Subject: Correct The Record Tuesday November 4, 2014 Afternoon Roundup
From: Burns Strider <[email-masked]>
To: CTRFriendsFamily <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2014 14:30:09 -0500
List-Id: <CTRFriendsFamily.americanbridge.org>

*​**Correct The Record Tuesday November 4, 2014 Afternoon Roundup:*

*Tweets:*

*Pres. Bill Clinton* @billclinton: The best way to grow together as a
country is if everyone participates. Don't forget to vote today. #ivoted
[11/4/14, 12:31 p.m. EDT
<https://twitter.com/billclinton/status/529687515935297537>]

*Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: .@HillaryClinton
<https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton> has made 45 midterm-related
​campaign​ stops
since September.#GoVote <https://twitter.com/hashtag/GoVote?src=hash>
http://correctrecord.org/the-clintons-on-the-campaign-trail/ …
<http://t.co/cGcJANa3SL> pic.twitter.com/QEWtvpTeKb <http://t.co/QEWtvpTeKb>
 [11/4/14, 12:37 p.m. EDT
<https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/529689003260645377>]

*Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: #GoVote
<https://twitter.com/hashtag/GoVote?src=hash> pic.twitter.com/rxEO6Sznbr
<http://t.co/rxEO6Sznbr> [11/4/14, 7:31 a.m. EDT
<https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/529611821754220544>]

*Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: .@HillaryClinton
<https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton> campaigned for Democrats 45 times in
54 days #HRC365 <https://twitter.com/hashtag/HRC365?src=hash>
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/11/03/hillary-clintons-45-events-in-54-days-for-dems-this-midterm-year/
…
<http://t.co/KE1Pei1CQW> [11/3/14, 3:17 p.m. EDT
<https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/529366660340146176>]

*Headlines:*

*Wall Street Journal: “Clinton Supporters Plan to Ask for Financial
Commitments Shortly After Midterms”
<http://online.wsj.com/articles/clinton-supporters-plan-to-ask-for-financial-commitments-shortly-after-midterms-1415109009>*

“And on Nov. 20, a group called Correct the Record will meet with
contributors and prospective donors in New York to raise money it will use
to defend Mrs. Clinton against expected Republican attacks. James Carville,
who helped Bill Clinton win the 1992 presidential race, is due to speak at
the meeting.”

*New York Times: First Draft: “A 2016 Preamble: Opposition Research for
Hillary Clinton”
<http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2014/11/04/?entry=4478&_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0>*

“Even before the midterm election results are tallied, American Bridge, the
Democratic super PAC, is tracking and researching 20 Republicans who could
be potential presidential or vice presidential nominees in 2016.”

*Associated Press, via Middlesboro Daily News: “Kentuckians vote in pivotal
US Senate race”
<http://hosted2.ap.org/KYMID/e16a2269d8da4ca99577110f14be0d6f/Article_2014-11-04-KY--Senate-Kentucky/id-779aa6a2389c4f4891b308c0e7295dc5>*

“The Clintons, Bill and Hillary, made a combined six visits to Kentucky for
Grimes, attracting thousands of supporters at events from Paducah to
Ashland.”

*Newsweek: “Georgia Democrats Are Seeing the Glimmer of a Blue Future”
<http://www.newsweek.com/georgia-democrats-are-seeing-glimmer-blue-future-281998>*

“Even a near miss gives Georgia Democrats hard numbers to take to the
national party, to the next Democratic presidential campaign (likely
Hillary Clinton’s), as well as to super PACs to urge investment from
outside the state to hasten Democrats’ gains in Georgia.”

*MarketWatch: “The election is nearly over. Get ready for 2016”
<http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-election-is-nearly-over-get-ready-for-2016-2014-11-04?link=MW_latest_news>*

“Forget the midterm elections. Let’s talk about 2016.”

*Financial Times: “The permanent campaign rolls on to 2016”
<http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/a030efe2-643f-11e4-b219-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3I7hFPxVE>*

“As if she were the candidate herself, Hillary Clinton swept on to the
stage last of all at Transylvania University in Kentucky, just late enough
to keep the anxious 1,200-strong crowd on their toes. Although not on the
ballot, Mrs Clinton has had a schedule as busy as any candidate in the
congressional elections, as have a brace of Republicans, all laying down
markers for potential runs at the presidency in 2016.”

*Articles:*

*Wall Street Journal: “Clinton Supporters Plan to Ask for Financial
Commitments Shortly After Midterms”
<http://online.wsj.com/articles/clinton-supporters-plan-to-ask-for-financial-commitments-shortly-after-midterms-1415109009>*

By Peter Nicholas

November 4, 2014, 8:50 a.m. EST

[Subtitle:] A Super PAC that Made Discreet Overtures to Democratic Donors
During Midterms Will Step Up Outreach

Donor networks eager to support Hillary Clinton for president are planning
to start asking for financial commitments soon after Tuesday’s midterm
elections, at a moment when the spotlight will turn quickly to the 2016
presidential race.

People close to Mrs. Clinton say they believe she has all but made up her
mind to run for the White House, and some loyalists aren’t waiting for her
to announce whether she’s jumping in. A super PAC that made discreet
overtures to Democratic donors while the midterms were under way will step
up its outreach to Mrs. Clinton’s supporters now that fundraising for
midterm congressional races has subsided, said officials with the group,
Priorities USA Action.

“We’re going into intensive meeting mode,” said Jennifer Granholm,
co-chairwoman of Priorities and former Michigan governor.

A New Jersey-based assortment of business people and political operatives
wants to announce a commitment of $5 million to $10 million on the day Mrs.
Clinton declares she is running. One of the co-chairmen of the effort is
Josh Gottheimer, a former speechwriter in Bill Clinton ’s White House.

Clinton fundraisers in Silicon Valley and Hollywood say they are trading
phone calls and organizing for what they describe as a push to raise the $1
billion-plus Mrs. Clinton is expected to need for a presidential bid.

And on Nov. 20, a group called Correct the Record will meet with
contributors and prospective donors in New York to raise money it will use
to defend Mrs. Clinton against expected Republican attacks. James Carville,
who helped Bill Clinton win the 1992 presidential race, is due to speak at
the meeting.

The goal is to propel Mrs. Clinton quickly into the dominant position in
the race, not just for the Democratic primary but for the general election.
Those who are approaching would-be donors say they aren’t asking for checks
at this point, given that Mrs. Clinton isn’t yet a candidate and has no
campaign. Instead, they are asking for commitments down the road and
explaining how the money would be used.

“You can understand donors wanting to make sure they’re supporting
something very specific,” which is difficult before Mrs. Clinton is a
formal candidate, Ms. Granholm said.

Eric Bauman, chairman of the Los Angeles County Democratic Party, said, “I
don’t know if we’ve ever seen a situation where, before the candidate has
decided to run, there’s a shadow campaign that could literally be turned
into a campaign overnight.”

Mrs. Clinton isn’t in a hurry to reveal her intentions. She has said she is
undecided about running and won’t disclose her plans until the new year.
Entering a quiet part of the political calendar, she’ll use the next few
months to think through her options, people close to her said.

The midterms amounted to a kind of trial run for the former secretary of
state. She took part in nearly four dozen campaign appearances, fundraisers
and get-out-the-vote events between early September and Election Day, her
staff says. Venturing into Senate races that President Barack Obama avoided
because of his low approval ratings, Mrs. Clinton undertook her most
sustained bout of partisan activity since she dropped out of the
presidential race in 2008.

There were some stumbles. Republicans leapt on a statement in October in
which Mrs. Clinton said that corporations and businesses don’t create jobs.
Jeb Bush, who might run for the Republican presidential nomination,
countered that businesses indeed create jobs and called her remarks
“breathtaking,” previewing a potential line of attack in a general election
campaign.

Mrs. Clinton later clarified her comment, saying she had meant to say that
conservative tax policies aren’t a recipe for creating jobs.

Wall Street Journal/NBC News polling shows that people have taken a less
favorable view of Mrs. Clinton since she left the State Department early
last year and speculation grew that she would run for president again.

A recent Journal poll showed that only 43% had a positive image of her,
compared with 41% who viewed her negatively.

Advisers to Mrs. Clinton are beginning to consider how she should present
herself in a campaign. One concern among her friends is that, if she does
run, her campaign staff permits her to show more of her personality than
was the case in 2008.

It isn’t easy for her to pull off. Traveling in motorcades, surrounded by
staff and under Secret Service protection, Mrs. Clinton has at times seemed
unapproachable to everyday voters, some Democratic voters and local
Democratic officials have said.

*New York Times: First Draft: “A 2016 Preamble: Opposition Research for
Hillary Clinton”
<http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2014/11/04/?entry=4478&_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0>*

By Amy Chozick

November 4, 2014, 9:18 a.m. EST

Hillary Rodham Clinton hasn’t said whether she will run for president in
2016, but it’s never too early to dig up some dirt on her potential
competitors.

Even before the midterm election results are tallied, American Bridge, the
Democratic super PAC, is tracking and researching 20 Republicans who could
be potential presidential or vice presidential nominees in 2016.

David Brock, a onetime adversary of Bill Clinton who is now among Mrs.
Clinton’s staunchest supporters, founded American Bridge ahead of the 2012
presidential election. The group has been mostly focused on the midterms,
but afterTuesday Mr. Brock says it will double down on collecting video
footage of Republican presidential and vice presidential hopefuls.

The group is building a searchable video archive for any of Mrs. Clinton’s
potential Republican rivals and intends to counter attacks from
well-financed conservative super PACs that have for months taken aim at
Mrs. Clinton.

Bridge has already scored a couple of points. The group’s young
videographers captured Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey telling a
protester who criticized his response to the damage caused by Hurricane
Sandy to “sit down and shut up.”

And it was a Bridge employee who asked former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida
about the Paycheck Fairness Act during an event for Michigan Republican
Senate candidate Terri Lynn Land. “What’s the paycheck fairness act?” Mr.
Bush responded, in a video that went viral on progressive web sites. (The
bill  is meant to give women workers greater leverage in salary
negotiations by making more wage information public.)

“We learned in the first cycle that the earlier we are able to be out there
and involved and put out information whether it’s research or tracking, the
better,” Mr. Brock said. “You can help form public impressions even before
they get their own act together.”

*Associated Press, via Middlesboro Daily News: “Kentuckians vote in pivotal
US Senate race”
<http://hosted2.ap.org/KYMID/e16a2269d8da4ca99577110f14be0d6f/Article_2014-11-04-KY--Senate-Kentucky/id-779aa6a2389c4f4891b308c0e7295dc5>*

By Adam Beam

November 4, 2014, 3:46 a.m. EDT

Fifteen months and $78 million later, it's time for Kentuckians to have
their say Tuesday in one of the country's most closely watched U.S. Senate
races that was fueled by thousands of negative TV ads bought by
out-of-state donors focused on helping and hurting Senate Republican leader
Mitch McConnell.

McConnell is facing perhaps the toughest challenge of his career in
35-year-old Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, daughter of one of
the state's Democratic Party bosses who has broken state fundraising
records in her bid to unseat one of the country's most powerful politicians.

The campaign quickly turned personal, with Grimes attacking McConnell's
wife for sitting on the board of a group that has funded anti-coal efforts
and McConnell criticizing Grimes' father for renting his daughter a bus at
rates McConnell says were below the fair market value, a potential illegal
campaign donation.

After a summer of fierce campaigning resulted in a pair of dueling Federal
Election Commission complaints, one lawsuit and one threatened lawsuit - a
recent NBC/Marist poll showed approval ratings for both candidates were
underwater. More Kentuckians disapprove of each candidate than approve.

Despite that, interest in the election appears to be high. Grimes, who
doubles as the state's chief election officer, predicted slightly less than
half of the state's 3.1 million registered voters would cast ballots on
Tuesday. And as ofMonday morning, 44,198 people had cast absentee ballots
at their county clerk's office. That's nearly 10,000 more than at this time
in 2010, when voters elected Rand Paul as U.S. Senator over Democratic
Attorney General Jack Conway.

The attention has attracted national political stars who have made the trip
to Kentucky to campaign with the candidates while boosting their own
profiles. The Clintons, Bill and Hillary, made a combined six visits to
Kentucky for Grimes, attracting thousands of supporters at events from
Paducah to Ashland. Republican Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal stumped for
McConnell in Louisville last week, and 2012 Republican presidential nominee
Mitt Romney raised money for McConnell at a horse farm in Lexington last
month.

Romney's visit fit neatly into McConnell's narrative for the race, which he
has turned into referendum on Barack Obama. The Democratic president is so
unpopular in Kentucky that Grimes, who was a delegate for Obama at the 2012
Democratic National Convention, refused to say whether she voted for him in
2012. On the final day of campaigning, McConnell did not even mention
Grimes at a speech in Louisville, reserving all of his time for Obama.

"It's in your hands as to whether or not we can begin to turn this country
around. They've done a lot of damage," McConnell said.

Grimes has attempted to make the race a referendum on McConnell's 30-year
tenure in Washington, blaming him for the congressional gridlock that has
stymied proposals including a raise in the federal minimum wage and helping
college students refinance their loans.

"I'm tired of seeing somebody who is just elevating himself while pushing
the rest of us down," Grimes told supporters in Somerset on Monday. "He
wants a bigger office. I want you to get a bigger paycheck."

The polls are open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Tuesday.

*Newsweek: “Georgia Democrats Are Seeing the Glimmer of a Blue Future”
<http://www.newsweek.com/georgia-democrats-are-seeing-glimmer-blue-future-281998>*

By Pema Levy

November 4, 2014, 11:58 a.m. EDT

Stacey Abrams walked up to the microphone and looked out at the crowd below
her.

“I’m not sure why we’re here. Can anybody tell me why we’re here today?”
she asked. “Are we here to vote?”

“Yes,” the crowd replied back enthusiastically.

“Are we here to vote?” she asked again.

“Yes” came the response, a little louder this time.

“Are we here to vote?” she asked a third time.

“Yes” the crowd roared back.

It was eight days before the midterm elections, and Democrats held a
get-out-the-vote concert at the South DeKalb mall just outside Atlanta,
where an early-voting site was set up across the parking lot. On stage,
Representative Abrams, the Democratic minority leader in the state House,
stood several feet above the hundreds of mostly African-American men, women
and children looking back at her.

The rally and concert, on behalf of Democratic Senate candidate Michelle
Nunn, showed the Democrats’ strategy in what has become a surprisingly
close contest this year: registering and turning out minority voters.

Abrams, 40, is known as rising star in Georgia politics. She was elected to
the state House in 2006, and four years later her caucus elected her
minority leader. But her precipitous rise coincided with the equally fast
decline of Democrats in Georgia.

Once the party of conservative Southern whites, Democrats hung on to power
longer in Georgia than in many other former Confederate states. But in
2002, a Republican won the governor’s office for the first time in more
than a century, and in 2004 Republicans took full control of the state
legislature for the first time since Reconstruction.

In 2011, when Abrams became minority leader, eight of her colleagues left
the Democratic Party for the Republicans—older, white, conservative
Democrats switching parties just as their constituents had over the past
several decades. They left Abrams in a tough spot but with a clear agenda:
keep the small Democratic caucus relevant while rebuilding the party so it
can take back control of the state legislature by 2020.

In the legislature, Abrams felt that the Democratic leadership, which used
to be in the majority, could do more to maximize its influence while out of
power, while also laying the groundwork to regain the majority. So Abrams
decided to seek the minority leader position.

“My basic pitch was, I’ve been a minority for a very long time, and I’m
very good at it,” she told Newsweek last week over a breakfast of eggs and
grits at the Thumbs Up Diner in Atlanta. “I understand how a minority has
to navigate because you’re not going to win every battle. In fact, your job
is to lose well.”

Her favorite compliment, she says, was an Atlanta Journal-Constitution
article that credited her with keeping her down-on-their-luck minority
caucus “strangely relevant.”

Abrams is optimistic about her party’s chances over the next several years
because, she says, Republicans in 2011 drew the boundaries of state House
districts to give themselves a supermajority of 124 seats. But in order to
get that many seats, the GOP was left with many of the districts not safely
Republican, leaving open the door to Democratic gains as the number of
Democratic minority voters increases.

“I think we’ll actually be able to take the majority back by 2020, because
in order to draw so many seats in such a diverse state you had to draw
thinner margins, which meant that instead of giving yourself a seat that
was 60 percent Republican, you gave yourself a seat that was only 55
percent Republican or 58 percent Republican,” Abrams explained. It’s an
ambitious agenda, given that her caucus is currently outnumbered 119 to 60.
Whether it comes about or not, it’s clear that George is becoming bluer
year by year.

But the main work of rebuilding the Democratic Party in Georgia comes in
registering what Democrats believe are the 800,000 Democratic-leaning but
unregistered potential voters in the state—largely the result of swelling
minority communities. Between 2000 and 2010, 80 percent of those who moved
to Georgia were nonwhite, a trend Abrams and her fellow Democrats believe
will continue. Abrams is one of the Democrats pushing to capitalize on the
state’s shifting demographics.

In 2013, she started the New Georgia Project, a group that became one of
the Democrats’ main voter registration efforts in 2014. Abrams’s group
registered 86,000 new, mostly minority voters this year. Other third-party
groups, like the Atlanta Urban League and the NAACP, along with the efforts
of black clergy members, helped registered tens of thousands more.

“Voting is about saying to Georgia that this is not the old Georgia, this
is not the past Georgia, this is a new Georgia,” Abrams told the crowd at
the South DeKalb mall. “If you think back to a year ago, how many of you
thought that we’d be having a competitive race in the state of Georgia in
2014? But what we found was that people can’t anticipate the future, but we
can sure make it.”

The first test of the Democrats’ comeback plan in Georgia comes today, in
the state’s close races for the open U.S. Senate seat of retiring
Republican Saxby Chambliss, and in the race for governor, in which
incumbent Republican Nathan Deal is trying to fend off Democratic state
Senator Jason Carter, grandson of President Jimmy Carter. Republicans are
favored to win both, but only by a whisker.

The Senate race in particular is a sign of the Democrats’ growing strength
in the state, hastened this year by the work of Abrams and her fellow
Democrats. The last several polls have Republican David Perdue slightly
ahead of Democrat Michelle Nunn, daughter of former Georgia senator Sam
Nunn, but only by a few points. If neither nominee gets 50 percent of the
vote, the race will go to a January runoff.

“Nobody thought this year was going to be competitive in January. And so if
the Democrats end up losing by only three or four points, that is a victory
for them,” said Todd Rehm, a Republican strategist in Georgia and the
editor of GaPundit.com. “The success of making it competitive is going to
have many parents, many people who can take credit for parts of it, and
she’s certainly among the top five or 10 architects of that.”

Even a near miss gives Georgia Democrats hard numbers to take to the
national party, to the next Democratic presidential campaign (likely
Hillary Clinton’s), as well as to super PACs to urge investment from
outside the state to hasten Democrats’ gains in Georgia. Whether or not
Georgia trends blue—and how quickly—largely depends on whether the 2016
campaigns and outside groups decide to invest in the state as a
battleground.

“It is clear to me that Hillary Clinton and the folks who support her think
that Georgia is going to be in play in 2016 at the presidential level,”
Rehm said. Democrats agree.

“I think Georgia is a battleground state as of today,” Abrams said. “I
think the fact that the [National Republican Senatorial Committee] is
spending millions of dollars to hold a Republican Senate seat in a midterm
election in Georgia means that we’re a battleground state. The question
becomes just how hard they want to battle on the ground here.”

“Going forward, it is my hope that more organizations will contribute
resources and their time in our efforts to turn Georgia blue,” said
Atlanta-based Democratic strategist Tharon Johnson. “We must match the
efforts and participation of states like Florida, Virginia, and North
Carolina,” other Southern states transformed from red to purple thanks to
Democrats’ investment and registration efforts.

Abrams is one of a handful of Democrats who is hastening the party’s
comeback, and her work hasn’t gone unnoticed. In 2012, she won Harvard
University’s John F. Kennedy New Frontier Award for leaders under the age
of 40. In 2014, EMILY’s List, which supports pro-choice, Democratic women
candidates, recognized Abrams with its first Rising Star award.

“She is a blend of competence, intelligence and detail orientation,” said
Rehm, the Republican strategist. “She is an extraordinarily intelligent
woman.”

Abrams comes from a poor family in southern Mississippi, but her parents
instilled in their six children the importance of education to get ahead.
Abrams went to college in Atlanta, earned a master’s degree in public
affairs and then went to law school at Yale. She has worked as a tax
attorney and deputy city attorney for Atlanta and now helps run a financial
services firm. In what is left of her spare time, she is a successful
author of romance novels under the pen name Selena Montgomery.

In the short term, Abrams is locked in a battle with local and state
officials over the New Georgia Project’s voter registration effort.
Abrams’s group claims that about 40,000 registration forms it turned in
never made it onto the voter rolls. The group tried to get a judge to force
the Georgia secretary of state, Republican Brian Kemp, and a handful of
counties to process the missing applications, but the judge ruled against
them. The secretary of state’s office denies that any forms haven’t been
processed.

“The claim that there are 40,000 missing or unprocessed voter registration
applications is absolutely false,” Kemp said in a statement, according to
The Hill newspaper. “The counties have processed all of the voter
registration applications that they received for the general election.”

Georgians who try to vote but aren’t on the rolls can cast a provisional
ballot. Those voters then have three days to return to election officials
with proof of whatever information (residency or citizenship, for example)
the system was missing—a very short window to obtain something like a birth
certificate. If the races come down to a handful of ballots and a large
number of provisional ballots are cast today, lawsuits could be in the
works.

But after the elections are over—whether that’s on November 4 or after a
January runoff—Abrams’s next step is to continue the voter registration
effort and build what she called “civic capacity” among communities that
are not currently engaged in politics.

“My goal is to ensure that the House caucus is in a position to take the
majority,” Abrams said. “But I also want to do more. There are other jobs I
want. And so I just want to make sure the timing is right and I’m the right
person for it.”

*MarketWatch: “The election is nearly over. Get ready for 2016”
<http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-election-is-nearly-over-get-ready-for-2016-2014-11-04?link=MW_latest_news>*

By Robert Schroeder

November 4, 2014, 12:39 p.m. EST

[Subtitle:] An early look at who may be running for the White House two
years from now

Forget the midterm elections. Let’s talk about 2016.

Yes, 2016, when Hillary Clinton (or maybe, just maybe, Elizabeth Warren)
will be the Democrats’ standard-bearer challenging GOP nominee Jeb Bush —
or will it be Rand Paul? — for the White House.

Or say you’re a Democrat and want a Joe Biden faceoff against New Jersey’s
Republican governor Chris Christie? That could be in the cards, too. But
please, don’t leave off Jim Webb (a former Democratic senator from
Virginia) or current Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal (a Republican) from
your long list.

It’s too early for official declarations, of course. But all those names,
and more, are in the mix for the presidential election in 2016, a contest a
mere two years away. Some have made statements openly contemplating running
— like Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush. Others, like Massachusetts senator
Warren, are being pushed to run by certain flanks of their party. Ted Cruz,
on the Republican side, fits that bill (Need evidence? See runtedrun.com.)

A list of the potential Republican candidates for 2016 includes about a
dozen names, some familiar to many voters, some not. Names like Jeb Bush
are certain to ring a bell, given his famous family. Other potential GOP
contenders aren’t as well-known. Those outside the Midwest, for instance,
may have to stretch to place Mike Pence’s name. (He’s governor of Indiana.)

How well any of those contenders performs in 2016 hinges in part on how
well Republicans do in the midterms, and if they can tie it to the current
occupant of the White House, says Kyle Kondik of the University of Virginia.

Kondik says Republicans actually have an incentive for more gridlock if it
leads to President Barack Obama remaining unpopular. “If Obama’s approval
ratings remain low, that will help the GOP presidential nominee,” Kondik,
the managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, told MarketWatch in an email.

On the Democratic side, the list is smaller, with the brightest star
undoubtedly Clinton. But others are dipping their toes in the water.
Alternatives to the former secretary of state may include individuals like
Martin O’Malley (the outgoing governor of Maryland) and even ultra-liberal
Sen. Bernard Sanders of Vermont.

All the names in the 2016 stew come with their own personalities, baggage
and appeal to different voters. On the right, Cruz and ex-Arkansas governor
Mike Huckabee are attractive to social conservatives. Warren is a hit with
would-be tougher-on-Wall Street Democrats.

But who’s up there in terms of winning the nomination?

For Democrats it’s not even close. Hillary Clinton leads by more than 50
points in RealClearPolitics polling. Biden comes in second; Warren third;
New York governor Andrew Cuomo fourth; and Sanders is in fifth. O’Malley
and Webb bring up the rear.

But don’t count on the former New York senator being a shoo-in for the
nomination, says Greg Valliere, chief political strategist at Potomac
Research Group.

“Most Democrats are preparing to gear up for Hillary, but in private they
worry that she hasn’t shown much on the campaign trail,” he wrote Monday.

“She has made one gaffe after another in recent weeks and hasn’t found a
message. There’s only one Democrat capable of snapping the party out of its
funk this winter; all eyes will be on Elizabeth Warren,” he predicts.

The Republican side is vastly different. Right now, it’s Rand Paul who
occupies the top spot among possible GOP contenders, according to
RealClearPolitics. But his numbers are about the same as Jeb Bush’s and
Mike Huckabee’s. Jindal is in dead last.

*Financial Times: “The permanent campaign rolls on to 2016”
<http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/a030efe2-643f-11e4-b219-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3I7hFPxVE>*

By Richard McGregor

November 4, 2014, 5:44 p.m. EDT

As if she were the candidate herself, Hillary Clinton swept on to the stage
last of all at Transylvania University in Kentucky, just late enough to
keep the anxious 1,200-strong crowd on their toes.

Although not on the ballot, Mrs Clinton has had a schedule as busy as any
candidate in the congressional elections, as have a brace of Republicans,
all laying down markers for potential runs at the presidency in 2016.

The Saturday speech for the state’s Democratic Senate candidate, Alison
Lundergan Grimes, was followed by Sundayappearances for the party in New
Hampshire, a frenetic schedule more than matched elsewhere in the country
by her husband, Bill Clinton, the former president.

Two years before the 2016 poll, the scaffolding to support Mrs Clinton’s
presidential run is already substantially built, and in recent weeks, she
has given the organisation its first serious test.

“This has been like spring training for them, or going to New Haven before
you take a show to Broadway – you see what works and what doesn’t,” said
Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute.

More than most, the Clintons are hardened to the realities of the permanent
campaign required of anyone running for public office in the US.

But that does not mean they do not make mistakes. Mrs Clinton has already
shown signs of wobbling as she veers to the left on some issues in
readiness for a fight for the Democratic nomination.

Two challengers loom for Mrs Clinton, although neither has yet declared
their hand, both from the party’s left or progressive wing: Martin
O’Malley, the governor of Maryland, and Elizabeth Warren, the first-term
Massachusetts senator.

At a rally in Boston last week, Mrs Clinton almost seemed to be channelling
Mrs Warren’s attacks on big business when she said: “Don’t let anybody tell
you that it’s corporations and businesses that create jobs.”

Mrs Clinton later said she had been using “shorthand” and was referring to
corporate tax breaks.

Stuart Stevens, Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign manager, said any challengers
to Mrs Clinton could keep the nomination battle going well into 2016 even
without being a serious threat to her.

The deregulated campaign finance rules and the advent of super-political
action committees, or super-Pacs, helped fund Republican challengers to Mr
Romney in 2012, long after they had any hope of winning the party’s
nomination.

“I think you are going to have a highly contested Democratic primary and
all the challengers will have super-Pacs,” Mr Stevens said.

Potential Republican aspirants for the White House, including senators Rand
Paul of Kentucky and Tex Cruz of Texas, past governor of Flordia Jeb Bush
and present governor of New Jersey Chris Christie, have also used the
midterms to get on the campaign trail.

Mr Cruz’s ambition is already stirring up trouble in the likelihood that
the Republicans win the Senate majority.

Mr Cruz told the Washington Post that a Republican Senate’s first priority
should be “looking at the abuse of power, the executive abuse, the
regulatory abuse, the lawlessness that sadly has pervaded this
administration.”

Mr Cruz also reiterated his demand that Congress repeal the
administration’s health law, or Obamacare, a demand that led to a
government shutdown in late 2013.

Mitch McConnell, who would be the incoming Senate majority leader, has made
it clear that launching political investigations will not be his priority.
Nor does he expect Obamacare can be repealed.

“With the president in the position that he’s in, I can’t imagine he would
sign a full repeal, but there’s various parts of it that are very unpopular
and we will be voting on them,” Mr McConnell said on Monday in Kentucky.

Mr McConnell brushed off Mr Cruz’s refusal to support him publicly as
majority leader but party strategists expect the Republican caucus in both
the House and the Senate to be fractious.

“That is certainly going to be an issue,” said Sara Fagen, former White
House director of political affairs under George W Bush. “Senator [Ted]
Cruz certainly hasn’t been shy about disagreements with Senate leadership
in the past. I suspect that will only intensify if he runs for president.”

Republicans will also be trying to calibrate whether the Clintons’
extensive campaigning for Democratic candidates has helped at all. “They
are supposed to be building this great organisation,” said Mr Stevens, “but
to what effect?”

Among campaign professionals, the most closely watched barometer for the
midterms, and what they say about the 2016 presidential campaign, will be
voter turnout.

Democrats, who typically struggle to get their supporters to the polls in
the midterms in the same numbers that vote in presidential elections, have
invested heavily in their ground game.

“In 2010, lots of Democrats stayed home,” said Lynn Vavreck, of the
University of California, Los Angeles. “If Democrats learned from that,
they will bring out more of the Obama electorate than they did in 2010.”