Subject: Correct The Record Thursday November 20, 2014 Afternoon Roundup
From: Burns Strider <[email-masked]>
To: CTRFriendsFamily <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2014 14:31:58 -0500
List-Id: <CTRFriendsFamily.americanbridge.org>

*​**Correct The Record Thursday November 20, 2014 Afternoon Roundup:*

*Tweets:*

*Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: .@HillaryClinton
<https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton> visited more countries than any other
Secretary of State #HRC365 <https://twitter.com/hashtag/HRC365?src=hash>
http://map.correctrecord.org/  <http://t.co/enGHrjXSoH>[11/19/14, 5:01 p.m.
EST <https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/535191092052779008>]

*Headlines:*

*MSNBC: “Hillary Clinton’s supporters meet in New York”
<http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/hillary-clintons-shadow-campaign-meets-plot-run>*

“Top officials and donors likely to be involved in a potential Hillary
Clinton presidential run will gather in New York City Friday for a meeting
of the pro-Clinton super PAC Ready for Hillary.”

*New York Daily News: “Hillary, Chelsea help nearly triple Clinton
Foundation donations”
<http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/hillary-chelsea-double-clinton-foundation-donations-article-1.2017544>*

[Subtitle:] “After the William J. Clinton Foundation changed its name to
the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, millions more dollars
started pouring in.”

*Salon: “Hillary Clinton draws her first 2016 challenger”
<http://www.salon.com/2014/11/20/hillary_clinton_draws_her_first_2016_challenger/>*

“Elizabeth Warren he is not.”

*Washington Post blog: The Fix: “Jim Webb’s potential 2016 candidacy will
not keep Hillary up at night”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/11/20/jim-webbs-potential-2016-candidacy-will-not-keep-hillary-up-at-night/>*

“In 2016, it's not clear that his national security credentials will seem
similarly useful, especially if he's going up against a former secretary of
state named Hillary Clinton.”

*U.S. News & World Report blog: The Run 2016: “What Would Hillary Do?"
<http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/run-2016/2014/11/20/hillary-clintons-potential-platform-for-a-presidential-run>*

“There are almost as many ideas floating around for Clinton to consider as
there are people offering them up, and most of them are interconnected.
Here’s a look at her potential platform.”

*Salon: “EXCLUSIVE: Rand Paul sounds off to Salon on race, 2016, Hillary
and Republicans”
<http://www.salon.com/2014/11/20/exclusive_rand_paul_sounds_off_to_salon_on_race_2016_hillary_and_republicans/>*

Sen. Rand Paul: “You know, I think there’s been a history in, probably in
both parties, of trying to go for what’s safe, you know. So, on the
Democrat side you could make the same argument for Hillary Clinton. You may
not get a lot of new ideas, you may not get a lot of innovation, you may
get really a rehashing of old things, old policies, but she’ll be the safe
bet, she’s well-known, she has universal name recognition.”

*Articles:*

*MSNBC: “Hillary Clinton’s supporters meet in New York”
<http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/hillary-clintons-shadow-campaign-meets-plot-run>*

By Alex Seitz-Wald

November 19, 2014, 11:04 p.m. EST

Top officials and donors likely to be involved in a potential Hillary
Clinton presidential run will gather in New York City Friday for a meeting
of the pro-Clinton super PAC Ready for Hillary.

The group’s national finance council will meet behind closed doors at a
Times Square hotel all day for a program that will feature panels of top
Democratic strategists, along with speeches from elected officials who are
supporting the former secretary of state. In addition to former Clinton
aides like Craig Smith and Harold Ickies, and Obama field guru Mitch
Stewart — all of whom have already been deeply involved with Ready for
Hillary — the meeting will also feature other strategists who might be
involved in an official campaign.

That includes outgoing Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Executive
Director Guy Cecil, California Democratic strategist Ace Smith, Emily’s
List President Stephanie Schriock, and former Clinton aide and msnbc host
Karen Finney. Paul Begala and James Carville, the dynamic duo who worked on
Bill Clinton’s 1992  presidential campaign, will also be on hand.

Ready for Hillary, which started in January of 2013, has been working to
build a list of grassroots supporters and gather endorsements of Clinton.

Other super PACs backing Hillary Clinton will also be represented. David
Brock, who founded the pro-Clinton rapid response group Correct the Record
will speak at the event. Priorities USA, the high-dollar super PAC that ran
devastating ads against Mitt Romney, has now pledged support for Clinton.
The group will be represented at Friday’s gathering by executive director
Buffy Wicks and fundraiser Jonathan Mantz.

Chris Lehane, a Clinton White House aide who now advises Democratic
mega-donor Tom Steyer will participate in a panel as well. Also Obama
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, a former governor of the key early
presidential state of Iowam will speak about why he’s “ready for Hillary.”

The meeting will also include dozens of major donors to the super PAC.

While the super PAC is likely to wind down its operations soon, the people
present Friday will likely all be involved in a Clinton presidential run,
thus the meeting may help lay some framework for a coming campaign.

*New York Daily News: “Hillary, Chelsea help nearly triple Clinton
Foundation donations”
<http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/hillary-chelsea-double-clinton-foundation-donations-article-1.2017544>*

By Leslie Larson

November 20, 2014, 11:23 a.m. EST

[Subtitle:] After the William J. Clinton Foundation changed its name to the
Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, millions more dollars started
pouring in.

Hillary and Chelsea Clinton are the family’s million dollar babies.

Changing the name of the William J. Clinton Foundation to the Bill, Hillary
and Chelsea Clinton Foundation in 2013 helped boost donations by $93
million.

Tax documents for the non-profit show that combined contributions and
grants grew from $51.5 million in 2012 to $144.4 million in 2013, according
to a review by The Associated Press.

Itemizations for the 2013 records show that nine donors gave a total of $64
million — including four who each gave $9.9 million or more. One person
donated $15 million. The names of all nine were blacked out on the IRS
form; tax-exempt groups don't have to list their donors.

The Clinton Foundation does reveal who gives it money but not by specific
amounts. According to data from the foundation website, 12 of last year's
donors were among groups and individuals who have given $5 million or more
since 1997.

The foundation's chief financial officer, Andrew Kessel, credited the money
spike to the foundation’s merger with Bill Clinton’s other charitable
project, the Clinton Global Initiative.

"We are incredibly proud of our work helping people live their best life
stories," he said. "With an even stronger financial situation in 2013, the
Clinton Foundation is positioned to broaden its impact across the globe."

*Salon: “Hillary Clinton draws her first 2016 challenger”
<http://www.salon.com/2014/11/20/hillary_clinton_draws_her_first_2016_challenger/>*

By Luke Brinker

November 20, 2014, 9:45 a.m. EST

[Subtitle:] Former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb announces presidential
exploratory committee

Former Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia on Thursday announced that he’s forming a
presidential exploratory committee, becoming the first prominent Democrat
to make a formal foray into the 2016 contest.

Webb, a Marine combat veteran who served as President Ronald Reagan’s Navy
secretary, left the Republican Party in disgust over the Iraq War. Narrowly
defeating GOP Sen. George Allen in 2006, Webb arrived in the Senate as a
leading Democratic voice on foreign policy and national security issues.
But frustrated with the slow pace of Senate life, Webb left the chamber
after just a single term, although he vowed to remain involved in the
national debate.

At the time, few expected that a Webb presidential bid lay in store, but
the former senator believes that his appeal to white, working class voters
and his foreign policy expertise offer him unique advantages in a field
likely to include former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who’s
seen as the prohibitive Democratic frontrunner. Tapping into progressive
angst that Clinton opts for cautious centrism over bold leadership, Webb
has indicated that he’ll pitch himself as a leader who rejects small-bore
politics.

“There is a big tendency among a lot of Democratic leaders to feed some raw
meat to the public on smaller issues that excite them, like the minimum
wage, but don’t really address the larger problem,” Webb recently told The
New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza. “A lot of the Democratic leaders who don’t want to
scare away their financial supporters will say we’re going to raise the
minimum wage, we’re going do these little things, when in reality we need
to say we’re going to fundamentally change the tax code so that you will
believe our system is fair.”

Similarly, in his exploratory committee announcement, Webb said, “A strong
majority of Americans agree that we are at a serious crossroads. In my view
the solutions are not simply political, but those of leadership. I learned
long ago on the battlefields of Vietnam that in a crisis, there is no
substitute for clear-eyed leadership.”

“We need bold leadership that can tap into this talent, for the good of the
country. We need people who will put the well-being of all of our citizens
ahead of any special interest group, and who understand how to manage our
complex federal system of government,” he added.

In accordance with his effort to portray himself as a bold leader and
policy innovator, Webb said that he was ahead of the curve on income
inequality, an issue that has galvanized the progressive base of the
Democratic Party; foreign policy; and criminal justice reform.

“In 2007, I gave the response to President Bush’s State of the Union
address. I put economic fairness for our working people and small business
owners at the front of my response, noting the immense and ever-growing
disparities in income between corporate executives and those who do the
hard work. When I graduated from college the average corporate CEO made
twenty times what his workers made,” Webb said. “Today that number is
greater than 300 times. The inequalities between top and bottom in our
country are greater than at any time in the last hundred years. And the
disparities between those at the very top and the rest of our society have
only grown larger since the economic crash of late 2008 and early 2009.”

In addition, Webb noted that he advocated a greater role for Asia in U.S.
foreign policy well before the Obama administration, with Clinton as
secretary of state, announced its much-ballyhooed “pivot to Asia.”

Notably, Webb offered a not-so-thinly-veiled jib at Clinton, whose election
many fear would entrench dynastic politics in the U.S.

“Our Constitution established a government not to protect the dominance of
an aristocratic elite, but under the principle that there should be no
permanent aristocracy, that every single American should have equal
protection under the law, and a fair opportunity to achieve at the very
highest levels while at the same time reducing ill-considered foreign
ventures that have drained trillions from our economy and in some cases
brought instability instead of deterrence,” Webb said.

Among those “ill-considered foreign ventures” Webb opposes is the U.S.
intervention in Libya, which Clinton enthusiastically backed during her
State Department tenure. Speaking of Syria and Libya with Lizza, Webb said,
“I was saying in hearings at the time, What is going to replace it? What is
going to replace the Assad regime? These are tribal countries. Where are
all these weapons systems that Qaddafi had? Probably in Syria. Can you get
to the airport at Tripoli today? Probably not. It was an enormous
destabilizing impact with the Arab Spring.”

While Webb will position himself to Clinton’s left, he has engendered
suspicion among many liberals throughout his career. In 2008, when Webb was
reportedly under consideration to serve as then-Sen. Barack Obama’s running
mate, The New Republic’s Richard Just assailed Webb’s worldview as
“fundamentally illiberal” and “downright creepy,” citing Webb’s
chest-thumping Scots-Irish nationalism, past opposition to women serving in
combat (expressed in an article titled “Women Can’t Fight”), and his
apologism for the Confederacy.

Elizabeth Warren he is not.

*Washington Post blog: The Fix: “Jim Webb’s potential 2016 candidacy will
not keep Hillary up at night”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/11/20/jim-webbs-potential-2016-candidacy-will-not-keep-hillary-up-at-night/>*

By Philip Bump

November 20, 2014, 10:03 a.m. EST

The on-paper version of former Virginia senator Jim Webb checks a lot of
the boxes on the "Does this person look presidential?" checklist (available
by the metric ton at any major news outlet). A decorated Vietnam veteran
and secretary of the Navy under Ronald Reagan, Webb, as a Democrat,
unseated an incumbent Republican senator in the swing state of Virginia.
And he has a good head of hair and a charming touch of drawl in his voice
as he announces his candidacy and pitches a return to the political center.

"Is it possible," he asks, "that our next President could actually lay out
a vision for the country, and create an environment where leaders from both
parties and from all philosophies would feel compelled to work together for
the good of the country, despite all of the money and political pressure
that now demands they disagree?" His answer, you will be surprised to
learn, is: Yes.

Webb's got some bona fides on a "centrist" pitch. When he was in the
Senate, according to analysis from GovTrack.us, he was among the Democrats
furthest to the right ideologically in his Congress. The Democratic Party's
newly embraced panic over the votes of working-class whites is a drum Webb
began beating in 2010, as Bloomberg's Dave Weigel noted on Thursday.

But Webb is also much more inexperienced in electoral politics than you
might think. All of the references above to his being a former senator skip
over the fact that he served one term, from 2006 to 2012, choosing not to
run again. And when he won in 2006, it was by the skin of his teeth; or,
perhaps more accurately, by someone else's skin entirely. Sen. George
Allen's weird reference to a Democratic tracker, who was an Indian
American, was one of the first scandals to go Internet-video-viral. And yet
Webb still only barely beat Allen (R-Va.), by just over 9,000 votes out of
2.3 million cast -- in 2006, a strong Democratic wave election. Democrats
won the House by an eight-percentage-point margin. Webb couldn't manage a
one-point margin against the "macaca" guy.

What's more, Webb actually underperformed with the constituencies that he
was tut-tutting about in 2010, relative to the national totals. He won
voters with incomes under $50,000 by eight points, according to exit polls;
Democratic House candidates nationally won them by 12. Webb actually lost
among voters who made less than $100,000 and won those making more, the
inverse of the rest of his party. If Webb wants to argue that he knows how
to lure working-class voters, he can't point to numbers to make that case.

Webb was a great candidate for Democrats in Virginia in 2006. The state was
just transitioning from more-Republican to more-Democratic than the nation
as a whole in presidential elections, meaning that it wasn't a sure thing
for either party to win. Webb could critique George W. Bush on the
unpopular Iraq War from the space of being a veteran and a former Reagan
military official. (Regardless, he did worse than national Democrats among
voters who thought Iraq was an important issue.) That was helpful in 2006.
In 2016, it's not clear that his national security credentials will seem
similarly useful, especially if he's going up against a former secretary of
state named Hillary Clinton.

If nothing else, Webb's candidacy is evocative of another former
presidential contender: Wesley Clark. Clark became a bit of a darling when
a possible candidacy first emerged. A former Army general, he seemed
well-poised to lead the party's efforts to position itself as able to fix
the problems with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He checked off a lot of
boxes on that checklist, too, but his campaign never really got off the
ground.

There are other reasons for skepticism -- that we assumed in September
might prevent Webb from making this announcement at all. (The word
"Confederacy" makes an appearance, which is not one of the things most
Democrats look for in a candidate.)

We have come to the point at which we say, "you never know," which is the
last box on the "How to write about 2016" checklist (also available in
bulk). And you don't ever know. But maybe if we could look at more than one
election that Webb barely won, we'd be able to know a bit better.

*U.S. News & World Report blog: The Run 2016: “What Would Hillary Do?"
<http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/run-2016/2014/11/20/hillary-clintons-potential-platform-for-a-presidential-run>*

By David Catanese

November 20, 2014, 12:01 a.m. EST

[Subtitle:] Democrats say addressing the country’s wage gap should top
Clinton's platform if she runs for president.

She’s a groundbreaking political figure and worldwide celebrity who carries
one of the most venerable names in American politics.

But before Hillary Clinton can announce another pursuit of the presidency,
she must fuse together an agenda that goes deeper than her singular
potential to shatter the glass ceiling and move to the Oval Office.

As Clinton learned the hard way in 2008, running on political inevitability
is fraught with risk.

Given she would arguably enter a 2016 White House race as an even stronger
front-runner, it behooves her to outline a concrete vision of how she would
address the country’s most vexing problems.

The tension between her centrist instincts and an emboldened liberal wing
of the Democratic Party makes this task more complicated, but no less
crucial. President Barack Obama’s persisting unpopularity and Democrats’
unsettling losses in this year’s midterm elections only heighten the
expectations for what’s next.

“It’s going to be important for Hillary because she’s been around a long
time,” says Al From, a former adviser to President Bill Clinton and founder
of the moderate Democratic Leadership Council. “She needs a rationale for
her candidacy.”

There are almost as many ideas floating around for Clinton to consider as
there are people offering them up, and most of them are interconnected.
Here’s a look at her potential platform.

*The Wage Gap*

Despite the array of ideas, there’s almost unanimity among Democratic
policy experts and politicians that at the top of any Clinton campaign
agenda should be a way to confront the country’s widening wage gap.

Spurred by a relentless drumbeat from progressive hero Sen. Elizabeth
Warren, Clinton almost surely will have to address rising economic
inequality at the outset of a potential campaign.

Median incomes have remained flat over the past 10 years. Simply
acknowledging this bluntly and directly could go a long way with
progressives itching for a more populist approach to an uneven recovery.

“The first thing is to recognize the nature of the problem. This is not
simply an issue of inequality. Inequality was increasing in the 1980s and
1990s when everyone’s incomes were rising. What’s happening in this period
is the higher incomes are rising rapidly, but nobody else is making
progress,” says Rob Shapiro, the principal economic adviser to Bill Clinton
during his first White House campaign. “I think this is why every election
is a wave election. Politicians haven’t done anything to help with the
biggest problem facing households: Why very substantial productivity gains
hasn’t translated into broad income progress.”

Jared Bernstein, who formerly served as Vice President Joe Biden’s chief
economic policy adviser, recommends “a policy architecture which
re-connects economic growth and more broadly shared prosperity.”

The political goal would be to convince middle-wage, working Americans they
have a realistic chance of claiming their fair share of the pie. There are
several policy tools Clinton could choose from to address this.

*Job Training*

One that holds potential for garnering support across political factions is
a nationwide job-training program.

It’s a refrain heard across the country: There are jobs available, but
employers struggle to find skilled workers to fill them.

Former Gov. Michael Dukakis, the 1988 Democratic nominee for president,
says he knows of a long-term care facility in southeastern Massachusetts –
the state he led – that can’t fill 300 open positions because of a skills
deficit.

He says Clinton could reach out to employers across the country to craft a
carefully designed survey that identifies their needs, and then marry the
findings with a program providing specific training in designated areas,
such as health care.

“They aren’t jobs that require college degrees; they don’t even require
associate degrees. But they require intensive training: three months, four
months, five months, six months,” Dukakis says. “These are health
care-related jobs. They’re damn good jobs that carry benefits, average
about $75,000 a year. They’re middle-skill jobs.”

*College Affordability*

Almost as essential to addressing the country’s skills gap is making sure
the next generation can enter the workforce without having to dig out from
under a massive amount of debt.

As a new grandmother, Clinton could comfortably deliver a personal pitch
that making college more affordable should become a national priority. It’s
not an issue that dominates cable talk shows, but Warren, D-Mass., has
given it pizazz over the last year by drafting legislation saying college
loans should be issued at the same low interest rates that Wall Street
banks receive.

That may be a bridge too far for Clinton, but other left-leaning policy
wonks see rising student debt as significant enough of an economic
emergency that they’re floating dramatic solutions.

“The cost of a college education is totally out of control,” Shapiro says.
“I think we need to move to a system of free tuition for anyone who is
accepted to a public college or university in their home state.”

Shapiro says that cost could be covered by simply replacing it with the
millions of dollars in grants and loans divvied out annually.

Dukakis’ approach of advocating for direct loans to students isn’t as
radical, but his point is the same: “Get the banks out of this,” he says.

Clinton may borrow from Warren’s policy framework on this issue, even if
she’s not willing to adopt all of its pillars together.

*An Infrastructure Stimulus*

Clinton also could feel pressure to go back to the well for another
stimulus package, Obama’s first domestic achievement during his presidency.

The $787 billion infusion of government funds didn’t stop a gradual uptick
in unemployment, but without it, the Great Recession could have been much
worse, according to liberals.

Some left-leaning economists now are rekindling the idea that when the
private market underperforms in job creation, it’s the government’s role to
temporarily try to make up the difference.

“A pretty deep dive into infrastructure investment would be smart on a
pretty wide variety of levels,” Bernstein says.

Former House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., says extending
high-speed Internet capacity to rural areas could help reinvigorate
small-town America. At the time of a 2012 Federal Communications Commission
report, about 6 percent of the country’s population lived in areas without
benchmark fixed broadband service.

“A lot of young people can start their businesses with technology, but they
can’t do it without speed and capacity. Getting them information
infrastructure is critical. A large chunk of that generation is being left
behind,” Gephardt says.

It’s hard to see Clinton floating a stimulus anywhere near the size of the
2009 legislation, but a more targeted package focused on rail, roads,
bridges and technology could be an idea she carefully considers to produce
an economic jolt.

*Taxes*

As in almost every election for Democrats, some of the most politically
dicey questions Clinton will face relate to tax policy.

Will she run hard against the GOP claim that taxes and regulations are a
burden on economic growth?

Will she propose any rate cuts at a time when entitlement reform also will
be a core part of the debate?

Will she go big and propose an overhaul of the entire tax system?

Even some moderate Democrats are floating the elimination of the burdensome
payroll tax in order to incentivize employers to hire more workers.

“It’s a regressive tax. I think we ought to eliminate it and replace it
with a green tax,” From says.

Steve Rosenthal, a Democratic operative with close ties to labor, says
Clinton should grant tax breaks to companies that agree to keep their CEOs’
pay only 100 times greater than that of their median workers’ salaries. The
breaks would reward corporations who take the wage gap seriously.

But Shapiro thinks any tax policy adjustment is more politically perilous
now, because it likely draws a candidate into the debate over Social
Security and Medicare cuts.

“In the old Clinton days, you could get away without doing much with
entitlements – you can’t do that anymore. So it’s a little tougher
politically,” he says.

Bernstein argues that any type of tax reform should be revenue neutral or
draw more money into the government’s kettle in order to be fiscally
prudent for the future.

This wide array of opinions demonstrates the deep fissures that lay even
within the Democratic establishment regarding taxes, not to mention the
traditional divide with Republicans.

But if Clinton runs, the initial vision she sets will test whether she can
balance the desires of ascendant liberals in her party with the needs of
the cautious centrists keeping an eye on catering to that nonideological
swing voter.

“I don’t think she will take this strident anti-business populism, but I
think there will be a populist notion to the message,” From says.

“Democrats are cross-pressured because of their connections to Wall Street.
They’ve been reluctant to go too far out on these issues,” Rosenthal
acknowledges. “It’s difficult.”

*Salon: “EXCLUSIVE: Rand Paul sounds off to Salon on race, 2016, Hillary
and Republicans”
<http://www.salon.com/2014/11/20/exclusive_rand_paul_sounds_off_to_salon_on_race_2016_hillary_and_republicans/>*

By Phillip Bailey

November 20, 2014, 7:00 a.m. EST

[Subtitle:] GOP senator tells Salon about his potential White House bid,
the GOP establishment and race in America

With an eye on a potential 2016 bid for the White House, Kentucky Sen. Rand
Paul continues to test whether his libertarian-leaning message can attract
new voters to the Republican Party. His appearance on liberal commentator
Bill Maher’s HBO talk show last Friday (along with this interview) helped
fuel the notion that unlike most other key figures from either major party,
Paul is willing to talk with audiences who may not be disposed to agree
with him.

Of course, there are plenty who scoff at the idea of a Tea Party icon being
the face of a sweeping coalition. Skepticism has been especially fierce —
including at this site — when Paul has attempted to reach out to
African-American voters, with critics noting Paul’s disapproval (as a
Senate candidate four years ago) of a key provision of the 1964 Civil Right
Act barring discrimination among private business.

On the other hand, for a younger generation of voters feeling ignored by
Democrats, Paul’s present-day position on U.S. drug laws and criminal
justice reforms have appeal:

*Perv Gotti* @Vishizz_A_Creep: Feel how you wanna feel about it but I'd
vote Rand Paul over Hillary Clinton... [11/14/14, 10:24 p.m. EST
<https://twitter.com/Vishizz_A_Creep/status/533460488886419456>]

*Nice Look Nikki* @PrettyNikki33: Rand Paul on Bill Maher's show making
sense [11/14/14, 10:17 p.m. EST
<https://twitter.com/PrettyNikki33/status/533458827870339074>]

The senator, who has been referred to as the “most interesting man in
Washington,” seems intent on testing whether a candidate who has openly
courted the fringe of American politics can successfully attract wider
support in this current political climate.

Paul talked to Salon this week about this attempt to broaden his appeal,
particularly to non-white and young voters, why his party establishment
still seems to have Romney fever, and whether he’d give up his Senate seat
to seek the White House in 2016. Our conversation follows, lightly
condensed and edited.

*Your appearance on Bill Maher’s show last week suggests you intend to
court liberals and independents if you run for president. How can a proud
member of the Tea Party really achieve this?*

You know, I think there is a great deal of possibility for any candidate
who can get out of either party, that doesn’t neatly fit in either party’s
mold. So I think if you had a Democrat unusual enough to get through the
primary system but to appeal to people outside of the Democrat mold, they
could do well. Same goes for a Republican. And I’ll often tell people that
a plurality of Americans now no longer consider themselves either
Republicans or Democrats, so if you’re a Republican and wanted to get Bill
Maher’s vote, it’s probably a difficult sell, but the fact that he’s open
and willing because he’s frustrated with both sides, I think is emblematic
of a lot of people, particularly young people. I don’t think they’re wedded
to one party or the other, and so I think the biggest obstacle to somebody
coming out that could attract people from the middle is getting through the
primary system, because you’ve got to get through a primary system that, on
both sides, you know, sort of demands ideological purity, and then if
someone is outside of those bounds, it’s more difficult to get through the
primary system.

But if you do, I’m convinced — and basically the pitch I give to people is,
look, you want somebody that reaches beyond the bounds of the Republican
Party because that’s how you win general elections. So I think there’s an
argument to be made even in a primary that you want somebody who can reach
beyond the typical boundaries of party. And frankly for us as the
Republican Party, I think the demographics of the country are such that if
the trend lines of our lack of ability to get African-American votes and
our decreasing ability to get Hispanic votes, if those trend lines
continue, I think we won’t be able to win presidential elections, period.
So I’m doing a lot of things, I’m doing, not only because I think the
issues are right and I believe them, but I also believe in the electoral
success that whoever runs or whoever is our nominee for president will have
to be someone who disrupts the normal demographic voting patterns.

*You made a pretty bold statement, for a Republican, about the situation in
Ferguson, speaking out against the militarization of police. Since then,
what are your thoughts about how state and local authorities are handling
the situation?*

You know, I think there still needs to be legislation, because I think the
whole surplus military defense being given to the police is a bad idea. You
know, we had a hearing about a month ago on this in Homeland Security, and
I asked, frankly, I believe the guy who was the head of FEMA at the time, I
said, you know, what do police need with 12,000 bayonets? And he didn’t
have a very good answer. [Laughs] He said we’re studying it, and it’s like,
how much studying do you need to do to find out that the police don’t need
bayonets?

And he kind of acknowledged it, but it’s a problem with government, it’s
like if you’re in charge of this, wouldn’t you just tomorrow or today make
the decision we’re no longer going to give out bayonets?

*When it comes to race, how do you explain to potential new supporters some
past controversies – like your comments on the Civil Rights Act and a
former aide’s neo-Confederate past —  that you know Democrats and others
will bring up should you seek the White House?*

Well, I think that I simply point to my record. I don’t think there has
been anybody who has been a bigger defender of minority rights in the
Congress than myself, and that’s not saying others aren’t trying as well.
But I think you can see a history and a litany of bills that I’ve put
forward to not only restore voting rights, but to try to prevent people
from the tragedy of losing their employability through felony convictions
and other things.

People will always do things for partisan purposes, and I think some of
that drummed up in the beginning for partisan purposes when I was running
for office. But no, I don’t think there’s anything out there that people
are going to say, “Oh, look at this, this means that you’re a racist,” or
something, and I think if they do, they probably pigeonhole themselves as
being unreasonable by making that kind of comment.

*A number of Beltway publications such as Time magazine have dubbed you the
most interesting person in D.C. But others have covered your flirtation
with fringe theories such as the National Weather Service buying ammunition
and the UN seizing firearms. How do you explain those earlier statements
for voters willing to give you a shot but potentially concerned by these
ideas?*

You know, I think the over-militarization of local police forces is also
true of the over-militarization of the federal government, so I don’t
really run and hide from the comment that I think there are 48 federal
agencies that have SWAT teams.

So, for example, in my book, “Government Bullies,” we write about a SWAT
team being sent to an organic food store outside of L.A. This is the USDA,
so the Department of Agriculture has a SWAT team, and they went out there
to confiscate unpasteurized milk. You have a crowd of people who, for one
reason or another, like to drink it straight from the cow and think it’s
better for them, but to me it’s sort of their business what they want to
do. But we actually do have a SWAT team for the USDA. Fish and Forest, the
US Fish and Forestry … what is it called …  Anyway, they’ve got a SWAT
team. They went into Gibson Guitar basically with a SWAT team based on a
regulation in India that they said they were in violation of the regulation
in India.

So, yeah, I do think the government is over-militarized and we’ve
over-criminalized things, not just in the drug war, but in everything. I
mean, we write in the book of a guy who was putting … elevating … raising
the elevation with fill dirt, clean dirt, and he was put in jail for
conspiracy to violate the Clean Water Act for 10 years, and he’s still in
prison. So we’ve gone overboard, not only on the war on drugs, but on the
over-criminalization that things, that even if you think they ought to be
illegal, ought to be civil fines. And I think actually if you comply with
the civil fine, or whatever, you ought to be able to … you shouldn’t have
like criminal sentences. I think that’s crazy for a lot of this stuff.

*Looking at 2016, Kentucky law forbids a candidate’s name from appearing on
the ballot more than once (e.g., running for president and Senate at the
same time). Given that Democrats in the state House maintain control of
that chamber, how do you expect to get around the law if you do indeed run
for president?*

Well, we’re definitely running for reelection for the U.S. Senate and we’ll
actually have an announcement on that probably next week, but we will run
for reelection. On the other, there are various possibilities that have
been discussed in the media on how to do it. There’s a possibility that the
Republican Party could choose to have a convention, in which case there
would not be a primary ballot to be on twice, and that would overcome,
really, I think, the problem there. But some of that discussion is ongoing
and some of it hasn’t been finalized.

*Which do you favor?*

Well, I think making the playing field equal for people across the United
States. That’s one reason why we think there’s a constitutional question
here. Should people who live in Minnesota get the chance to vote for one of
their favorite sons or daughters twice, and people in Kentucky not? So I
think eligibility for office has to be uniform across the states. There was
a term limits case many years ago, and even though I favor term limits, I
think they made the right decision, that Washington state could not
restrict their congressman to three terms and Kentucky have no limit on
terms. The Constitution set the requirements for eligibility for office
that states can’t modify for federal office; they can modify for state
office, but I think that’s actually a case that could be won, but it’s also
just a fairness issue. You know, there’s two dozen people who have run for
both offices, both presidency and a local office in their state, and I
think people, if they were presented with the idea of fairness, would say,
you know what, why would we punish someone who’s from our state versus
someone who’s from Connecticut or Wisconsin or Texas?

*Fellow Republican Sen. Marco Rubio faces a similar situation in Florida,
and suggested he would not seek reelection if he ran for president. Under
any scenario would you be willing to give up your Senate seat for a White
House bid?*

I think every individual’s got to make up their own mind, and I don’t have
any comment on what his decision is, because I don’t think it’s really
clear what his decision is from that, but you know, that’ll be something
that he has to determine over time. But I think there have been a number of
people that have been on the ballot more than once and there is a fairness
issue that we shouldn’t allow some states to do it and other states not to.
And I really think the court will side with that as well, because the court
has consistently upheld that federal elections, the eligibility for office,
you know, the Congress … the Constitution actually sets how old you are and
exactly who can be eligible for both Senate and for Congress, those are
federal rules, not state rules, so I think there will be a tough time with
the law and that. But we’d probably just as soon not get involved with that
law, and still have a decision-making process, whether or not we’re going
forward with it. So we’ll address that probably in the spring.

*As you consider running for president in 2016, big GOP donors and elites
have responded by desperately pushing Mitt Romney and other establishment
types to get in the race. Are you disturbed by the fact that elites in your
party are reacting this way?*

You know, I think there’s been a history in, probably in both parties, of
trying to go for what’s safe, you know. So, on the Democrat side you could
make the same argument for Hillary Clinton. You may not get a lot of new
ideas, you may not get a lot of innovation, you may get really a rehashing
of old things, old policies, but she’ll be the safe bet, she’s well-known,
she has universal name recognition. The same can happen on the Republican
side, but I think there’s an argument on our side, at least, that safe
hasn’t won.

We tried safe the last couple of times, meaning the, sort of the
establishment. I don’t have anything against Romney, I like Romney, I
supported him, but we need someone that goes beyond safe to try to attract
new constituencies. And so whether I’m that person or not is yet to be
determined, but I think, I fully and strongly believe, and I think a lot of
people who support the party believe that we will have to reach out to new
constituencies, whether that’s African-Americans, Hispanics, young people,
women, you name it. We’re going to have to reach out to new constituencies.