Subject: Correct The Record Monday November 10, 2014 Afternoon Roundup
From: Burns Strider <[email-masked]>
To: CTRFriendsFamily <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2014 14:43:33 -0500
List-Id: <CTRFriendsFamily.americanbridge.org>

*​**Correct The Record Monday November 10, 2014 Afternoon Roundup:*

*Tweets:*

*Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: .@HillaryClinton
<https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton> worked to pass a resolution
establishing National Veterans Awareness Week #HRC365
<https://twitter.com/hashtag/HRC365?src=hash> http://1.usa.gov/1zAnC1n
<http://t.co/bjnOgP5XsY>[11/10/14, 12:31 p.m. EST
<https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/531861612039110656>]

*Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: .@HillaryClinton
<https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton>'s midterm appearances revealed theme
of advancing opportunity & prosperity
http://correctrecord.org/emerging-2016-themes/ … <http://t.co/zypocdTPu2>
 [10/10/14, 9:13 a.m. EST
<https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/531811900490006528>]

*Headlines:*

*Time: “Exclusive: Ladies Turned Out for Hillary in the Midterms”
<http://time.com/3576222/hillary-clinton-poll-women-correct-the-record/>*

“The group [Correct The Record], linked to Democratic Super PAC American
Bridge, compiled polling data that shows Clinton delivered discernible
bumps in female support to most of the candidates for whom she appeared or
stumped, according to an analysis obtained exclusively by TIME.”

*Washington Post blog: PostEverything: “The hollowing out of the GOP’s
foreign policy bench”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/11/10/the-hollowing-out-of-the-gops-foreign-policy-bench/>*

“Sure, the GOP can try to yell ‘BENGHAZI!’ at the top of their lungs. That
will please the base, but it will do little to tarnish Clinton. Indeed,
even Obama’s second-term stumbles could work to Hillary’s advantage — she
can hint that things hit the fan only after she left.”

*Associated Press: “Midterm Results Influence 2016 Presidential Race”
<http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_ELECTION_2016?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT>*

“As the GOP rout became clear late on election night, would-be Democratic
front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton found herself with a ready-made foil in
the Republican-led Congress that begins next year just as a few
high-profile senators seized on their new status as a springboard into
2016.”

*Mediaite: “GOP Already Officially Soliciting Donations to ‘Stop Hillary’
in 2016”
<http://www.mediaite.com/online/gop-already-officially-soliciting-donations-to-stop-hillary-in-2016/>*

“On Sunday, just five days after the midterms, the RNC sent out an email to
raise money off a presumed Hillary Clinton 2016 campaign.”

*Washington Times: “Angus King: Democrats have become ‘party of government
itself’”
<http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/nov/10/angus-king-democrats-have-become-party-of-governme/>*

"Sen. Angus King, Maine independent, said Monday that one of the issues of
the midterms was that the Democratic party has become the party of
“government itself” — and said such a perception could pose a problem for
someone like former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, the would-be
Democratic frontrunner for the 2016 presidential nomination."

*Wall Street Journal: “Democrats Find Themselves Short of Fresh New Faces”
<http://online.wsj.com/articles/capital-journal-democrats-are-short-of-fresh-new-faces-1415642183?tesla=y&mg=reno64-wsj>*

“In any case, the list of young leaders lining up behind Mrs. Clinton isn’t
a long or obvious one. It’s an unusual position for a party whose core
constituencies include young voters.”

*Politico: “Rand’s grand plan”
<http://www.politico.com/story/2014/11/rands-grand-plan-112729.html?hp=t1_r>*

“In a POLITICO interview, the 51-year-old senator talked unblinkingly about
the possibility of a run, and sought to draw a sharp contrast between
himself and Hillary Clinton — none too subtly raising the issue of her age.
At 67, she is 16 years older than he is.”

*The Atlantic: “The War in Iraq Is Still Hillary Clinton's Achilles' Heel”
<http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/11/howard-dean-pledges-his-support-to-an-iraq-war-hawk/382550/>*

“I think the chances are fifty-fifty the Republicans are going to nominate
a nutcase," [Howard Dean] said, "and Hillary’s the perfect foil for a Rand
Paul or a Ted Cruz."

*Articles:*

*Time: “Exclusive: Ladies Turned Out for Hillary in the Midterms”
<http://time.com/3576222/hillary-clinton-poll-women-correct-the-record/>*

By Jay Newton-Small

November 10, 2014, 1:17 p.m. EST

[Subtitle:] Clinton's appearances on the campaign trail gave discernable
bumps in female support to various Democrats, according to an analysis by
Correct the Record, a pro-Hillary group

In the aftermath of the Democratic shellacking, episode 2, in the 2014
midterm elections, many pointed fingers at Hillary Clinton as an electoral
loser.

“Somebody should ask Hillary Democrats why they got wiped out tonight.
Clearly, Hillary is yesterday’s news,” Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky
Republican and rumored 2016 presidential hopeful, said in an email to
Breitbart News — just one of the many times he linked the Democratic
drubbing to the party’s likeliest 2016 presidential candidate.

Added another 2016 potential GOP candidate, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, “I
think in many ways [Clinton] was the big loser on Tuesday because she
embodies everything that is wrong with Washington,” he told NBC’s Meet the
Press on Sunday. Even journalists piled on. “The loser from last night in
the a 2016 context: Hillary Clinton,” said Bloomberg’s Mark Halperin.

Not so fast, says pro-Clinton group Correct the Record. The group, linked
to Democratic Super PAC American Bridge, compiled polling data that shows
Clinton delivered discernible bumps in female support to most of the
candidates for whom she appeared or stumped, according to an analysis
obtained exclusively by TIME.

Sen. Kay Hagan in North Carolina and Colorado’s Mark Udall both saw three
percentage point bumps amongst women after Clinton appeared with them in
the final weeks of campaigning, according to an analysis of polls before
and after Clinton’s visit by the group.

Though both Hagan and Udall lost, Clinton gave incumbent Democratic Gov.
John Hickenlooper in Colorado a turbo charge: his lead amongst women nearly
tripled from a 4.8% advantage a to 12% lead after Hillary’s visit, and
Hickenlooper eked out a win.

In New Hampshire and Illinois, incumbent Democratic Govs. Maggie Hassan and
Pat Quinn both saw eight percentage point boosts, though it wasn’t enough
to save Quinn. Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton and Michigan Senate candidate
Gary Peters saw their support amongst women go up five percentage points
apiece after Clinton’s visits.

Georgia gubernatorial hopeful Jason Carter got a 4 percentage point bump,
though it didn’t help him to victory. And Sen. Mary Landrieu in Louisiana
got a 2 percentage point boost, helping her beat out Bill Cassidy 42% to
41%, though she didn’t avoid a Dec. 6 run off.

“Women’s support for Clinton translated to support for the candidates she
backed in 2014, despite an overwhelming trend against Democrats in the
election,” Correct the Record said in a statement released with the
analysis, pointing to Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s success with female
voters in 2013 after Clinton campaigned for him as further evidence of the
trend.

Of course, much of this support could simply be women breaking in the final
month of the campaign one way or another. It’s impossible to say if Clinton
was the deciding factor. And, while support amongst women who voted was
boosted in each case, the number of women voting was at the lowest levels
since the GOP wave of 2010, meaning that off-presidential year voters were
not successfully turned out at the polls.

That said, it’s clear Clinton didn’t have a negative impact on female
voters, and her underlying message of women’s empowerment could remain a
potent one for 2016, should she run, where women are expected to show up in
larger numbers at the polls.

*Washington Post blog: PostEverything: “The hollowing out of the GOP’s
foreign policy bench”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/11/10/the-hollowing-out-of-the-gops-foreign-policy-bench/>*

By Daniel W. Drezner, a professor of international politics at Tufts
University and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution

November 10, 2014, 8:46 a.m. EST

So the dialogue in D.C. since the midterms can be boiled down to the
following:

REPUBLICANS: Wow, you really got thumped!! You’re in big trouble for 2016!!

DEMOCRATS: But 2016 will be a presidential year which means a bigger
turnout and we can take back the Senate and we’ll have Hillary and you’ll
have a very difficult path to victory!

REPUBLICANS: But what if Clinton stumbles like in 2008? What if she chooses
not to run?! If not her, who?

DEMOCRATS:  LA LA LA LA LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU!!!!

To understand the depths of the donkey party’s defeat, my Washington Post
colleague Dan Balz has an excellent story detailing how the 2010 and 2014
midterm shellackings have badly eroded the bench strength of the Democratic
Party:

The past two midterm elections have been cruel to Democrats, costing them
control of the House and now the Senate, and producing a cumulative wipeout
in the states. The 2010 and 2014 elections saw the defeat of younger
politicians — some in office, others seeking it — who might have become
national leaders.

As the post-Obama era nears, the Democrats’ best-known leaders in
Washington are almost entirely from an older generation, from the vice
presidency to most of the major leadership offices in the House and Senate.
The generation-in-waiting will have to wait longer.

You should absolutely read the whole thing — especially Balz’s point that
this isn’t just about rising GOP politicians, but rising GOP politicians
with battle-tested experience in implementing policy agendas. As Balz
notes, “absent more governors, with the ability to test and refine
programs, the party will have more difficulty developing fresh ideas.”

Balz’s thesis about the Democrats’ thin bench is spot-on when it comes to
domestic policy. Serving as a state legislator or as a governor or as a
member of Congress provides invaluable real-world experience in all of the
domestic policy arenas.

I offer only one caveat to Balz’s argument, but it’s an important one for
the GOP to consider as they approach the 2016 presidential race. The caveat
is foreign policy. In that area, it’s the GOP that faces a problem

The reason is simple: by 2016, the Republicans will have been out of the
White House for eight years. There is simply no substitute for foreign
policy or national security credentials earned while serving in State or
Defense or the NSC or you get my point. Don’t get me wrong, toiling in a
think tank or working in international business or even, God forbid,
teaching international relations can help prepare one for conducting
foreign policy. But executive branch experience is an essential and
irreplaceable box to be checked off. Without it, the transition from think
tank fellow to Assistant Secretary of Really Important Foreign Policy
Portfolio can be rocky.

Unfortunately, we’re now operating in a world where foreign policy mavens
usually serve in an administration when their party is in power. And the
longer one’s party is out of office, the more meager the party’s bench
strength. People age out of the job they would like. The utility of prior
experiences in the executive branch atrophy over time.

I saw this up close and personal when I was a peon in government during
George W. Bush’s transition into office from Bill Clinton. Even though it
had only been eight years, and even though many of the foreign policy
principals and deputies had significant executive branch experience, they
were caught off guard by the ways in which the practice of foreign policy
had changed in the interim. Issues they assumed were minor turned out to be
more significant than they thought. The news cycle was both shortened and
never stopped. The list goes on. And as rocky as that transition was, it
was nothing compared to when the Democrats took over in 1992 after 12 years
of not being in the White House. Ask Clinton veterans what the first two
years of Clinton’s foreign policy was like, and they’ll likely respond by
shuddering off the record.

As I’ve noted before, the GOP did not take foreign policy seriously enough
during the 2012 cycle. The good news is that there will be some solid,
substantive foreign policy debates within the party as the 2016 primary
season unfolds. This will be particularly true during the foreign policy
speech season that we’re about to experience for the next year.

But there are two warnings that the GOP will need to internalize going
forward. The first is that, should Hillary Clinton be the Democratic Party
nominee, the 2016 GOP nominee will start out with a foreign policy
disadvantage. If you run through Liz Mair’s excellent assessment of the
2016 GOP contenders, you’ll note that “foreign policy experience” doesn’t
get mentioned. Of the lot of them, the one with the most foreign policy
experience is probably — wait for it — Rick Perry. Sure, the GOP can try to
yell “BENGHAZI!” at the top of their lungs. That will please the base, but
it will do little to tarnish Clinton. Indeed, even Obama’s second-term
stumbles could work to Hillary’s advantage — she can hint that things hit
the fan only after she left.

The second warning is that if the GOP doesn’t win in 2016, it’s foreign
policy depth will take a serious hit. Twelve years is a lifetime in foreign
policy. Even diehard GOP foreign policy wonks will struggle to get up to
speed if they’ve been out of the policymaking loop for more than a decade.
And this all holds without bringing up the awkward fact that the last GOP
president didn’t exactly distinguish himself in the foreign affairs realm.

Politically, this won’t matter too much for 2016, because, lest we forget,
voters don’t care all that much about foreign policy when it comes to
picking their president. But when it comes to the practice of foreign
policy, 2016 is a make-or-break year for the GOP. Their foreign policy
mandarins know it — but I hope their candidates know it too.

*Associated Press: “Midterm Results Influence 2016 Presidential Race”
<http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_ELECTION_2016?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT>*

By Ken Thomas and Steve Peoples

November 10, 2014, 2:36 a.m. EST

The 2016 presidential race was about the new Republican-controlled Congress
even before the polls closed Tuesday night.

As the GOP rout became clear late on election night, would-be Democratic
front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton found herself with a ready-made foil in
the Republican-led Congress that begins next year just as a few
high-profile senators seized on their new status as a springboard into 2016.

Some Republican governors already have begun to try to distance themselves
from unpopular congressional leaders in both parties.

"I think governors make much better presidents than members of Congress,"
said Gov. Scott Walker, R-Wis., who just won his third election in four
years and is contemplating a presidential bid.

Republicans are facing their most unpredictable presidential primary
campaign in a generation, while Clinton remains the overwhelming favorite
for Democrats who are reeling from heavy losses in last week's midterm
elections.

Republicans successfully tied Democratic candidates to President Barack
Obama at every turn, winning Senate races in Colorado, Iowa and North
Carolina, usually competitive states in presidential elections. Even before
polls closed, ambitious GOP began casting Democrats' struggles as a
referendum on Clinton as well as Obama.

"In many ways, she was the big loser on Tuesday because she embodies
everything that's wrong with Washington," Walker told NBC's "Meet The
Press" on Sunday, echoing the attacks of his ambitious GOP colleagues in
recent days.

As many as a dozen Republicans are considering presidential runs after a
dominant midterm performance that many consider the first step in retaking
the White House.

Strategists report an early burst of activity among prospective candidates,
who are taking initial steps to create super political action committees
and nonprofit organizations that would allow them to begin raising campaign
money even before they announce their intentions.

While it wasn't technically a campaign ad, the 2016 primary season saw its
first television special over the weekend.

An hourlong documentary featuring retired brain surgeon Ben Carson, a
conservative favorite little known on the national stage, ran in more than
two dozen states Saturday and Sunday. The program, which likens Carson to
former President Ronald Reagan at times, was produced by Carson's business
manager, Armstrong Williams, who noted that Carson didn't pay for the
nationwide run that included states such as Iowa, South Carolina and Ohio.

"Make no mistake, he's seriously thinking about running," Armstrong said.

Also thinking of running are at least three first-term senators who will
begin next year in the Senate majority: Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida, Ted
Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky. Some have adopted a bipartisan
tone in the midterm's aftermath, although the likelihood of continued
Washington gridlock poses political risks for the trio as Congress'
approval ratings hover near all-time lows.

"I want to get things done," Paul told The Associated Press in an
interview, although he was among the first to attack Clinton last week,
casting his party's midterm success as a referendum on Clinton as much as
Obama.

Paul planned to meet with advisers this coming week to map out his plans
for the next few months. He insists he will not make a final decision about
the 2016 presidential contest until next spring.

"There's a lot of personal gnashing of teeth with family trying to decide
if we're willing to go through this," Paul said.

The primary season takes another big step forward later this month when the
Republican Governors Association meets to elect a new chairman in Florida.

All eyes will be on Walker, with the outgoing chairman, New Jersey Gov.
Chris Christie, passing the reins to another ambitious governor. Advisers
suggest that a run for the post may signal disinterest in a 2016
presidential run; fundraising logistics make it very difficult to do both.

As governors gather in Florida, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush headlines a
Washington conference for his education foundation that seems certain to
draw strong 2016 buzz.

GOP operatives and donors report that Bush is beginning to signal stronger
interest in a presidential run, although some suggest he needs to act
relatively quickly.

"If he waits too long he'll start to lose his advantages, the built-in
network," Republican strategist and former Minnesota Rep. Vin Weber said.
"Those people are not going to wait forever."

While Republicans governors could use Washington dysfunction to their
advantage, a GOP-led Congress also gives Clinton an easy target if party
leaders try to repeal Obama's health care law, produce budget plans that
cut money for children and the elderly, or become mired in gridlock. Obama
often railed against the GOP-led House in his 2012 campaign and President
Bill Clinton effectively used divided government to his advantage in the
1990s.

Hillary Clinton's advisers are assessing the results of the election and
looking at what another campaign might entail.

She appeared at nearly four dozen political events in 19 states during the
fall campaign, offering a glimpse of a possible campaign message: She would
be an advocate for distressed families and offer a steady hand for a
government that has been paralyzed by gridlock.

Clinton has said she expects to make a decision around the beginning of the
year but remains under pressure to announce her intentions.

Some Democrats, however, say there's little incentive for her to rush in,
given her dominant role.

"She has to let the dust settle. There is no reason for Hillary Clinton or
any other candidate to declare their intentions anytime soon," said Donna
Brazile, a longtime adviser to the Clintons.

*Mediaite: “GOP Already Officially Soliciting Donations to ‘Stop Hillary’
in 2016”
<http://www.mediaite.com/online/gop-already-officially-soliciting-donations-to-stop-hillary-in-2016/>*

By Eddie Scarry

November 10, 2014, 8:54 a.m. EST

Election season never really ends when you’re on the mailing list for
either the Democratic or Republican National Committee.

On Sunday, just five days after the midterms, the RNC sent out an email to
raise money off a presumed Hillary Clinton 2016 campaign.

“The American people made a BIG statement on November 4,” reads the email.
“But President Obama and Hillary Clinton aren’t listening.”

It goes on to cite a report from last week that said the former secretary
of state will headquarter her potential presidential campaign in New York.

“The Clintons aren’t taking a minute to breathe, and we can’t either if we
want to keep Hillary out of the White House,” the RNC email says. “We must
have a well-stocked war chest and strong GOP support to take on – and
defeat – the liberal Clinton machine.”

Clinton has said she won’t make a public decision about whether she wants
to run for president until after the new year. But why should the GOP wait
for that?

“Contribute today to stop Hillary Clinton,” reads the emails conclusion,
which is hyperlinked to a donation page.

*Washington Times: “Angus King: Democrats have become ‘party of government
itself’”
<http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/nov/10/angus-king-democrats-have-become-party-of-governme/>*

By David Sherfinski

November 10, 2014

Sen. Angus King, Maine independent, said Monday that one of the issues of
the midterms was that the Democratic party has become the party of
“government itself” — and said such a perception could pose a problem for
someone like former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, the would-be
Democratic frontrunner for the 2016 presidential nomination.

“I think one of the subtext issues of this election was that the Democratic
party has become the party of government itself,” Mr. King said on MSNBC’s
“Morning Joe.” “And if people don’t like the government, the party that
represents the government is going to have a hard time.”

“And I think that is going to be a difficulty for someone like Hillary
Clinton, who has tremendous experience and background, but she’s going to
have a hard time saying, ‘Oh, I’m a new person,’ ” he said.

Mr. King, who caucuses with Senate Democrats, also questioned the party
strategy in the U.S. Senate in the run-up to the midterms.

“There’s no question that there was a strategy going up to the elections to
protect vulnerable Democrats from difficult votes,” he said. “In
retrospect, maybe it would have been better to let them vote, let things
happen, let the president take some heat, veto some bills instead of having
the Senate be the stopper, if you will.”

On the other hand, he said, immigration is a big piece of legislation
sitting on the desk of House Speaker John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican.

“So, you know, it works both ways,” he said. “I think there’s a possibility
that we’re gonna have enough moderates, if you will — I don’t like to use
that word; nobody wants to be labeled a moderate — centrists, where we
could have a significant influence by having enough votes sort of going
both ways.”

*Wall Street Journal: “Democrats Find Themselves Short of Fresh New Faces”
<http://online.wsj.com/articles/capital-journal-democrats-are-short-of-fresh-new-faces-1415642183?tesla=y&mg=reno64-wsj>*

By Gerald F. Seib

November 10, 2014, 12:56 p.m. EST

Among the many questions Democrats might ask as they ponder their course
after last week’s electoral drubbing, here’s one that gets relatively
little attention: Where are the party’s fresh young leaders?

Even after a stunning defeat, the Democrats’ hierarchy in Congress figures
to be unchanged when leaders are picked for the new year. In the House,
Democrats will continue to be led by Nancy Pelosi , 74, who has been atop
the Democratic caucus since 2002. The No. 2 House Democrat still will be
Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, age 75.

In the Senate, Harry Reid , 74, will remain the party’s top dog, as he has
been for a decade; he now merely moves from majority leader to minority
leader.

In the White House sits the still relatively young Barack Obama , 53,
though, obviously, the clock is running down on his tenure. At his side
sits Vice President Joe Biden , who turns 72 this month.

The party’s top vote-getter on Tuesday was Gov. Jerry Brown of California,
a 76-year-old political veteran who first won his current job in 1974. The
runaway favorite to win the party’s presidential nomination in 2016 is, of
course, Hillary Clinton , 67, who has been a fixture on the national scene
for more than two decades.

Indeed, one of the most puzzling questions about the Democrats is this one:
If the presidential nomination doesn’t go to either Mrs. Clinton or Mr.
Biden, who are the plausible younger alternatives? There isn’t a long list.
Perhaps Sen. Elizabeth Warren, 65, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo , 56, or
outgoing Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, 51—though the stunning loss on
Tuesday by his lieutenant governor, Anthony Brown, once seen as a potential
bright new star, has tarnished the O’Malley legacy.

In any case, the list of young leaders lining up behind Mrs. Clinton isn’t
a long or obvious one. It’s an unusual position for a party whose core
constituencies include young voters.

Meanwhile, Republicans have a veritable youth movement going on by
contrast. They figure to have three young senators seeking their
presidential nomination in 2016— Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz , both 43, and
Rand Paul , 51. Among their ranks of governors lie presidential wannabes
Chris Christie , 52; Bobby Jindal , 43; and Scott Walker, 47.

Prospective Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is 72 and the Republican
speaker remains John Boehner , about to turn 65. But just beneath Mr.
Boehner sit 49-year-old Kevin McCarthy, the majority leader, and Steve
Scalise, the third-ranking Republican, also 49. Also in the inner circle is
another of the so-called Young Guns of rising House GOP leaders, former
vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan , 44.

To be sure, there are some highly capable younger Democrats on the scene.
Sen. Mark Warner, though he barely survived his own re-election scare in
Virginia last week, is a 59-year-old moderate from a key swing state, as is
Colorado’s 49-year-old Michael Bennet. New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand ,
47, is a rising star, as are the 40-year-old Castro twins, Joaquin, a
congressman from Texas, and Julian, the former mayor of San Antonio who now
is secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Rep. Chris Van Hollen, 55,
the top Democrat on the Budget Committee, may be the most skillful and
articulate explainer of his party’s budget and fiscal policies. And Chicago
Mayor Rahm Emanuel, though he has been on the national scene for years, is
just 54.

The difficulty for such Democrats is that, to some extent, all have been
eclipsed by the cast of Washington veterans above them.

One problem for Democrats is that a prime breeding ground for national
leaders lies in the nation’s statehouses, where governors can gain
leadership experience and build a reputation that translates nationally.

But Republicans now hold at least 31 of the nation’s 50 governor’s seats.
(Alaska’s governor’s race remains undecided.) In particular, Democrats have
been shut out of the governor’s office in some key swing states. Ohio,
Michigan and Florida all could be launching pads for Democrats but are,
instead, in the hands of Republican governors. So instead of young
Democrats springing out of those states, they are led by Republicans John
Kasich, Rick Snyder and Rick Scott, all now heading into their second terms.

By contrast, Congress, mired in low esteem among voters, has been a less
attractive launching pad for national prominence recently.

As the ages of their congressional leaders suggests, one reality is that
Democrats, once in office, often tend to stick around longer than do their
Republican counterparts.

And, contrary to Democrats’ reputation as an unruly bunch, they have been
relatively orderly. While Republicans in Congress—particularly in the
House—have provided palace intrigue and occasional insurrections against
established leaders, Democrats have been the ones quietly accepting
continuation of the current crop of leaders.

*Politico: “Rand’s grand plan”
<http://www.politico.com/story/2014/11/rands-grand-plan-112729.html?hp=t1_r>*

By Mike Allen

November 9, 2014, 9:58 p.m. EST

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul has made key decisions about how to launch his
presidential campaign for the 2016 Republican nomination, including a plan
to headquarter his effort in Louisville and opting to run for re-election
to the Senate at the same time he moves forward with the national race.

Coming off a midterm campaign blitz in 35 states, Paul has summoned a few
dozen advisers – a mix of veterans of his father Ron Paul’s insurgent
campaigns and more mainstream GOP leaders — for a closed-door summit at a
Washington hotel on Wednesday to discuss his future plans.

In a POLITICO interview, the 51-year-old senator talked unblinkingly about
the possibility of a run, and sought to draw a sharp contrast between
himself and Hillary Clinton — none too subtly raising the issue of her age.
At 67, she is 16 years older than he is.

“I think all the polls show if she does run, she’ll win the Democrat
nomination,” he said. “But I don’t think it’s for certain. It’s a very
taxing undertaking to go through. It’s a rigorous physical ordeal, I think,
to be able to campaign for the presidency.”

Paul, who will face a much more crowded field on the Republican side but
starts out as a slight front-runner in public polls, has begun an
aggressive early campaign against Clinton. In the interview, he argued that
her hawkish position inside the Obama administration for military
intervention in places such as Libya will stack up unfavorably against his
views.

“Her main Achilles’ heel is that she didn’t provide an adequate defense for
our consulate in Libya,” Paul said during a trip to Georgia just before the
midterms. “And also, she didn’t think through the unintended consequences
of getting involved in the Libyan war. So I think you’d have an interesting
dynamic, were there a [Republican] nominee that was for less intervention
overseas and in the Middle East and that’s fiscally conservative. You’ve
never seen that kind of combination before, and I think there’s a lot of
independent voters, actually, that might be attracted to that kind of
message.”

Paul reiterated his long-standing assertion that he won’t officially decide
about a presidential run until the spring, but his advisers have already
laid out a timetable: They expect the campaign will be a “go” by mid-April,
with an announcement as quickly after that as his staff can put together a
fly-around to the early states.

Before zeroing in on Louisville as Paul’s likely campaign headquarters,
advisers reached out to veterans of 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney’s
campaign to consult on the advisability and specific requirements of
running a national campaign from outside Washington, deciding the symbolic
importance of basing the campaign in his home state outweighed any concerns
about easy access for Washington-based staffers and political operatives
from across the country.

Within the next few weeks, Paul is set to announce that he’ll run for
reelection to the Senate in 2016 – a race that he is likely to run
simultaneously with a presidential campaign. Kentucky has a law preventing
a candidate from running for more than one office at a time, but Paul
advisers believe they have found multiple ways around the restriction
without changing the law or challenging it in court, including exploring
changing the state’s GOP primary to a caucus. If Paul won the presidential
nomination, he might focus on that race and drop the Senate campaign.

That decision is not without political risk: Previous presidential
candidates, including Vice President Joe Biden, have often faced criticism
for running concurrent national and local campaigns. Any perception that
Paul is hedging his bets could also undermine his effort to be taken
seriously as a mainstream front-runner.

But there’s little doubt at this point that Paul will start the
presidential race as a serious Republican candidate. He is slightly ahead
of former Florida governor Jeb Bush for the lead among potential GOP
presidential aspirants in the Real Clear Politics average of national
polls. But he has a libertarian philosophy and wariness of international
activism that are at odds with the views of many in the party’s
establishment.

Nonetheless, he’s already built what top GOP operatives consider by far the
most extensive operation of any of the party’s presidential hopefuls. He
has his own advance staff housed at RAND PAC, his political action
committee, which over the past five years has raised $13.6 million and
spent $10.7 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. And
he is planning to open a Silicon Valley office to add ties and presumably
fundraising heft among the libertarian-minded tech crowd.

Sen. Rand Paul joins in support of Sen. Mitch McConnell as they begin a
multi-city campaign tour. | M. Scott Mahaskey

In a development that had top Republicans buzzing, Paul was endorsed for
president last week by incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell — a
striking turnabout just a few years after McConnell favored Paul’s opponent
in Kentucky’s 2010 Republican senatorial primary.

Headed into the presidential campaign, leading Paul advisers include Jesse
Benton, a longtime Paul family operative, who lives in Louisville; Doug
Stafford, who is considered Paul’s chief strategist and leading planner of
his presidential campaign; Nate Morris, an entrepreneur who recently was
named to Fortune’s “40 Under 40” list and has been a Paul door-opener in
Silicon Valley and beyond; and Doug Wead, who has been helping with
outreach to evangelicals. His media consultant is Rex Elsass, CEO of the
Ohio-based The Strategy Group for Media.

In the states with early presidential primaries and caucuses, the team
includes: John Yob, a Michigan consultant and former John McCain operative
who is RAND PAC’s national political director; in New Hampshire, Mike
Biundo, who managed Rick Santorum’s 2012 presidential campaign; and in
Iowa, Steve Grubbs and A.J. Spiker, both former chairs of the state
Republican Party.

His top outside foreign-policy advisers are Lorne Craner, a former
assistant secretary of state for President George W. Bush; and Elise
Jordan, a former speechwriter for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Sergio Gor, who heads Paul’s communications team, is a social-media guru
who turned a shot of Paul eating an In-N-Out cheese burger in San Francisco
into the most-clicked image from one of the senator’s California swings.
With help from Gor, Paul has cultivated a mischievous streak that Twitter
and Facebook love: He taunted Michelle Obama last month from a Dunkin’
Donuts in New Hampshire. And on the night of the midterms, Paul had the
idea for a collage of Clinton campaigning with various Democrats who had
gone down – posted with the hashtag #HillarysLosers.

During the recent campaign, Paul was featured in advertisements for Senate
candidates in Iowa and New Hampshire, using the midterms as a dry run for
his own national campaign. Despite the skepticism of the GOP establishment,
he lapped the field with his extensive campaign travel, frequent media
exposure, and development of a canny message designed to appeal to voting
groups that have traditionally shunned the GOP, including young people and
African-Americans.

Scott Reed, who ran Bob Dole’s presidential campaign in 1996 and now is the
U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s senior political strategist, said: “In any
two-week period of this last six months, Rand Paul did more smart things to
grow the party than everyone else combined. Going to Berkeley and barrios
and ghettos – he’s not afraid to go where no one else wants to go.”

The Chamber, which has tended to favor establishment Republicans, enlisted
Paul as a campaign surrogate for the midterms after strategists realized
that libertarian candidates often were siphoning 6 to 10 percent of the
vote away from Republican nominees. Chamber officials liked his
anti-Washington image, and the appeal to younger voters that he inherited
from his dad.

Still, Vin Weber, a partner at the Mercury public-strategy firm who is a
longtime adviser to GOP presidential campaigns, said he sees considerable
obstacles for Paul. “‘Front-runner’ implies he’s most likely to win the
nomination – I don’t think that,” Weber said. “Who’s going to be a
competitive candidate? Rand Paul is the surest – the capability to finance
the campaign, a national network of activists, a platform to run on. He
checks all those boxes better than anybody. But in compromising to make
himself acceptable to the establishment, at what point does he lose those
other advantages, and shed the things that make him attractive? His
national base is not going to be for him if he becomes an establishment
Republican.”

On the trail, Paul has honed a message that emphasizes a rare area of
agreement between the red and blue Americas – that Washington needs to work
better. “My theory has been that we try to agree on too much and the bills
are too big,” he said in the interview. “If they were more narrow — it’s
like immigration. We don’t agree on 100 percent of it, but we agree on 50
percent of it. Why do we not pass 50 percent of it?”

Paul, who has set the ambitious goal of raising the Republican share of the
African-American vote from 6 percent in 2012 to 33 percent in 2016, met
with African-American groups in Ferguson, Mo.; spoke to the National Urban
League convention in July; and regularly meets with small groups of
African-Americans to talk up his plans for school choice and justice
reform. “Until the Republican Party becomes more diverse, we are going to
struggle,” he said.

Paul argues that even modest success would make his campaign transformative
in the mold of FDR for the Democrats and Ronald Reagan for the Republicans.
“There’s been very few people who have changed the demographics of how
people voted,” he said.

But one of Paul’s biggest hurdles will be convincing top Republican donors
– including ardent supporters of Israel – to give him the benefit of the
doubt despite his past reputation as an isolationist. He took the first
steps toward that with a foreign-policy speech in October, casting his
views as consistent with those of past GOP stalwarts like Dwight Eisenhower
and Reagan.

“It’s to define myself about foreign policy rather than have other people
define me,” he said. “It’s a competitive marketplace of ideas and some
people … want to knock you down.”

As Paul traveled the country this year, he also held private sit-downs with
rabbis and Jewish leaders in various cities. “I think we’ve spent a lot of
time in the Jewish community, letting them know that our position is that
we are very conscious of and supportive of our special alliance with
Israel,” he said.

As for Wednesday’s summit, Paul played coy. “It’s top secret — how would
anybody know that?” he quipped. “Man, you can’t keep a secret in this town.
… It’s getting people together to talk about how the message is resonating,
whether or not we’ll win battles.”

*The Atlantic: “The War in Iraq Is Still Hillary Clinton's Achilles' Heel”
<http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/11/howard-dean-pledges-his-support-to-an-iraq-war-hawk/382550/>*

By Conor Friedersdorf

November 10, 2014, 8:00 a.m. EST

[Subtitle:] Democrats like Howard Dean who rally around her risk looking
like opportunistic hypocrites.

During the 2004 election, Howard Dean said that when his Democratic rivals
voted for the Iraq War, they called into question "their judgment and
ability to sort out complicated issues regarding the most crucial decision
any president has to make."

He has argued that supporters of the war were not only wrong in their
judgment about Iraq, but were also wrong to back the doctrine of
preemption. "So many who supported the war now say that they are opposed to
the doctrine of preemption," Dean said. "Then why did they vote for this
preemptive war? I opposed the president's war on Iraq, I continue to stand
against his policy of preemption, and on my first day in office I will tear
up the Bush doctrine and rebuild a foreign policy consistent with American
values."

Dean attributes the rise of ISIS to the mistake made by proponents of
invasion. "This is exactly the problem that I predicted in 2000 and 2003,
that as a result of our invasion of Iraq, we were going to see a split Iraq
into three parts and I said at the time al-Qaeda, but really it's of course
now ISIS, was going to have a major effort in Iraq," he said. "And that's
exactly what's happened. Let's not revise history."

On another occasion, he argued, "We wouldn't even be in Iraq if it weren't
for Democrats like Senator Kerry." So how can this erstwhile champion of
the anti-war movement tout his support for just that sort of hawkish
Democrat in 2016? "At this point, I'm supporting Hillary Clinton," he said
last year. And he confirmed as much to Ryan Lizza in a just-published
article on the Democratic frontrunner. “I think the chances are fifty-fifty
the Republicans are going to nominate a nutcase," he said, "and Hillary’s
the perfect foil for a Rand Paul or a Ted Cruz." (Wouldn't the perfect foil
for Senator Paul have gotten the Iraq War right?)

Just last summer, Dean was complaining that prominent Iraq War supporters
were being invited on television to discuss foreign policy. "I don't think
they're necessarily entitled to a national forum based on the gross
mistakes of the past," he said. Now here he is declaring that a Democrat as
hawkish as any he ran against in 2004 is entitled not just to a national
forum but to the commander in chief's chair.

The Democratic Party may be able to unite behind Clinton. But it can't do
so without many prominent Democrats looking like opportunistic hypocrites
with no convictions.