Subject: Correct The Record Tuesday November 18, 2014 Morning Roundup
From: Burns Strider <[email-masked]>
To: CTRFriendsFamily <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2014 08:03:24 -0500
List-Id: <CTRFriendsFamily.americanbridge.org>

*​**Correct The Record Tuesday November 18, 2014 Morning Roundup:*

Check out the *Secretary Hillary Clinton World Map*
<http://map.correctrecord.org/>, launched yesterday by CTR!

*Headlines:*

*McClatchy DC: “Where in the world was Hillary Clinton?”
<http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/11/17/247134/where-in-the-world-was-hillary.html>*

“The ‘Secretary Hillary Clinton World Map’ is the brainchild of Correct the
Record, a rapid response group affiliated with the Democratic super PAC,
American Bridge.”

*U.S. News & World Report: “Dukakis on Hillary, Warren and Jeb”
<http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/run-2016/2014/11/17/michael-dukakis-on-hillary-warren-and-jeb>*

Dukakis: “I think she’s [Sec. Clinton’s] going to run. I think she wants to
be president of the United States. And she should be. I think she’d be an
excellent candidate. It’s not going to be easy, don’t get me wrong. When
you’ve got a guy like [Karl] Rove questioning her health and stuff. Geez,
that guy. Don’t get me started on him. The knives are going to be out. We
know this."

*National Journal: “Are We Ready for Hillary?”
<http://www.nationaljournal.com/off-to-the-races/are-we-ready-for-hillary-20141117>*

"Some time in the next six months, former Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton is expected to decide whether to seek the presidency in 2016. But
how will she do if she decides to run?"

*The Atlantic: “The Long Shot”
<http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/12/the-long-shot/382238/?single_page=true>*

[Subtitle:] “Despite his best efforts, Maryland’s Martin O’Malley might be
the most ignored candidate of 2016.”

*Washington Post blog: The Fix: “The ridiculousness of Hillary Clinton’s
expand-the-map strategy in 2016”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/11/17/the-ridiculousness-of-hillary-clintons-expand-the-map-strategy-in-2016/>*

“The 2016 map will favor Clinton (or any Democrat) -- even if she does
nothing between now and then. She'd be better off focusing on re-creating
Obama's 2012 map rather than trying to reinvent it.”

*Salon: “Ready for the inevitable? Why the hubris of Hillary Clinton’s
backers should make Dems nervous”
<http://www.salon.com/2014/11/17/ready_for_the_inevitable_why_the_hubris_of_hillary_clintons_backers_should_make_dems_nervous/>*

“The favored phrase is ‘inevitability,’ and the consensus seems to be that,
for Hillary Clinton, appearing inevitable is a good thing only to a point.”

*Politico Magazine: Al From: “A Blueprint for Democratic Victory”
<http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/11/a-blueprint-for-democratic-victory-112944.html#.VGsto_ldWSo>*

“After last week’s senatorial and gubernatorial elections, it’s time for
the Democrats to think about retooling our message once again.”

*Washington Post blog: The Fix: “Clinton vs. de Blasio: A primary so crazy
we simply must talk about it”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/11/17/clinton-vs-de-blasio-a-primary-so-crazy-we-simply-must-talk-about-it/>*

“It makes no sense.”

*The New Republic: “History Shows That Hillary Clinton Is Unlikely to Win
in 2016”
<http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120303/democrats-hillary-clinton-could-lose-2016-presidential-election>*

“It’s true that an expected increase in turnout will benefit the Democrats
[in 2016], but may not be enough to elect another Democratic president.”

*Articles:*

*McClatchy DC: “Where in the world was Hillary Clinton?”
<http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/11/17/247134/where-in-the-world-was-hillary.html>*

By Lesley Clark

November 17, 2014

That’s what a pro-Hillary Clinton group hopes to show with a new
interactive map that allows one to “follow Hillary Clinton’s many
accomplishments as Secretary of State.”

The “Secretary Hillary Clinton World Map” is the brainchild of Correct the
Record, a rapid response group affiliated with the Democratic super PAC,
American Bridge.

Correct the Record says its purpose is to “defend potential Democratic
presidential candidates from right-wing, baseless attacks” -- though the
only “potential Democratic presidential candidate” featured on its site
appears to be Clinton.

The site says the map will be promoted through the website and targeted ad
buys, adding, teasingly of Clinton, “112 countries, 956,733 miles, 4 years…
and that’s just the start.”

The map comes a week after the Republican National Committee to sought to
knock the presumed 2016 candidate as “High-Flying Hillary,” in the wake of
a Buzzfeed story that found midterm candidates paid at least $699,000 in
travel costs to have Bill and Hillary Clinton campaign for them.

“Hillary Clinton traveled nearly a million miles as Secretary of State,
restoring America’s leadership and standing in the world during a time of
global challenges and changes,” said Adrienne Elrod, a former Clinton aide
and now Correct the Record’s communications director. “To highlight her
work, Correct The Record created the Secretary Hillary Clinton World Map so
that Americans, sorting by country or by issue area, can follow Hillary
Clinton’s footsteps and navigate her progress and accomplishments as she
worked to make our world a better and safer place.”

*U.S. News & World Report: “Dukakis on Hillary, Warren and Jeb”
<http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/run-2016/2014/11/17/michael-dukakis-on-hillary-warren-and-jeb>*

By David Catanese

November 17, 2014, 3:24 p.m. EST

[Subtitle:] The 1988 Democratic presidential nominee talks 2016 politics
with The Run.

Michael Dukakis doesn't dispense political advice or analysis without a
heavy sense of humility.

"If I was such a message guy, I’d be talking to you in a different
capacity, right?," says the former Democratic nominee for president who
carried only 10 states in the 1988 campaign against George Herbert Walker
Bush. "But you learn over time. Even when you get beat."

On the heels of his 81st birthday, the former Massachusetts governor says
he feels as spry as a teenager and has reached a point in his life when
there's no need to be anything but completely candid.

“The worst thing, obviously, was this gal from Kentucky, who wouldn’t tell
you who she voted for. God. You can’t do that," he says, offering up one of
the most dismal moments for Democrats in a demoralizing midterm cycle. He's
referring to Kentucky Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes, who
stubbornly refused to admit she likely voted for President Barack Obama.

Dukakis, known endearingly as "The Duke" in political circles, granted an
extensive interview to U.S. News Monday about what's next for his party
heading into 2016, Hillary Clinton, his home state Sen. Elizabeth Warren
and even the lot of Republicans lining up to wrest back the White House.

Spoiler: He isn't impressed with the son of the Bush he lost to.

Here's a lightly edited transcript of portions of our conversation.

Q: Having gone through the process, where do you think Hillary is at on
running?

Dukakis: I think she’s going to run. I think she wants to be president of
the United States. And she should be. I think she’d be an excellent
candidate. It’s not going to be easy, don’t get me wrong. When you’ve got a
guy like [Karl] Rove questioning her health and stuff. Geez, that guy.
Don’t get me started on him. The knives are going to be out. We know this.

Q: Do the 2014 midterm results give her any pause?

Dukakis: No. I wouldn’t think so. There’s nothing about the midterms that
suggest some profound philosophical change in the American electorate.
Nothing. Nothing at all. Democratic candidates for the Senate should've
been talking about health care. Not bobbing and weaving and dancing around.
You cannot slice and dice an electorate and come up with 51 percent. You've
got to have a message, which is broad and which is deep. Too many of our
candidates tried to patch something together.

Q: So what were your lessons from it?

Dukakis: An economic recovery which is impressive [still] takes time for
people to feel it. This place was a basket case in ‘74, when I became
governor. We cut the unemployment rate from 12 [percent] to 5.5 [percent]
in four years. Dealt with our serious fiscal problems. And I got beat. How
come? Because it took another few years before people said, 'Hey it really
is getting better.' It takes awhile. People are not looking at the Bureau
of Labor Statistics. But by November 2016, you’re going to see 15 million
new jobs and that’s going to be a pretty good record to run on.

Q: So you think Hillary can run on the Obama record?

Dukakis: I think she can run on what the Democrats have done. Congress as
well. I mean, who voted for the stimulus package in the first place? And
she can certainly tear into the other side. We’re getting Herbert Hoover
economics, Dave, from these people. I’m serious, this is nothing but
Herbert Hoover all over again and I would use that all the time. It didn’t
work in 1929 and it’s not going to work in 2016.

Q: You think Herbert Hoover can be recycled again?

Dukakis: I’m not talking about Hoover, but you can certainly talk about the
condition this country was in in 2009. We were an economic basket case. We
were panicked, we were hysterical and it was the direct result of
Republican economic policies. And if I were running for the presidency, I
would say that all the time. It’s the Democrats who brought us back. Not
Paul Ryan for God sakes. I’d remind people over and over again what kind of
shape this country was in in 2009.

Q: But how will that contrast her with her Republican opponent?

Dukakis: They’re all Hoover people when it comes to the economy. Are you
kidding me?

Q: You take Elizabeth Warren by her word. She’s not running for president,
right?

Dukakis: No, not at all.

Q: Have you ever talked to her about it?

Dukakis: Yeah. She shouldn’t. She just got elected to the Senate. She
shouldn’t do it. And she’s got great instincts, this woman. She understands.

Q: Why? Too quick of a turnaround?

Dukakis: Yeah, too quick. She owes a responsibility to the people who
elected her here. I think she’s doing exactly what she ought to be doing.
She’s a listener. She’s very impressive, instinctively so. But she’s not
going to run for the presidency.

Q: Who do you think on the Republican side is a legitimate messenger?

Dukakis: In 1996, I debated Jeb Bush. He was for [Bob] Dole and I was for
[President Bill] Clinton, at the University of Tennessee. I got to tell
you, I was underwhelmed. But who knows, he might be a credible candidate.

Q: Why was he underwhelming?

Dukakis: I didn’t see a lot there. Very conservative. I was amazed at how
fundamentally conservative he was, philosophically and otherwise.

Q: You know, the problem with him now in the Republican Party is that he’s
not conservative enough.

Dukakis: I know that, but consider the source.

Q: Is it smart for Hillary to get in early, move quickly? Do it in January,
February?

Dukakis: I think you've got to announce early. I announced in March. You’ve
got to let people know you’re running.

Q: Do you think GOP Gov-elect Charlie Baker in Massachusetts will be a good
governor?

Dukakis: We’ll see.

Q: Well, what do you think of him?

Dukakis: Kind of mixed. He’s a bright guy. But I wasn’t happy with a lot of
the stuff he did when he was in [prior Republican] cabinets. He seems to be
pretty well-anchored these days. His first cabinet appointment is of a
Democrat and a good one. That’s a good sign. When asked about the national
Republican Party he says, 'I have no interest in that.' And I believe him.
I think he really wants to focus on being the best governor he can be.

Q: Why do you think he won?

Dukakis: The state is in remarkably good shape. You have the same governor
for eight years, though [Gov.] Deval [Patrick] has done a damn good job.
People are always looking for somebody new and fresh. We happen to have a
very late primary in this state and it usually hurts Democrats because
we’re the ones that have the lively fights. Shannon O’Brien would've killed
[Mitt] Romney if we would’ve had a June primary. Martha [Coakley] would’ve
won easily over Baker if we had a June primary.

*National Journal: “Are We Ready for Hillary?”
<http://www.nationaljournal.com/off-to-the-races/are-we-ready-for-hillary-20141117>*

By Charlie Cook

November 17, 2014

Some time in the next six months, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
is expected to decide whether to seek the presidency in 2016. But how will
she do if she decides to run?

In 2008, the nomination was widely seen as hers for the taking. But that,
as we all know, was not to be. On one level, the Democratic Party was
buying what then-Sen. Barack Obama was selling. Democrats wanted to make
history with the first African-American presidential nominee and president;
they were seeking a charismatic figure and a return to the aspirational and
inspirational days of John F. Kennedy's Camelot.

In that sense, the fix was in. Not only did the idea of Obama capture the
imagination of the Democratic Party, but his campaign was also far superior
to Clinton's. The opportunity for Obama was fortuitous, but the candidate
and his team earned the win as well. Many would argue that in the last half
of the fight between Obama and Clinton for the Democratic nomination,
Clinton was actually the more energetic and tenacious candidate. But, by
then, the momentum was on Obama's side.

Questions still remain, however. Did Clinton miss her chance—or is her time
about to come? Was her uneven performance on the recent book tour just a
sign of being rusty from her eight-year absence from the campaign trail? Or
is she like a major league pitcher who has lost his fastball? Indeed, there
is one school of thought that suggests she needs something more than token
opposition to get her own skill set back into shape and to test her team's
abilities before the general election. Many believe that Obama was a
stronger general-election candidate in 2008 after being so thoroughly
tested by Clinton in that knock-down, drag-out fight for the Democratic
nomination.

Another question is whether paranoia and bad blood between Clinton and the
media could threaten to become a vicious cycle for her, turning the people
who are covering Clinton's campaign against her. It was an over-the-top
move, by any standard, to send a female press aide into the lavatory at a
recent Clinton Global Initiatives meeting to follow a female New York Times
reporter assigned to the Hillary Clinton beat. The best way to create
enemies in the press corps is to treat them that way from the beginning.

Then there is the campaign itself. On every level, the 2008 Obama campaign
outgunned the Clinton folks, but not just on the strategic, mechanical, and
technological sides of the business. In 2008, many top operatives in the
Clinton campaign seemed to be more preoccupied with screwing over their
rivals within the campaign than with electing their candidate. At the 2008
quadrennial postelection conference at Harvard University's Institute of
Politics, the operatives attending from the Clinton and McCain campaigns
marveled at a panel of top Obama campaign officials talking about their
regular conference calls as an opportunity for the team to air and discuss
their challenges. The Obama advisers said they knew that whatever they said
on the strategy calls would not be leaked to the press nor used as
ammunition against each other down the road. There was a sense of loyalty
up and down the ladder in the Obama campaign, while the Clinton and McCain
campaigns seemed to be marked by vicious inward-aimed firing squads.

Just in the past week, we have already seen that kind of infighting
beginning anew, with emails leaked to make one potential campaign manager
look bad. Clinton's backers had hoped that this time would be different.

There is no question that Clinton, who just turned 67, will have to run a
campaign more relevant to the future than the past. The youngest voters in
2016 would have been just 2 years old when Bill Clinton left office. Can
Hillary Clinton count generating the same kind energy and excitement that
accompanied the first minority presidential nominee—this time, for the
first female nominee? Do young women identify themselves along gender lines
and with Clinton—even if they don't see themselves as victims of
discrimination? Can they rally behind her, or do they see her as part of
the political status quo, a fixture of American politics for as long as
they can remember?

One strength that Clinton will likely bring to the table is that she is
widely seen as a grown up, a seasoned veteran; a stark contrast with
Obama's limited legislative and management experience as a one-term U.S.
senator and law school professor. The fact is, she may be more acceptable
as a candidate than she was eight years ago because of her additional layer
of experience over other potential candidates.

Some say Clinton has an obligation to the party to make up her mind early:
If she decides not to run, other candidates who had not intended to take
her on will need time to get into the race. The alternative view is that
she benefits from a shorter campaign, and that she has no more of an
obligation to make up her mind in a hurry than anyone else looking at a run
in 2016.

*The Atlantic: “The Long Shot”
<http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/12/the-long-shot/382238/?single_page=true>*

By Molly Ball

November 17, 2014, 7:59 p.m. EST

[Subtitle:] Despite his best efforts, Maryland’s Martin O’Malley might be
the most ignored candidate of 2016.

Martin O’Malley ought to be a Democrat’s dream candidate. In two terms as
the governor of Maryland, he’s ushered in a sweeping liberal agenda that
includes gay marriage, gun control, an end to the death penalty, and
in-state college tuition for undocumented immigrants. He’s trim and
handsome; he plays in an Irish rock band; he even served as the basis for a
character on The Wire (sort of—more on that in a minute). He shows great
zeal for improving things both large and small: during a recent visit to
the Light House, a homelessness-prevention center in Annapolis that
provides job training and other assistance, he said that he had, as
governor, taken the state’s traditional Day to Serve and made it 17 days
long. “I really enjoy progress, and making progress, and my joy comes from
understanding that it happens one life at a time,” he told me, reflecting
on the center’s work.

O’Malley, who is 51, has not been shy about flirting with a presidential
run. “It’s something I’m seriously considering,” he said, adding that he
expected to make up his mind by the end of the year. No other Democrat has
been as aggressive in promoting him- or herself nationally: In the past
year and a half, O’Malley has appeared in 23 states other than his own to
speak to local Democrats or raise funds for candidates, with a conspicuous
number of appearances in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. He has
served as the chair of his party’s association of governors and operates in
close proximity to the East Coast centers of media and politics—all
characteristics shared by another, much higher-profile governor, New
Jersey’s Chris Christie.

But while Maryland’s governor looks perfectly presidential on paper,
Democratic voters outside the state have proved staunchly resistant to
forming an impression of him. This is not for lack of media attention. A
political press corps preemptively bored by the prospect of another airless
Hillary Clinton campaign has dutifully floated O’Malley as an alternative,
noting his hypothetical ability to run to Clinton’s left and his appeal as
a practical progressive—he’s more liberal than Clinton or New York Governor
Andrew Cuomo, but less of a firebrand than Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth
Warren. And yet he has fluctuated between 1 and 2 percent in recent polls
of prospective primary voters, languishing behind not only Clinton and Vice
President Joe Biden but also Warren and Cuomo. He’s even polling behind
Bernie Sanders, the socialist senator from Vermont. As far back as June
2013, a National Journal headline asked, “Is It Time to Take Martin
O’Malley Seriously?” Not yet, apparently. In September, Politico’s daily
“Playbook” newsletter, noting that O’Malley had already placed 11 staffers
in Iowa, mockingly headlined the news “A for Effort!”

O’Malley refuses to pout about his negligible public image. “My process
doesn’t involve polling; it involves listening,” he told me sunnily,
leaning back in his chair. We had moved to one of the Light House’s back
rooms, which smelled faintly of disinfectant. I wondered aloud whether it
might heighten O’Malley’s profile if he were to pick fights from time to
time, particularly with Clinton, whose every sneeze launches a thousand
cable-news segments. But O’Malley claimed he did not resent Clinton’s
prominence: “She’s an iconic figure, and someone who has so many
accomplishments in public service, that it doesn’t surprise me at all.”
Asked whether he had something to offer that Clinton did not, O’Malley
said, “I do.” I pressed him as to what that might be. Finally, after
praising Clinton and Biden, he said, “The thing I believe presents
something of value to my country, especially in these times, is my
experience as an executive, and as somebody that was able to bring people
together in order to get things done.”

In his travels around the country, O’Malley said, he had discovered that
people were looking for a new kind of leadership. It was this realization
that convinced him that the polls don’t matter. “History’s full of all
sorts of instances where candidates at various levels, whether mayor or
governor or president, have begun a race at 1 or 2 percent,” he said. He
wasn’t wrong: both Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were considered long shots
before beginning their primary campaigns, and Barack Obama trailed in early
primary polling. O’Malley emphasized that he had himself gone from single
digits to victory when he ran for mayor of Baltimore in 1999. Underdogs
have historically succeeded, O’Malley said, when “they knew what they were
about, they knew what they had to offer, and they offered it at a time when
the people most needed that way of leadership.”

O’Malley’s own trademark has been a data-based approach to just about
everything, starting with Baltimore’s crime epidemic, which was the focus
of his mayoral campaign. David Simon, the creator of HBO’s The Wire, was a
police reporter for The Baltimore Sun when O’Malley was on the city
council, and he has said that the character of Tommy Carcetti—the ambitious
white-ethnic councilman who rises to the mayoralty, and then the
governorship, based on manipulated crime-reduction statistics—is a
composite inspired partly by O’Malley. (Although O’Malley was similarly
accused of fudging crime stats, he denies it, and the allegation has never
been proved.)

For many years, O’Malley snapped at anyone who mentioned The Wire,
believing it showed his city in a bad light. “David came to Baltimore and
saw nothing but hopelessness, and he made a lot of money portraying it,” he
told me. “I came to Baltimore and saw tremendous opportunity and a real
good heart.” O’Malley said he has seen only “snippets” of the show, and he
doesn’t seem in any hurry to watch more, despite its continuing popularity.
But his anger at Simon has cooled: when the two men ran into each other on
an Amtrak train out of New York a few months ago, they had a beer and an
amicable conversation. O’Malley has even come to see a bright side to the
show’s cultural impact. “Now, as I go around the country, I never have to
tell anybody Baltimore was a tough place,” he said. “When people hear the
other part of the story, when people hear that Baltimore went on to achieve
the biggest reduction in violent crime of any city in America, I feel good.”

Having finished his tour of the Light House, the governor strode into the
kitchen, where a dozen trainees were learning culinary techniques. Stuffing
his tie into his shirt and throwing on an apron, he handed his phone to an
aide. As he and the trainees received instruction in peeling and chopping
tomatoes for a stew, he narrowed his blue-green eyes and adopted a chin-up,
mouth-open listening pose.

“I love kale,” O’Malley told the chef, Linda Vogler, a middle-aged woman
with blond bangs peeking out from a paper toque. “Kale’s the new superfood!”

“We’re learning quinoa next,” Vogler said.

“You’re going to teach what? Keen-wa?,” O’Malley asked, genuinely puzzled.
“What’s keen-wa?”

“It looks like birdseed,” she replied, hurrying on with the lesson. As the
class counted off the seconds it took to boil a tomato, O’Malley changed
their “One Mississippi” chant to “One Maryland! Two Maryland!”

Before long, though, the governor faded into the woodwork. As he carefully
sliced a tomato the way he’d been taught—fingers tucked into a fist for
safety, knife at a 45-degree angle—the other students resumed their
conversations. When the stew was finished, O’Malley suggested a “group
selfie.” He gathered the other pupils and directed one, Curtis Gardner, to
hold the phone as high in the air as he could. This is O’Malley’s secret to
great selfie-taking, a practice, as his Twitter feed attests, at which he
excels. “See how much younger we look?” he said to Gardner.

O’Malley may be long on boyish charm, but he can seem short on the kind of
gravitas that commands a room. During our interview, he began talking
excitedly about the War of 1812—one of his favorite topics—only to cut
himself off with a self-deprecating shrug, saying “I don’t want to keep
filibustering.” At the end of our conversation, he was already fretting
about how he’d come off: “As I think back, I was probably talking in
buzzwords rather than illustrations,” he said. He avoids soaring rhetoric,
instead casting his accomplishments in pragmatic and nonideological terms.
“I guess it’s easy for people to shorthand it as ‘This guy walks around
with a bunch of charts and graphs in his head’ or something,” he said. “And
I do! But behind each of those numbers, there’s a real human being.”

Under O’Malley, Maryland was ranked first nationwide in public-school
achievement by Education Week for five years in a row and twice designated
the top state for innovation and entrepreneurship by the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce. I couldn’t help but think that, given these achievements, it must
be a little galling to be treated as such an afterthought in the
presidential race. Wasn’t a successful two-term governor of a populous
state due more respect? O’Malley was having none of it. “People in our
country can become very famous overnight,” he pointed out. Besides, he went
on, laughing: “Why would anyone go into politics for respect? You don’t go
into politics for respect. You go into politics to get something done.”

*Washington Post blog: The Fix: “The ridiculousness of Hillary Clinton’s
expand-the-map strategy in 2016”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/11/17/the-ridiculousness-of-hillary-clintons-expand-the-map-strategy-in-2016/>*

By Chris Cillizza

November 17, 2014, 3:02 p.m. EST

Talking Points Memo's Dylan Scott interviewed Mitch Stewart, the former
battleground states director of President Obama's reelection campaign and
now a member of the Hillary Clinton campaign-in-waiting known as "Ready for
Hillary," about how the 2016 electoral map could be expanded in Democrats'
favor if the former secretary of state is, as expected, the party's
presidential nominee.

Stewart suggests two "buckets" of states that Clinton could make
competitive in 2016 that Obama, for a several reasons, couldn't in 2008 or
2012. The first bucket is Arkansas, Indiana and Missouri. The second
contains Arizona and Georgia.

The first bucket of states is ridiculous. The second is plausible -- but
almost certainly not in 2016. Let's take them in order.

Stewart's explanation for Clinton's heightened competitiveness in Arkansas,
Missouri and Indiana is that she can appeal to whites and, in particular,
white working-class voters and, even more particularly, white working-class
women voters in a way that Obama could not. (It's worth noting that the
Clinton people have made a similar argument about the potential
competitiveness of Kentucky.)

"Where I think Secretary Clinton has more appeal than any other Democrat
looking at running is that with white working-class voters, she does have a
connection," Stewart told Scott. "I think she's best positioned to open
those states." As evidence, Stewart cited Clinton's success in the 2008
primary process in states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Fair(ish). But remember that Clinton's performance in those primaries was
against an African American candidate named Barack Obama, not against a
Republican in a general election. And that coming close isn't the same
thing as winning. Yes, Clinton would almost certainly do better with white
working-class voters than Obama did. But, in some of the states that
Stewart puts in that first bucket, that's a pretty low bar.

Arkansas is a good example. It's easy to assume -- and the Clintons almost
certainly are assuming -- that the former first couple of Arkansas have a
special connection to the Natural State. After all, Bill Clinton spent
years as the state's governor and used it as a launching pad for his
presidential bid in 1992.

That was a very long time ago. And even in the past six years, Arkansas has
moved heavily away from Democrats at the federal level. In 2008, both U.S.
senators from Arkansas were Democrats, as were three of its four House
members. Following the 2014 elections, all six are Republicans. ALL SIX.
President Obama won just 37 percent of the vote in the state in the 2012
general election after watching someone named John Wolfe win 42 percent of
the vote in the Democratic presidential primary against him.

Would Hillary Clinton do better than that? Yes. But the idea that the
Arkansas that helped push Bill Clinton into the national spotlight has
anything in common, politically speaking, with the Arkansas of 2014 is a
fallacy. As for the idea that Obama's race was the fundamental reason for
his poor showing among white working-class voters, here are two words for
you: Mark Pryor. As in, the two term incumbent senator -- and son of a
former governor and senator in the state -- who just lost badly in his bid
for reelection. Pryor took just 31 percent among white voters and won an
even more meager 29 percent among whites without a college education. (The
exit poll didn't break down income level by race.)

Missouri and Indiana are slightly -- emphasis on slightly -- less clear-cut
as such huge reaches when it comes to Clinton's presidential prospects.
Obama's successes in both states in 2008 -- he won Indiana and lost
Missouri by less than 4,000 votes -- would seem to provide significant
encouragement for the Clinton forces. But subsequent election results in
both states make 2008 look far more like the exception than the rule for
Democrats.

In 2012, Obama lost Missouri and Indiana by 10 points each. And the
successes Democrats have had winning federal races in recent years in both
states are, in a word, anomalous. In 2012, Republicans nominated two
disastrously poor candidates in Richard Mourdock and Todd Akin; in so
doing, they allowed Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) and Claire McCaskill
(D-Mo.), respectively, to be elected. Republicans seem unlikely to follow
that blueprint come 2016, meaning that Clinton's ability to harvest lots
and lots of Republican-leaning voters will be greatly reduced. (In Indiana,
Republicans control eight of the 11 seats in Congress; in Missouri, it's
seven out of 10.)

Stewart's second bucket makes more sense -- although he may be getting a
little ahead of himself, demographically speaking. In that bucket sit
Arizona and Georgia, two states where the growth of the Hispanic vote --
and Democrats' continued dominance among that group -- is in the process of
making both states much more competitive. In Georgia, George W. Bush won 58
percent of the vote in his 2004 reelection race, but four years later John
McCain won less than 53 percent in the state. In 2012, Mitt Romney won 53
percent of the vote. Arizona's trajectory is similar. A decade ago, Bush
won it with 55 percent. In 2008, McCain, the home-state senator, got only
54 percent; Romney got that same 54 percent in 2012.

That's the right trajectory for Democrats. But Georgia in 2014 provides a
reminder of why the demographics just aren't there yet for Democrats to
win. Democrats recruited their best possible candidate -- Michelle Nunn --
for the seat of retiring Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R).  Many Democrats (and
neutral observers) expected Nunn, at a minimum, to keep Republican David
Perdue under 50 percent and force a Jan. 6 runoff. Perdue won 53 percent,
an eight-point victory margin.

While Nunn swamped Perdue among black voters (92 percent to 8 percent) and
won easily among Hispanics (57 percent to 42 percent), he absolutely
destroyed her among white voters (74 percent to 23 percent). That's
instructive. For someone like Clinton (or any Democrat) to win statewide in
Georgia, she/he would need to equal Nunn's margin among black voters while
outperforming Nunn significantly among Hispanics and whites. Possible. But
not likely -- at least in 2016. By 2020 (or 2024) -- maybe.

Here's the thing about Stewart's claims of map expansion: Clinton doesn't
really need to do it. Remember that Obama won in 2008 with 365 electoral
votes and in 2012 with 322 -- both comfortably above the 270 required to
claim the presidency. As I've written before, the Democratic Party has the
sort of built-in electoral college edge at the moment -- and likely in 2016
-- that Republicans enjoyed through the 1980s. With California, Illinois,
New York and, very likely, Pennsylvania going to Democrats in 2016, Clinton
would start with 124 electoral votes. Compare that to the Republican
nominee whose only big state -- 20+ electoral votes -- already in the bag
is Texas with its 38.

Is it possible that a massively well-funded Clinton campaign makes a play
at Arkansas -- for old time's sake -- in 2016? Sure -- especially since the
state's media markets make it a relatively cheap risk. But spending
significant money in any of the states in Stewart's first bucket seems like
wasting money that could be better used in Ohio and Florida. Spending money
on the states in the second bucket makes some sense but more as a long term
investment, not a 2016 play.

The 2016 map will favor Clinton (or any Democrat) -- even if she does
nothing between now and then. She'd be better off focusing on re-creating
Obama's 2012 map rather than trying to reinvent it.

*Salon: “Ready for the inevitable? Why the hubris of Hillary Clinton’s
backers should make Dems nervous”
<http://www.salon.com/2014/11/17/ready_for_the_inevitable_why_the_hubris_of_hillary_clintons_backers_should_make_dems_nervous/>*

By Elias Isquith

November 17, 2014, 3:42 p.m. EST

[Subtitle:] If Clinton is trying to avoid the "inevitability trap" that
doomed her in '08, this is not the way to do it”

As we saw in this Monday morning’s disturbing and all too predictable CNN
report on the clever tricks Republican operatives used to sidestep laws
barring them from working with super PACs, there’s still plenty about what
happened during the 2014 midterms that we don’t know. But looking forward
(not backwards) has become all the rage in American politics in recent
years, and thus is the conversation moving briskly ahead to 2016 and the
question of whether President Hillary Clinton is not “if” but “when.”

The favored phrase is “inevitability,” and the consensus seems to be that,
for Hillary Clinton, appearing inevitable is a good thing only to a point.
As the New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza put it in his recent novella on the crypto
Clinton campaign, inevitability can be a “trap,” one that locks its victims
into the mold of representing the establishment. I’m skeptical of the idea
that it was a sense of inevitability, rather than frustration with her
support for the invasion of Iraq, that undid Clinton in 2008. But no less
an expert on that campaign than David Axelrod has recently echoed Lizza’s
theme, warning his former rival to escape inevitability’s “cocoon.”

If that’s the goal, though, then partisan Democrats thinking about the next
presidential election should find another report from Monday, this time
from Talking Points Memo, even more worrisome than CNN’s. Because while the
CNN piece shows how the electoral game has been rigged even more in the
wealthy’s favor, making nice with the 1 percent has never been an issue for
Hillary Clinton. The TPM report, on the other hand, features Clinton
advisors bragging about how they hope to “expand Obama’s electoral map” in
2016 by bringing working-class white women into the fold. Considering she
hasn’t even announced her campaign yet, the piece suggest that if the
inevitability trap is real, the Clinton team is once again heading straight
for it.

“Where I think Secretary Clinton has more appeal than any other Democrat
looking at running is that with white working-class voters, she does have a
connection,” Mitch Stewart, who ran the battleground operation for
President Obama’s 2012 campaign and is an advisor to the Ready For Hillary
“grassroots” group, told TPM’s Dylan Scott. “I think she’s best positioned
to open those states,” he added, referring to Arkansas, Indiana, Missouri
(and, to a lesser extent, Arizona and Georgia). Citing Clinton’s dominant
performance among working-class whites in the 2008 primary contests in Ohio
and Pennsylvania as proof of her popular status among these so-called beer
track whites.

There’s no doubting that the electoral route the Clinton folks are calling
the “new Clinton map” looks, to Democratic eyes, mighty nice. There’s all
that blue on the coasts and in the upper midwest we associated with Obama,
but there are also little incursions of blue into traditionally red
territory, like the upper South and the Southwest. For anyone inclined to
consider the Republican Party to essentially be the party of Dixie and the
vast swathe of the country’s interior in which relatively few people live,
it’s a powerful little picture of confirmation bias. Here it is, from TPM,
with the states won by McCain and/or Romney that are supposedly in-play if
Clinton runs shaded in blue:

[MAP]

But if you back up a second and look twice at the argument Stewart and
those of a similar bent are making, that map starts to look a lot more like
a mirage than a model.

There are a few key tells in particular. For one, Arkansas has moved way to
the right since the ’90s, with the recent annihilation of Sen. Mark Pryor,
who all but renamed himself “Clinton” in his failed reelection campaign,
standing as the most recent proof. For another, the baseline map that the
Clinton people use throughout isn’t the one that secured the president’s
reelection in 2012, after a grueling and in many ways generic campaign.
Rather, they’re using the one that first propelled Obama into the White
House in 2008, after a campaign that was anything but ordinary — one that
ended with a historic Democratic wave and the most decisive overall win by
a presidential candidate since 1988. Bluntly put, the Democrats’ pickup of
Indiana and Missouri in ’08 was a fluke, which was made obvious by the ease
with which the GOP retook the states in 2012. (And Stewart’s argument that
Indiana could be won because corporate lobbyist Evan Bayh loves Clinton is
not worthy of a response.)

The other problem can be seen here, with my emphasis added: According to
Stewart, “Clinton has a record of appealing to white working-class voters —
especially women — and they could be enough when paired with the Obama
coalition to pull out a win.” If this statement was made a month ago, I
might look at it a bit askance, but I wouldn’t find it to be particularly
suspect. But coming as it does just weeks after a midterm election that
showed Democrats not only failing to motivate their voters to vote but
losing support among key constituencies like Latino- and Asian-Americans,
the quick assumption that the Obama coalition can be so easily rekindled is
in serious need of interrogation. All the more so if we accept the premise
that Clinton will appeal further to the kind of working-class whites who
hate Obama, in no small part because of how they perceive his coalition
(i.e., the people from whom we must “take our country back”).

But look, even if we stipulate all this and for the sake of argument say
that Clinton 2016 could be the best of Obama ’08 combined with the best of
Clinton ’96, this kind of talk at this early of a date is exactly what the
Clinton people should not be doing. Not only does it make Clinton sound
complacent about earning the support of the Democratic rank-and-file,
rather than simply inheriting it, but it signals that the people at the top
of the Democratic Party have learned little from the drubbings in ’10 and
’14, and still hold the self-deluding and buck-passing view that there’s
nothing really wrong with the Democratic Party’s approach to policy and
governance that a better GOTV operation can’t fix. I continue to agree with
the conventional wisdom that holds Clinton to be the near-certain
Democratic nominee, but if she runs a general election campaign infused
with this kind of glib cynicism, she’s going to find the “inevitable” label
to be more curse than gift. Again.

*Politico Magazine: Al From: “A Blueprint for Democratic Victory”
<http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/11/a-blueprint-for-democratic-victory-112944.html#.VGsto_ldWSo>*

By Al From

November 16, 2014

Elections are about the future, not the past, and political parties, too
often, fight the last election rather than the next one. Yet sometimes
history offers important lessons for the future.

In the 1980s, Democrats suffered the worst shellackings any party has ever
suffered in three consecutive presidential elections. The primary reason:
Our message was wrong. We were trying to sell a product the American people
did not want to buy. On the economy, for example, Democrats offered
fairness; most Americans wanted the opportunity to get ahead.

As a result, too many voters believed they could not trust Democrats to
offer them hope and to further their economic interests. No amount of
money, technology, campaign strategy or tactics could reverse our losses.
We needed new ideas. We needed to change our message.

That’s exactly what President Bill Clinton and the New Democrats did. We
offered new ideas for growing the economy and giving hard-working Americans
the tools they needed to get ahead. Those ideas and our message of
opportunity for all fueled our party’s political comeback. And since
Clinton’s victory in 1992, Democrats have won the popular vote in five of
the past six presidential elections.

After last week’s senatorial and gubernatorial elections, it’s time for the
Democrats to think about retooling our message once again.

Today’s Democratic Party has not fallen to the depths of the 1980s. But we
need to face up to the breadth of our losses. Not only did the Republicans
win control of the Senate, they also elected more House members than any
time since the 1940s and won key governorships in Democratic strongholds of
Massachusetts, Maryland and Illinois. They now control 31 statehouses and
more than two-thirds of state legislative chambers across the country.

And there are warning signs that we cannot afford to ignore as we look
ahead to 2016. On the two issues of most concern to the American people —
the economy and their dissatisfaction with government — our message did not
connect and voters overwhelmingly favored the Republicans.

Our principal strategy this year was a turnout strategy — to “fire up the
base” and turn out groups of voters — young millennials, African-Americans,
Latinos, Asians and women — who tend to vote Democratic. That strategy
worked spectacularly in 2008 and 2012 with Barack Obama at the top of the
ticket. Much of our campaign message was part of that strategy, directed at
those Democratic constituencies. But this year, with the president not on
the ballot and his approval ratings down, turnout favored the Republicans.

Many Democrats believe that because in presidential years, core Democratic
constituencies are likely to make up a higher percentage of the electorate
than in midterm elections, we’ll have a clear demographic advantage in 2016
that will virtually assure victory. I’m skeptical. Without Obama leading
the ticket, a turnout strategy alone may not be enough. If the Republicans
were to make inroads into the Latino vote — as George W. Bush did in 2004 —
our demographic advantage could dissipate quickly.

And there’s no guarantee that African-Americans, Latinos, younger voters
and women will continue to vote Democratic if we don’t give them a reason
to do so. This year Asians, for example, who voted for Obama by 47 points
in 2012, split their votes evenly between Republican and Democratic
candidates for the House. We need to earn the votes of our core
constituencies, and the best way to do that — and to expand our coalition
beyond our base at the same time — is with a retooled message that
addresses the main issues facing the country.

The cornerstones of our retooled message must be economic growth and
government reform.

The animating principle of our party since the days of Andrew Jackson has
been opportunity for all, and a growing economy is the prerequisite for
expanding opportunity. At its best, the Democratic Party is the party of
upward mobility. In 2016, our first imperative should be to revive the
American dream by fostering broad-based economic growth led by a robust
private sector, generating high-skill, high-wage jobs and promoting an
agenda to equip every American with the opportunities and skills that he or
she needs to get ahead.

Democrats like to talk about a “populist” agenda that rails against the
wealthy and supports the middle class. This year, the centerpiece of that
agenda was raising the minimum wage. But tapping their anger against the 1
percent doesn’t engender hope or help middle-class Americans get ahead.
While increasing the minimum wage is extremely popular — and we should
raise it — I doubt many middle-class workers aspire to a minimum-wage job.
We need an economic growth and upward-mobility agenda that offers
middle-class families hope that their future will be better than the recent
past.

What would such an agenda look like? It could start with a long-term
debt-reduction plan to get our fiscal house in order, creating a sound
environment for growth. It would include fundamental tax reform that
follows a simple policy of cut and invest: We will invest in activities
that help the whole economy grow and eliminate subsidies that go to
individual industries, particularly subsidies to prop up dying industries.

It would also include a number of other ideas like modernizing
entitlements, simplifying the regulatory maze, reforming education from
kindergarten through college, instituting a workable system of lifelong
learning, rebuilding our infrastructure, expanding trade and increasing the
earned income tax credit so that no one in America who works full-time,
year-round to support a family should be poor.

Beyond that, if I had my druthers, it would eliminate the payroll tax — a
tax on work, essentially — and replace it with a carbon tax on polluters.
No single action we could take would create more jobs than cutting the tax
on work and lowering payroll costs significantly for employers. Replacing
the payroll tax with a green tax would be an effective market-oriented way
to improve the environment by putting a real cost on polluting.

Democrats believe government can and should play a positive role in our
national life. Unlike the Republicans, we don’t believe government is an
alien institution. It is the agent of our collective will and our
instrument for helping Americans help themselves and each other. That’s why
it’s incumbent upon us to constantly reform and modernize government. When
voters lose confidence in government’s ability to work for them — as they
did last year with the debacle of the federal and state health care
exchanges — they tend to vote Republican. A government that doesn’t work
undermines Democratic goals. Reinventing government is essential to
achieving them.

A year ago, I wrote “The New Democrats and the Return to Power” to tell the
story of how Bill Clinton and the Democratic Leadership Council led the
resurrection of the Democratic Party after three consecutive landslide
losses in presidential elections in the 1980s. I thought I was writing a
history book. It turns out I was suggesting a blueprint for the future.

*Washington Post blog: The Fix: “Clinton vs. de Blasio: A primary so crazy
we simply must talk about it”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/11/17/clinton-vs-de-blasio-a-primary-so-crazy-we-simply-must-talk-about-it/>*

By Aaron Blake

November 17, 2014, 2:12 p.m. EST

And you thought we here in the media were desperate for a competitive 2016
Democratic presidential primary.

Well, here's New York Republican Party Chairman Ed Cox (reportedly)
actually predicting that New York Mayor Bill de Blasio will challenge
Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination in 2016 — and even win.

Here's the New York Post's Frederic U. Dicker:

“Cox, citing information provided by a prominent ‘Democratic lobbyist,’’
told friends and associates in recent days that freshman Mayor de Blasio’s
effort to promote himself as the leader of the ‘urban progressive centers
of the nation’’ is part of a well-oiled plan to prepare for a presidential
run.

“‘It’s like Barack Obama; he was a brand-new freshman senator, and he ran
for president and won. I think de Blasio is going to do it,’’ Cox said at a
recent gathering, a source told The Post.”

A few problems:

1. De Blasio was Clinton's campaign manager in her 2000 Senate campaign.

2. He has been in office less than a year.

3. He was sworn in by Bill Clinton in January, and the two are pretty
buddy-buddy.

4. New York mayor is a terrible launching pad for running for president
(see: Giuliani, Rudolph) or even building a national profile (see:
Bloomberg, Michael). If de Blasio had any designs on such a thing — and so
soon — he would have been much better off running for Senate, governor or
basically anything except mayor.

5. He's not doing so well back home, with an August poll from Quinnipiac
University showing his approval rating (35 percent) and disapproval rating
(34 percent) about even.

6. It makes no sense.

*The New Republic: “History Shows That Hillary Clinton Is Unlikely to Win
in 2016”
<http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120303/democrats-hillary-clinton-could-lose-2016-presidential-election>*

By John B. Judis

November 17, 2014

Republicans did well in the midterm elections, but there is widespread
agreement that they face a demographic disadvantage in 2016 presidential
election, when many of the predominately Democratic younger and minority
voters, who stayed home in 2014, will return to the polls. It’s true that
an expected increase in turnout will benefit the Democrats, but may not be
enough to elect another Democratic president.

The chief obstacle that any Democratic nominee will face is public
resistance to installing a president from the same party in the White House
for three terms in a row. If you look at the presidents since World War II,
when the same party occupied the White House for two terms in a row, that
party’s candidate lost in the next election six out of seven times.

The one exception was George H.W. Bush's 1988 victory after two terms of
Ronald Reagan, but Bush, who was seventeen points behind Democratic nominee
Michael Dukakis at the Republican convention, was only able to win because
his campaign manager Lee Atwater ran a brilliant campaign against an
extraordinarily weak opponent. (Democrats might also insist that Al Gore
really won in 2000, but even if he had, he would have done so very narrowly
with unemployment at 4.0 percent.)

There are three reasons why the three-term obstacle has prevailed. The
first and most obvious has been because the incumbent has become unpopular
during his second term, and his unpopularity has carried over to the
nominee. That was certainly the case with Harry Truman and Adlai Stevenson
in 1952, Lyndon Johnson and Hubert Humphrey in 1968, Gerald Ford (who had
succeeded Richard Nixon) in 1976, and George W. Bush and John McCain in
2008.

The second reason has to do with an accumulation over eight years of small
or medium-sized grievances that, while not affecting the incumbent’s
overall popularity, still weighed down the candidate who hoped to succeed
him. Dwight Eisenhower remained highly popular in 1960, but some voters
worried about repeated recessions during his presidency, or about his
support for school integration; Bill Clinton remained popular, and
unemployment low, in 2000, but his second term had been marred by the
Monica Lewinsky scandal, and coal-state voters worried about Democrats’
support for Kyoto while white Southern voters worried about the
administration’s support for African American causes.

The third reason has to do with the voters’ blaming party gridlock between
the president and congress partly on the president and his party. That was
a factor in 1960—James McGregor Burns was inspired to write The Deadlock of
Democracy by the Eisenhower years—and it was also a factor in the 2000
elections.

In the 2016 election, not just one, but all three of these factors will be
in play and will jeopardize the Democratic nominee. Obama and his
administration are likely to remain unpopular among voters. There is
already an accretion of grievances among Obama and the Democrats that will
carry over to the nominee. These include the Affordable Care Act, which,
whatever benefits it has brought to many Americans, has alienated many
senior citizens (who see the bill as undermining Medicare), small business
owners and employees, and union leaders and workers whose benefits will now
be taxed. Add to these the grievances around the administration’s stands on
coal, immigration, guns, and civil rights, including most recently its
support for the protestors in Ferguson.

There are, of course, many voters who would vote for a Republican
regardless of who had been in office, but there are many voters in the
middle (especially in presidential years) whose vote, or failure to vote at
all, will be swayed by a particular grievance. That certainly hurt Al Gore
in 2000, McCain in 2008, and could hurt the Democratic nominee in 2016.
It’s a very rough measure, but you can look at the shift in the independent
vote in 1960, 1968, 1976, 2000, and 2008 to see how the accretion of
grievances can sway voters in the middle.

There are, of course, mitigating factors that could help a Democrat to
succeed in 2016. Demography and turnout are important, although not
decisive. (A Democrat still has to win over 40 percent of the white vote to
succeed, as well as nearly 70 percent of the Hispanic vote.) The quality of
the candidate is also important. If the opposition party nominates
candidates who are ineffective, as Dukakis was, or are incapable of moving
to the center (either temperamentally or because of party pressures), then
the candidate of the party in the White House can win. Equally, if the
party in the White House nominates someone who is greatly admired (as
Herbert Hoover was in 1928), or runs a terrific campaign (as Bush-Atwater
did in 1988), they can win.

Can the Democrats overcome the third-term hitch in 2016? If the nominee is
Hillary Clinton, as now appears likely, she should be able to command
significant support among women and minorities—two key Democratic
constituencies. Her experience gives her credibility as a candidate (the
dynastic factor is primarily of interest to the press). And she is not
positioned too far to the left. But in her 2008 run, neither she nor her
campaign managers displayed the political skill of the last presidential
victors.  And she will have difficulty dissociating herself from the
voters’ disapproval of Obama’s administration.

The Democrats could benefit if the Republicans nominate a relatively
inexperienced right-winger or someone who possesses the temperament of a
high school football coach rather than a president. But in the last
elections, they opted for the more centrist contenders who had some
credibility as presidential candidates. If they opt for an experienced
centrist in 2016—Florida’s Jeb Bush is the obvious example—and if the
party’s right wing doesn’t demand he toe the line, they could stand a good
chance of reclaiming the White House and of confirming Americans’
reluctance to keeping the same party in the White House three terms in a
row.

*Calendar:*

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

·  November 19  – New York, NY: Sec. Clinton is honored by the National
Breast Cancer Coalition (Breast Cancer Deadline
<http://www.breastcancerdeadline2020.org/donate/fundraising-events/2014-NY-Gala-Evite.html>
)

·  November 21  – New York, NY: Sec. Clinton presides over meeting of the
Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves (Bloomberg
<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2014-11-02/clinton-aides-resist-calls-to-jump-early-into-2016-race>
)

·  November 21  – New York, NY: Sec. Clinton is honored by the New York
Historical Society (Bloomberg
<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2014-11-02/clinton-aides-resist-calls-to-jump-early-into-2016-race>
)

·  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/>)

·  December 16 – New York, NY: Sec. Clinton honored by Robert F. Kennedy
Center for Justice and Human Rights (Politico
<http://www.politico.com/story/2014/11/hillary-clinton-ripple-of-hope-award-112478.html>
)