”
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/30/fashion/the-women-fashion-power-exhibition-at-the-design-museum-in-london.html>*

By Vanessa Friedman

October 28, 2014

Of all the candidates running in next Tuesday’s American midterm elections,
only one, it seems to me, really has Halloween potential — which is to say,
only one has succeeded in identifying herself closely enough with a
specific sartorial semiology that a Pavlovian association is created in a
viewer’s mind. See the garment, think the person.

I am speaking, of course, of Wendy Davis, the Texas state senator and
beleaguered gubernatorial candidate, as well as famed Mizuno sneaker
wearer. A blond wig, a bright suit and those sneakers doth a costume
create. Who needs masks when you have fashion?

Clothes have the power to define a person and a position, and though they
are often seen as handicapping women in positions of authority, acting as a
distraction from their achievements and substance, they can also be a
strategic communication tool. One that is, ironically, more accessible to
women than to men, who are stuck in a never-ending generic suit loop,
forced to rely on the distinguishing characteristics of hair and tie color.

If in doubt, simply consider an exhibition that opened Wednesday in London
at the Design Museum, entitled “Women Fashion Power.” It has little to do
with fashion as trend-driven designer vision, makes no aesthetic judgments
and shies away from “power dressing” in the 1980s-Joan Collins-"Working
Girl"-big-shouldered sense of the word. Rather, it focuses on image and
authority in the public eye.

“It felt like it was the right time to look at the rise of women in
contemporary power roles, and how they view and use fashion to facilitate
their place in the world,” said the co-curator, Donna Loveday, describing
the show as one of the most ambitious the museum has done.

She and her fellow curator, the fashion historian and journalist Colin
McDowell, began work on the exhibition 10 months ago. Designed by Zaha
Hadid, the first woman to win the Pritzker Prize, it is laid out over
almost 6,500 square feet in three parts: There is an analytic “corridor of
power” that identifies 16 of the most influential dressers in history,
starting with Hatshepsut, the Egyptian queen who used elements of male
dress to establish authority after her husband’s death; culminating with
Hillary Clinton; a 150-year timeline highlighting moments of public
sartorial change (the “freedom from constraints” of the turn of the 20th
century, the suffragist movement of the 1920s); and, most significant, a
gallery of current power players who contributed a Q. and A. and favorite
garments that reflect their words.

And since, as Ms. Loveday pointed out, “I don’t think there has really been
an exhibit in a museum on the subject before,” it makes me wonder if this
marks a turning point in our own relationship with fashion.

Just consider the fact that the show includes 25 high-profile women happy
to go public with their thoughts on clothing. This includes the usual
suspects: fashion professionals like Natalie Massenet, executive chairwoman
of Net-a-Porter; the designer Vivienne Westwood; and the model Naomi
Campbell. But it also includes Wei Sun Christianson, co-chief executive of
Morgan Stanley Asia Pacific; Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris (who also
opened the exhibition); Alfiya Kuanysheva, chief executive of the
Kazakhstan finance group BATT; and Kirsty Wark, the British broadcaster.

That, it seems to me, is an enormous and meaningful change in the
conversation about achievement and gender. The idea that women whose power
is undeniable and exists in traditionally male sectors like banking and
politics might stand up and say, for the record and posterity, that clothes
matter and require (and deserve) thought is, in my experience,
unprecedented.

Even just three years ago, Michelle Obama, featured in the corridor of
power, was denying giving any real consideration to clothing, announcing on
“Good Morning America”: “Look, women, wear what you love. That’s all I can
say. That’s my motto.”

(It just so happened that she loved wearing dresses from small American
brands made by designers with notably diverse backgrounds, hence raising
their profile on the international stage — but, hey, guess that was a
coincidence.)

Fashion, like money — if not more than money — has been the off-limits
topic, the subject whispered about and obsessed over, but rarely
acknowledged in any nonpejorative way. It’s the invisible elephant in the
room; like disinformation, it’s the tool everyone uses — and has used, as
the exhibition makes clear, since Joan of Arc threw on some male armor —
but refuses to admit they use.

“For a very long period, as women began entering the workplace and taking
up roles traditionally occupied by men, the subject of dress was really put
to one side, and treated as a frivolous distraction,” Ms. Loveday said.

Indeed, in a Daily Beast article last year about Ms. Davis and her
sneakers, the liberal pundit Sally Kohn wrote that noting what women wear
“undercuts the leadership of women and quashes their voice.” It seems to
me, however, and this exhibition shows, that the situation is the opposite:
What women wear is an embodiment of their voice, and identifying it helps
identify their agenda (as it does with men, for that matter).

Granted, there were still women, and some very big names, that chose not to
take part in the Q. and A. section of the Design Museum show. Ms. Loveday
had Angela Merkel, Hillary Clinton and Queen Elizabeth II on her wish list,
and all begged off from participating in the interactive, though they are
referenced in the show. But, Ms. Loveday said, the reason she was given for
their demurrals was not “I don’t want to be seen talking about that
subject,” but rather “time.”

Before you say “Well, isn’t that the same thing and weren’t they just being
polite,” consider the fact that a few years ago when I was trying to
convene a panel of power women to do some image analysis for a different
newspaper, the answer I heard over and over again from chief executives I
approached was a straightforward: “Thanks for thinking of me, but I can’t
be involved in any overt discussion of fashion. It would undermine my
hard-won seriousness.” (I’m paraphrasing, but not that much.)

I’m not saying the time excuse should be taken at face value or is anything
but an excuse (though it could be true), but the sheer fact that the women
involved bothered to make it, as opposed to taking umbrage at the very idea
they might think about clothing is, in my book, a step forward.

Besides, even without the active participation of such pivotal figures, it
is meaningful to think that for six months visitors to the Design Museum
will be able to read the property developer Morwenna Wilson’s words —
“Jackets are very important to me because I am petite and a woman, yet one
with responsibility and authority working in a male dominated industry,
often with a team of people older than me” — and Ms. Christianson of Morgan
Stanley attesting that “I decided that while I was working in a man’s
world, I was not going to suppress my femininity in an attempt to blend in.”

“It’s an incredibly positive message,” said Ms. Loveday, referring not just
to Ms. Christianson’s words, but her willingness to contribute. I would
have to agree.

Even more pointedly, the fact that this is now a public subject of
conversation, blessed by a major institution, suggests that perhaps during
the coming British elections, which will take place in May but with
campaigning beginning in January, image analysis may be discussed in
formerly unheard-of ways — and vis-à-vis candidates of any gender. And
given that after “Women Fashion Power” closes in London, it may travel to
the United States, Asia and Europe, it could potentially play a part in the
presidential election here,if Hillary Clinton is a candidate.

And that in turn means that it is possible that this political cycle,
instead of the usual disingenuous disavowals and fights about whether or
not clothes are a legitimate part of spin and manipulation and the fight
for higher office, we might actually be able to have a meaningful
conversation about how exactly our candidates are attempting to communicate
through cloth, and what exactly the subtext is.

Trick or treat?

*Calendar:*

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

·  October 29 – IA: Sec. Clinton campaigns for Iowa Senate candidate Bruce
Braley (Quad-City Times
<http://qctimes.com/news/state-and-regional/iowa/hilary-clinton-to-visit-davenport-on-wednesday/article_2b22a4a8-419e-5804-a2b8-08525879199d.html>
)

·  October 30 – Washington, DC: Sec. Clinton honored by The Executive
Leadership Foundation (CNN
<https://twitter.com/danmericaCNN/status/526777216907354112>)

·  October 30 – Washington, DC: Sec. Clinton will speak on ‘The Power of
Women’s Economic Participation’ at Georgetown (Georgetown
<http://www.georgetown.edu/news/hillary-clinton-international-council-relaunch.html>
)

·  October 30 – College Park, MD: Sec. Clinton appears at a rally for
Maryland gubernatorial candidate Anthony Brown (WaPo
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/hillary-clinton-to-rally-support-for-anthony-brown-at-the-university-of-maryland/2014/10/26/e853aa2e-5c94-11e4-bd61-346aee66ba29_story.html>
)

·  November 1  – New Orleans, LA: Sec. Clinton campaigns for Sen. Mary
Landrieu (AP
<http://www.dailyjournal.net/view/story/ebd94b58eb1a4424bf7e89c467533964/LA--Senate-Louisiana-Hillary-Clinton/>
)

·  November 1  – KY: Sec. Clinton campaigns in Northern Kentucky and
Lexington with Alison Lundergan Grimes (BuzzFeed
<https://twitter.com/rubycramer/status/526828273956032512>)

·  November 2  – NH: Sec. Clinton appears at a GOTV rally for Gov. Hassan
and Sen. Shaheen (AP
<http://bigstory.ap.org/article/03fe478acd0344bab983323d3fb353e2/clinton-planning-lengthy-campaign-push-month>
)

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

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