Subject: Correct The Record Friday November 28, 2014 Roundup
From: Burns Strider <[email-masked]>
To: CTRFriendsFamily <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2014 13:12:31 -0500
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*​**Correct The Record Friday November 28, 2014 Roundup:*

*Headlines:*

*USA Today: “Howard Dean: On Hillary...”
<http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/11/27/capital-download-howard-dean-on-running-for-president/19488965/>*

Dean: "I am going to support Hillary. I've known her for 25 years. Other
than the people who have served in the office, I think she's the most
qualified person to be president of the United States."

*USA Today: “Ex-senator Jim Webb may be ready to challenge Hillary”
<http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/11/27/jim-webb-2016-presidential-campaign/70035096/>*

“A few days before he made his announcement, Webb talked to longtime friend
Bob Kerrey, a former Nebraska senator and onetime Democratic presidential
candidate himself. ‘I'm telling him what he already knows, which is, this
is a very steep climb,’ Kerrey said in an interview. ‘Hillary is very
popular and very well-liked, deservedly so. She is as strong a candidate as
I've ever seen.’”

*Washington Times: “Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton increasingly walking away
from Obama”
<http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/nov/27/joe-biden-hillary-clinton-split-from-obama-as-pres/>*

"Weeks after that report was released, Mrs. Clinton made a rare public
statement of support for Mr. Obama’s executive action to grant legal status
and work permits to nearly 5 million illegal immigrants, a move long sought
by Hispanic groups."

*Wall Street Journal blog: Washington Wire: “Young Voters Aren’t a Sure
Thing for Democrats”
<http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/11/28/young-voters-arent-a-sure-thing-for-democrats/>*

“All but two of the top 10 GOP contenders are viewed more negatively than
positively among 18- to 34-year-olds. By contrast, Democratic front-runner
Hillary Clinton is viewed positively by 42% of that age group, and
negatively by 33%.”

*Wall Street Journal: “Democratic Rifts Surface in Wake of Midterm Election
Defeat”
<http://online.wsj.com/articles/democratic-rifts-surface-in-wake-of-midterm-election-defeat-1417131017?tesla=y&mg=reno64-wsj&url=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB11659981523255993497704580302974120173644.html>*

“Part of the reason for Democratic feuding is Mr. Obama’s declining
popularity as he enters the final quarter of his presidency. Various
Democrats hope to emerge as the new center of gravity in the party. Former
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appears the logical choice, given that
she is likely to run for president in 2016, and polls show her comfortably
leading the field of potential Democratic rivals in the primaries.”

*New York Times: “Liberal Treasury Nominee’s Wall St. Prowess May Be a
Vulnerability”
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/28/business/economy/liberal-treasury-nominees-deal-making-prowess-could-be-a-liability-.html>*

“The formal confirmation process, while not likely to get underway until
after the new Congress convenes next year, has become an unexpected proxy
war between the liberal and moderate wings of the Democratic Party. Its
outcome will say a lot about the party’s direction as it regroups for the
2016 presidential campaign, in which Hillary Clinton will be under pressure
to discard some of her ties to Wall Street.”

*Associated Press: “It’s beginning to look a lot like 2016 to GOP govs”
<http://bigstory.ap.org/article/15934c3c79b64b00aa5f171266e784f1/its-beginning-look-lot-2016-gop-govs>*

“The summit at the oceanside Boca Raton Resort & Club felt like a test run
for what is increasingly shaping up as a brutal showdown for the GOP
presidential nomination among more than a dozen potential contenders. In
contrast, Hillary Rodham Clinton has spent recent weeks basking in the
glows of grandmotherhood and applause at a few public events — without any
major challenger for the Democratic nod, should she choose to pursue it.”

*Politico: “Portman for (vice) president”
<http://www.politico.com/story/2014/11/rob-portman-2016-vice-president-113202.html>*

“Rob Portman’s making all the right moves for a dark horse presidential
run. And even some of his top supporters say he could be a frontrunner for
the veep spot.”

*Articles:*

*USA Today: “Howard Dean: On Hillary...”
<http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/11/27/capital-download-howard-dean-on-running-for-president/19488965/>*

By Susan Page

November 27, 2014, 10:52 p.m. EST

Former Vermont governor Howard Dean for a time led the field for the
Democratic presidential nomination in 2004. He later served as Democratic
national chairman and founded the liberal advocacy group Democracy for
America. On USA TODAY's Capital Download, he discusses the state of the
Democratic Party and declares his support for Hillary Rodham Clinton for
president. Questions and answers have been edited for length and clarity.

Q: It's hard to run for president, and it's even harder to be president. So
why are politicians lining up to run?

Dean: This is the most important office in the world, and it's an office
where you can change a lot of things and do a lot of things that you think
are important, and I think that's the attraction. I actually ran because I
wanted a balanced budget and I wanted universal health care. That was my
platform.

Q: Were you confident you could do the job?

Dean: Oh, yeah. I didn't have a lot of doubts about whether I could do the
job.

Q: For some, there are other motives.

Dean: Power is an incredible motivation and certainly people have those
kind of motivations, and I did, too.

Q: Some people run on the theory that lightning can strike, even for a long
shot.

Dean: I never thought of myself as a long-shot candidate. I thought about
it in 2000. That lasted a day. I came down to tell (then-vice president) Al
Gore I was thinking about running against him and before I landed back in
Burlington, it had leaked and my numbers went down 20 points in Vermont ...
which was of course the intention of the leak. So welcome to big-time
Washington.

When I decided I was going to do it (four years later), I just did it. I
didn't think about it as a long shot. I had a vague path about how to win.
But i just did it because I wanted to do it. I thought it was important.

Q: Democrats lost control of the Senate in the midterm elections this
month, lost governorships.

Dean: And worst of all, they've lost ground with state legislatures. ...

Now, the Republican message was mindless but it was incredibly disciplined.
It was 'I'm not Obama.' You know what the Democratic message was? 'I'm not
either.' How stupid is that?

Q: What should the message have been?

Dean: You should take the page out of Bill Clinton. 'Well, I voted for
Obama. Of course I voted for Obama; he's a Democrat. But there are some
things I disagree about. And there are some things I disagree with you
about and one of them is the economy and you haven't done' – and off to the
races you go. ...

People in Washington are always out of touch. Even the people I like are
out of touch. And one thing people do not understand in Washington at their
core is that 90% of Americans have done worse in the last 20 years and 10%
have done a lot better. All the growth in the last 20 years has gone to the
top 10%. Now, I'm not saying that because I'm a left-wing Democrat. I'm
saying that because that's a big problem in capitalism ... and we need to
talk about that.

Q: Was President Obama the problem?

Dean: Where you can blame Obama, he wasn't messaging at all, partly because
his own people were saying 'don't go near these races.' The only effective
messenger the party has is the president. If you have the presidency, you
have the big megaphone. But unfortunately the only person who can deliver
that message is the president. And our Democrats were so timid about the
president. We needed the president out there talking about what's happening
to the little person here.

Q: We asked readers for questions; here's one Steven Farnsworth sent via
Twitter: 'Does Sen. (Bernie) Sanders represent the Democratic wing of the
Democratic Party?'

Dean: He's not a Democrat, so the answer is no. But what Bernie does
represent is a deep concern over working families. ... What Bernie Sanders
is committed to is justice for working people. I don't think that's a bad
slogan to have these days.

Q: Is that the Democrats' slogan now?

Dean: Not as much as they should be.

Q: Will you support Hillary Clinton for president in 2016?

Dean: I am going to support Hillary. I've known her for 25 years. Other
than the people who have served in the office, I think she's the most
qualified person to be president of the United States.

Q: Are you convinced she'll run?

Dean: I'm not convinced she's going to run, but if she does it will be for
the right reasons and I'll support her.

Q: Have you told her you're going to support her?

Dean: Yes.

Q: What did she say?

Dean: 'Thank you.'

Q: Is she the inevitable nominee?

Dean: If she runs, she's the inevitable Democratic nominee.

Q: Will she win the general election?

Dean: That remains to be seen. You never want to take a general election
for granted, no matter what happens.

Q: Who would be the smartest candidate for Republicans to nominate against
her?

Dean: Bush or Romney ... because they're moderate, sort of, and they're
more experienced and they can raise a lot of money and they're less likely
to scare the American public.

Q: Who will they nominate?

Dean: Who knows?

*USA Today: “Ex-senator Jim Webb may be ready to challenge Hillary”
<http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/11/27/jim-webb-2016-presidential-campaign/70035096/>*

By Martha T. Moore

November 27, 2014, 12:01 p.m. EST

Jim Webb has been on both sides of the aisle, both sides of a notebook and
both ends of the chain of command: a Republican and a Democrat, a
politician and a journalist, a combat Marine and a Pentagon official.

Now the former Virginia senator has launched a presidential bid — he formed
an exploratory committee Wednesday with a video announcement — and will
focus on another divide: economic inequality.

Webb, 68, is a decorated Vietnam veteran, lawyer, novelist, historian and
journalist. He served as secretary of the Navy during the Reagan
administration as a Republican. In 2006, he was elected to the Senate from
Virginia as a Democrat.

He’s not yet an official candidate but he is already officially an
underdog, to Hillary Clinton, who is expected to announce whether she will
run again sometime next year.

A few days before he made his announcement, Webb talked to longtime friend
Bob Kerrey, a former Nebraska senator and onetime Democratic presidential
candidate himself. "I'm telling him what he already knows, which is, this
is a very steep climb," Kerrey said in an interview. “Hillary is very
popular and very well-liked, deservedly so. She is as strong a candidate as
I've ever seen.”

Webb will have to raise millions just to consider competing in early
primaries, “before you ever get to the problem of trying to improve your
name identification,” Kerrey says. “It's all about money in today’s
politics. If you can't raise money you can't put a campaign together.”

Webb's admirers say he has the authenticity that voters crave in political
candidates.

“He's not reading cards handed to him by staff. He speaks from the heart
and the mind and he's got considerable voltage in both areas,” Kerrey says.

“Don't underestimate him, that's the first thing,” says Mark Rozell, public
policy professor at Virginia's George Mason University. That’s what
happened when Webb ran for the Senate as a political newcomer: long before
Occupy Wall Street coined the term “the 99%,” Webb had “a very effective
populist message in that campaign that appealed to Democratic voters
concerned about economic inequality,” Rozell said.

Once elected, Webb quickly gained notice: At a White House reception he
snubbed President George W. Bush's inquiry about how his son, a Marine
serving in Iraq, was faring. “That's between me and my boy,” Webb said. Two
months later, Webb gave the Democratic rebuttal to Bush's 2007 State of the
Union speech. The freshman senator told Bush to end the war in Iraq and
ripped the “economic imbalance” between middle class and wealthy Americans.

Webb, who was mentioned as a possible running mate for Barack Obama in
2008, “is well enough known by the political junkies who participate in
caucuses,” says Iowa State University political expert Steffen Schmidt.
“But he will need to come and tell a story about why Webb and not Clinton.”

Iowans will be listening, though, Schmidt says. Iowa Democrats “are dying
for choice in 2016. …The ‘coronation’ of Hillary Clinton is very unpopular.
Clearly Webb represents an interesting and eclectic possibility.”

Webb's candidacy comes at a moment when Democrats are castigating
themselves for not having a powerful economic message in the midterm
elections.

“There's a real sense that they blew it,” Rozell says. “The timing of Jim
Webb’s potential candidacy makes perfect sense. Hit that sweet spot when
people are looking to the party to assert itself, defend its own principles
— and here comes a guy who's been talking about this all along.”

*Washington Times: “Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton increasingly walking away
from Obama”
<http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/nov/27/joe-biden-hillary-clinton-split-from-obama-as-pres/>*

By Dave Boyer

November 27, 2014

Et tu, Joe?

Whether out of frustration or political necessity, some of President
Obama’s closest lieutenants from his first term are distancing themselves
from Mr. Obama as 2016 approaches. The latest is none other than Vice
President Joseph R. Biden, who usually boasts about the lack of daylight
between the president and himself.

The vice president let it be known last week that he was “ticked off” about
the way the president forced out Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, a longtime
Senate colleague of Mr. Biden‘s. Mr. Hagel was pushed out in less than two
years by a White House that is accused of micromanaging national security
policy.

Earlier this year, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton
criticized Mr. Obama’s stated principle of foreign policy: “Don’t do stupid
stuff.”

“Great nations need organizing principles, and ‘Don’t do stupid stuff’ is
not an organizing principle,” Mrs. Clinton said in an interview.

An anonymous Clinton ally criticized Mr. Obama’s handling of the Islamic
State and other Middle Eastern crises this fall as too “passive,” saying,
Mrs. Clinton “would have taken a more aggressive approach.”

Presidents occasionally receive harsh reviews from former Cabinet members,
but former Defense Secretaries Robert M. Gates and Leon E. Panetta both
have issued broadsides against Mr. Obama in tell-all books.

The comments by Mr. Biden, a potential presidential candidate in 2016, and
Mrs. Clinton, a likely candidate, illustrate the uncomfortable process of
separating legacies from the unpopular president after Democrats took a
thrashing in midterm elections.

“President Obama is at an all-time low in approval ratings,” Republican
strategist Ron Bonjean said. “Americans haven’t seen the changes that he
promised would happen, with our economy and national security. And so
Democrats like Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden are going to run away from the
president as fast as they can. They cannot run on President Obama’s record
because there isn’t much success to go with it.”

Nowhere was Mr. Obama’s baggage spelled out so vividly as in a postelection
survey by Democracy Corps, the Democratic polling firm run by Stan
Greenberg and James Carville, former advisers to President Clinton.

Their Nov. 14 report said a majority of the public is dissatisfied with the
economy and 47 percent of those surveyed don’t believe it is improving.

“The lack of progress on everyday economic experience leads many to
question whether an economic recovery is actually even occurring,” their
memo said. “With the public aggrieved about the new economy and demanding
big changes in direction, Democrats and progressives will only get heard
when they join the economic debate with a very different voice.”

In another report this month, Democracy Corps said Mr. Obama’s campaign
message on the economy was too timid.

“The voters want to vote for change, and this poll shows that the Democrats
and their supportive coalition would rally to a message that understands
people are struggling with the new economy; but that was not president’s
economic narrative for this election and it showed,” the pollsters said.

Their election night survey found that Mrs. Clinton would defeat Republican
Mitt Romney in a hypothetical matchup by 6 percentage points. It noted that
this margin doesn’t reflect the projected growth of Democrat-leaning groups
such as millennials and Hispanics in the 2016 electorate.

Weeks after that report was released, Mrs. Clinton made a rare public
statement of support for Mr. Obama’s executive action to grant legal status
and work permits to nearly 5 million illegal immigrants, a move long sought
by Hispanic groups.

Others say it is dangerous for Mrs. Clinton to side with Mr. Obama’s
immigration policy. Douglas Schoen, a former pollster for Mr. Clinton, and
Patrick Caddell, a former pollster for President Carter, said Mr. Obama’s
executive action was “just the latest thorn in the side” of Mrs. Clinton.

“Mrs. Clinton would likely inherit a damaged party — and as a former member
of his administration, she would struggle with the consequences of Mr.
Obama’s go-it-alone governance,” they wrote in The Wall Street Journal.
They said only 43 percent of those polled in the midterms think Mrs.
Clinton would make a good president, and she lost against a hypothetical
generic Republican candidate by 40 percent to 34 percent.

They concluded that doubling down on Mr. Obama’s policies would further
hurt Mrs. Clinton.

Mr. Biden, whose political future seems more open to doubt, said in a
speech just after the elections that the economy during the Obama
administration has grown at a more rapid pace than nearly all of the 1990s
— when the Clintons occupied the White House.

Mr. Obama said last week that he probably won’t campaign much for the
eventual Democratic presidential nominee because voters want “that new car
smell.”

“They want to drive something off the lot that doesn’t have as much mileage
as me,” Mr. Obama said, adding that probably would remain on the sidelines
as the primary season heats up.

Judging from the reactions of Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Biden, that won’t be a
problem.

*Wall Street Journal blog: Washington Wire: “Young Voters Aren’t a Sure
Thing for Democrats”
<http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/11/28/young-voters-arent-a-sure-thing-for-democrats/>*

By Janet Hook

November 28, 2014, 6:37 a.m. EST

When it comes to mobilizing young voters for the 2016 elections, Democrats
have their work cut out for them.

Young voters are among the most favorable age groups for the Democratic
Party, but they proved the hardest to get to the polls this year. And among
those young people who did show up, Democrats’ traditional advantage
dwindled.

The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds that 18- to 34-year-olds
were the most likely age group to say they sat out the 2014 midterm
elections. When asked how they would have voted, these young people would
have backed Democrats 53% to 34%.

That reflects a lost political opportunity for Democrats. Rep. Steve Israel
(D., N.Y.), who was chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign
Committee for the 2012 and 2014 elections, said nothing was more
frustrating to him than listening to focus groups of young people who were
oblivious to the upcoming election.

“They agreed with Democrats on virtually every issue, but they did not even
know they had an election,” said Mr. Israel. “We’ve just got to strengthen
our messaging in terms of what is at stake for them.”

To make matters worse, national exit polls showed Democrats didn’t do as
well as they usually do among the young people who did vote. This year, 55%
of voters aged 18 to 29 years old voted for Democrats and 45% voted for
Republicans in congressional elections. But that 10-point advantage is down
from the 16-point edge Democrats enjoyed in 2010 and the 22-point advantage
in 2006.

In some Senate races this year, exit polls showed GOP candidates outright
beating their Democratic counterparts among this age group. In Alaska, for
example, GOP candidate Dan Sullivan won among 18- to 29-year-olds over
Democratic Sen. Mark Begich by 48% to 44%.

“They didn’t show up because the Democrats didn’t give them a reason to
show up,” said Raffi Williams, a spokesman for the Republican National
Committee.

Jeff Horwitt, a Democratic pollster who helps conduct Journal/NBC surveys,
said that younger voters may be less likely to support Democrats this time
around because of shifting perceptions about how each party handles the
economy. In a pre-election poll, 48% of younger voters said that the
economy was one of the most important issues shaping their vote for
Congress. In a reversal of attitudes from many past election years, younger
voters said they believed that the GOP was doing a better job handling the
economy by a margin of 14 percentage points.

“For Democrats, it goes back to the economy and having a coherent economic
message to young people and the challenges that they are facing,” said Mr.
Horwitt. “Democrats have work to do.”

But Republicans’ leading presidential candidates have challenges of their
own among younger voters, the latest WSJ/NBC poll showed. All but two of
the top 10 GOP contenders are viewed more negatively than positively among
18- to 34-year-olds.

By contrast, Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton is viewed positively
by 42% of that age group, and negatively by 33%. Democratic Sen. Elizabeth
Warren of Massachusetts, an increasingly prominent liberal who has
championed measures to ease student debt burdens, is viewed positively by
22%, with only 6% seeing her in a negative light.

*Wall Street Journal: “Democratic Rifts Surface in Wake of Midterm Election
Defeat”
<http://online.wsj.com/articles/democratic-rifts-surface-in-wake-of-midterm-election-defeat-1417131017?tesla=y&mg=reno64-wsj&url=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB11659981523255993497704580302974120173644.html>*

By Peter Nicholas, Siobhan Hughes and Byron Tau

November 27, 2014, 6:30 p.m. EST

Long-muted tensions within the Democratic Party over policy and strategy
are beginning to surface publicly, a sign of leaders looking beyond
President Barack Obama’s tenure in the aftermath of the party’s midterm
election defeat.

A prominent example came this week, when Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.), a
member of the Senate leadership, gave a rare public rebuke to Mr. Obama
over the centerpiece of his presidency: the health-care overhaul of 2010.
Mr. Schumer said the party should have focused on helping a broader swath
of the middle class than the uninsured, whom he called “a small percentage
of the electorate.’’

On the same day, the White House surprised Democratic leaders in the Senate
by threatening to veto a tax package negotiated by both parties. The White
House said the deal would help “well-connected corporations while
neglecting working families.’’

The twin developments were among fissures within the party that, at their
broadest level, show Democrats at odds over what economic message to
present to voters ahead of the 2016 presidential race. Worried that they
lacked a compelling position in the midterms, Democrats are split over
whether to advance a centrist message or a more populist economic argument
that casts everyday families as victims of overly powerful corporations and
benighted government policies.

“You’re going to get a fight within the Democratic Party,” said Rep. Jerry
Nadler (D., N.Y.), as the progressive wing of the party splits from
centrists, who fear that liberal economic policy proposals are unpalatable
to most voters. “There is a substantial disagreement coming up.”

Democratic infighting has largely been out of public view for the last
half-dozen years. Since Mr. Obama took office, Republicans have been the
ones dealing with rifts. A conservative Tea Party wing clashed with
mainstream Republicans in primary contests this year, jockeying for sway
over the party’s ideological compass. That debate remains unsettled and is
likely to play out in the 2016 Republican primaries.

Now, it is the Democrats who are looking increasingly fractious. Unusual as
it was to see Mr. Schumer part ways with Mr. Obama on policy, it was even
more extraordinary for himto target the Affordable Care Act, a law so tied
to the Obama legacy.

Democrats, Mr. Schumer said, “blew the opportunity the American people gave
them” by focusing “on the wrong problem—health care.” Key provisions of the
health law, he said, affected relatively few voters. Instead, the party
should have pressed for programs that would have raised wages and helped
more of the middle class, he said.

Mr. Schumer’s comments drew angry responses from Obama loyalists. They said
Mr. Obama had promised to break from a politics-as-usual attitude in
Washington, while echoing the president’s argument that making health care
more widely available boosted many Americans’ economic security.

David Axelrod, a top strategist in both of Mr. Obama’s presidential races,
said: “If your calculus is solely how to win elections, and that is your
abiding principle, it leads you to Sen. Schumer’s position. But that’s
precisely why big, difficult problems often don’t get addressed in
Washington, and why people have become so cynical about that town and its
politics.”

Through a spokesman, Mr. Schumer declined to comment.

The intraparty fight has touched on other elements of policy and strategy
since it erupted soon after this month’s elections, which stripped
Democrats of their Senate majority. David Krone, chief of staff to Senate
Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.), publicly blamed Mr. Obama for
Democratic losses. He said the president wouldn’t transfer millions of
dollars in party funds to help save imperiled Democrats, and he told the
Washington Post that “the president’s approval rating is barely 40%.… What
else more is there to say?”

As is the case with Mr. Schumer, Mr. Krone’s comments were an unusual
breach of protocol. It is rare for Democrats at senior levels to publicly
criticize other Democrats—and rarer still for a legislative aide to chide a
president from his own party. Mr. Reid’s office declined to make Mr. Krone
available for an interview.

Addressing Mr. Krone’s comments, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said
earlier this month that Messrs. Obama and Reid had “struck up a genuine
friendship when the two men served together in the United States Senate,
and that relationship has only been strengthened during the president’s
time in the White House.”

Mr. Krone’s boss is having his own troubles with the White House. Sen. Reid
is backing the tax-cut bill that drew a veto threat from Mr. Obama, because
it doesn’t include a proposal backed by liberals to make enhanced tax
credits for the working poor permanent, alongside tax breaks for businesses.

Adding to the deepening divide between Messrs. Reid and Obama is that the
deal included a measure that would benefit Mr. Reid’s home state as the
Nevada Democrat readies himself for a likely 2016 re-election bid. A
presidential veto wouldn’t help his cause.

Tensions have also emerged between House and Senate Democrats. One
flashpoint was immigration. Some House Democrats believe it was a mistake
for Mr. Obama to wait until after the midterm elections to take executive
action limiting deportations, a delay that the president agreed to at the
behest of Senate Democratic leaders trying to protect vulnerable
incumbents, such as Sen. Mark Pryor of Arkansas. The delay didn’t stop Mr.
Pryor and other Senate Democrats from losing.

One senior House Democratic aide said many House Democrats believe the
delay hurt Hispanic turnout, contributing to the defeat of Reps. Pete
Gallegos of Texas and Joe Garcia in Florida.

“Hindsight is 20-20,” this aide said, “but there was all this effort to
avoid anything Mark Pryor might be asked about. All that effort was for
nothing. Clearly, that strategy failed.”

Part of the reason for Democratic feuding is Mr. Obama’s declining
popularity as he enters the final quarter of his presidency. Various
Democrats hope to emerge as the new center of gravity in the party.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appears the logical choice, given
that she is likely to run for president in 2016, and polls show her
comfortably leading the field of potential Democratic rivals in the
primaries. Yet for many liberals, it isn’t Mrs. Clinton who stokes the most
passion, but the first-term senator from Massachusetts, populist firebrand
Elizabeth Warren.

“She is someone who voters see as authentic and inspiring, as opposed to
someone who is trying to play it safe and take no risks,” said Erica
Sagrans, a former Obama campaign aide who is trying to entice Ms. Warren to
run for president.

Mr. Schumer may also have designs on a more influential role in the party.
He has long been seen as someone with an eye on the leadership spot now
held by Mr. Reid. Some Democrats saw his speech as an effort to lay a
course for the party that might position him for a spot higher in the party
hierarchy.

In a sign of the emerging struggle over which direction to take the party,
Senate Democrats met for four hours behind closed doors earlier this month
to hash out what went wrong in the midterm elections and how they would
operate next year, when they will be in the minority. Mr. Reid was
reappointed Democratic leader, but a handful of moderate Democrats voted
against him.

In a concession to the party’s liberal wing, members also created a new
leadership post—for Ms. Warren.

*New York Times: “Liberal Treasury Nominee’s Wall St. Prowess May Be a
Vulnerability”
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/28/business/economy/liberal-treasury-nominees-deal-making-prowess-could-be-a-liability-.html>*

By Jonathan Weisman

November 27, 2014

In 2012, Antonio F. Weiss took his 15-year-old son, Nico, from the gilded
aerie of their Manhattan apartment on Central Park West to Cleveland to
canvass for President Obama’s reelection. Mr. Weiss, 48, was also the
coauthor of a white paper calling for higher taxes on the rich and has
donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Democratic Party.

Yet in his Wall Street provenance, Mr. Weiss, President Obama’s nominee to
be under secretary of the Treasury for domestic finance, has given the left
an unlikely rallying cry to press for a more aggressively liberal economic
policy agenda.

It is not Mr. Weiss’s politics that are in question. It is his résumé.

“I have voted for people who have extensive Wall Street experience,” said
Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts. She is rallying the
opposition to Mr. Weiss, the head of investment banking at Lazard, a
storied but relatively small firm. But, she said, “the Antonio Weiss
nomination is a mistake, and that’s why I’m fighting back.”

The formal confirmation process, while not likely to get underway until
after the new Congress convenes next year, has become an unexpected proxy
war between the liberal and moderate wings of the Democratic Party. Its
outcome will say a lot about the party’s direction as it regroups for the
2016 presidential campaign, in which Hillary Clinton will be under pressure
to discard some of her ties to Wall Street.

At Lazard, Mr. Weiss was involved in a number of international
mega-mergers, including a deal that allowed Burger King to acquire the
Canadian fast-food chain Tim Hortons in a maneuver that gave the combined
company a lower tax liability in the United States. And in doing so, he
made a lot of money.

Mr. Weiss’s assets are worth between $54 million and $203 million,
according to his financial disclosure. In addition to his Manhattan
apartment, he owns a 200-year-old, eight-bedroom farmhouse in Connecticut
and property in the Dominican Republic valued at up to $1 million.

To Ms. Warren and her allies, Mr. Weiss’s nomination this month was proof
that their anti-Wall

Street views are still getting no respect within the Obama administration.
While they managed to derail Mr. Obama’s moves to nominate Lawrence H.
Summers, his former Treasury secretary and economic adviser, as chairman of
the Federal Reserve, they say Mr. Weiss’s confirmation by the Senate would
send the wrong signal about whether Democrats can advance the economic
prospects of the struggling middle class.

“The American people are profoundly disappointed with the fraud they read
about every day coming from Wall Street,” said Senator Bernie Sanders, an
independent from Vermont who is considering running for president as a
Democrat to encourage the party to move to the left. “They are disgusted
that instead of investing in the American economy, they are busy trying to
avoid paying their fair share of taxes, and the American people want people
in the Treasury Department who are prepared to hold Wall Street
accountable.”

Supporters of Mr. Weiss, both inside and outside the Obama administration,
see the brewing fight as no less consequential. Wall Street executives lend
the Treasury Department real-world expertise to understand how policy
proposals might be gamed by the banks and investment houses they are aimed
at.

If the Elizabeth Warren wing of the party can bring Mr. Weiss down, they
say, prominent financiers may no longer play a significant role in
Democratic administrations, which have turned to them since the Clinton
years to bolster their business bona fides.

“If the rules post-financial crisis were that the one place you shouldn’t
go for help is the private sector, particularly the financial sector, that
would be a pretty dangerous thing,” a senior Treasury official said,
speaking on condition of anonymity.

Moreover, Mr. Weiss’s defenders in and out of the administration say he is
being caricatured as a rapacious banker when he is more Daddy Warbucks than
Gordon Gekko. He combines financial expertise with an unquestioned liberal
outlook and an intellectual panache that led to his becoming publisher of
The Paris Review.

Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress, a Democratic
research and advocacy group, recalled Mr. Weiss working on an economic
policy paper for her organization that called for sharply higher taxes on
the wealthy, an overhaul of the corporate tax code that would raise revenue
for deficit reduction and changes to the individual tax code to make it
more progressive.

Gene B. Sperling, a former senior economic policy maker in the Obama and
Clinton White Houses, said: “He has a good progressive heart. He has
hardheaded practical business experience.”

Mr. Weiss declined to comment for this article, citing his pending
confirmation hearings.

The particulars of Mr. Weiss’s background and policy views appear to matter
far less than the optics. Mr. Weiss spent years in Paris as vice chairman
of European investment banking at Lazard, then rose to global head of
mergers and acquisitions. His deal making has included this year’s merger
of the tobacco giants Reynolds American and Lorillard, Berkshire Hathaway’s
swallowing of H .J. Heinz last year, Google’s 2011 takeover of Motorola
Mobility and InBev’s takeover of Anheuser-Busch in 2008.

No deal is causing more trouble for him than Burger King’s “inversion”
merger with Tim Hortons, which came just as the Treasury was proposing new
rules to stop American companies from reincorporating as foreign entities
not subject to United States taxes. Lazard itself gave up its United States
citizenship in 2005 to reincorporate in Bermuda, using a loophole that the
Bush administration later closed to deter copycats.

“On the policy on whether or not companies should move overseas to avoid
U.S. taxation when there’s not a core business reason for the move, that’s
something we think is wrong,” Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew said in an
interview. “It’s something he thinks is wrong.”

Mr. Weiss’s defenders in the administration say the Burger King deal was
not really an inversion, in which a large American company adopts a foreign
headquarters in name only. But it still sticks in Democratic craws. Senator
Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the Senate’s second-ranking Democrat, cited
his work on such deals when he announced his opposition to Mr. Weiss’s
confirmation.

Beyond Lazard, there is Mr. Weiss himself. To defenders like Ms. Tanden,
his years in Europe made him acutely aware of the perils of wage stagnation
and the obstacles to upward mobility. He grew up in New York, in a
distinctly middle-class family. Both of his parents were teachers. He
attended Yale and Harvard Business School, while also apprenticing under
George Plimpton, the editor of The Paris Review.

Where supporters see brio, detractors see a fat cat. Last week, the
A.F.L.-C.I.O. president Richard L. Trumka sent a letter to Lazard’s
compensation committee chairman, Philip A. Laskawy, via the company’s
Bermuda affiliate, questioning his decision to speed the vesting of equity
income to ease Mr. Weiss’s transition to public service. If he is confirmed
as the under secretary, Mr. Weiss will receive $6 million to $30 million in
stock that would normally accrue to him in 2017 and $3 million in interest
income, according to the Project on Government Oversight.

But beyond that is the Warren wing’s belief that Democrats must realign
their economic policies with the interests of working-class voters,
particularly white men without college degrees, who have flocked to the
Republican Party in recent years. The Democrats’ attention should be
focused on raising the minimum wage, funding infrastructure investments
financed by higher taxes on the rich and, Ms. Warren adds, a new push to
divide the big banks from their nonbanking activities.

“We have got to be willing to make the government work for America’s
families,” Ms. Warren said. “That’s the start of everything we do.”

*Associated Press: “It’s beginning to look a lot like 2016 to GOP govs”
<http://bigstory.ap.org/article/15934c3c79b64b00aa5f171266e784f1/its-beginning-look-lot-2016-gop-govs>*

By Jill Colvin and Steve Peoples

November 28, 2014, 9:24 a.m. EST

BOCA RATON, Fla. (AP) — A half-dozen potential Republican presidential
contenders spent last week peacocking through the sprawling, manicured
grounds of a pink luxury resort, schmoozing with donors and sizing up the
competition in the party's most fractured field in decades.

They rarely criticized each other in public, but there were subtle jabs in
private.

Within hours of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie gracing the cover of a
magazine in an illustration of him kissing a baby's head, Louisiana Gov.
Bobby Jindal suggested the party needs bold leaders, not showmen.

“We have enough politicians who try to be celebrities and kiss babies and
cut ribbons,” Jindal said.

Whether it was an intentional shot at Christie or not, the looming 2016
contest changed the context of every speech, interview and panel discussion
at the Republican Governors Association's annual conference. The summit at
the oceanside Boca Raton Resort & Club felt like a test run for what is
increasingly shaping up as a brutal showdown for the GOP presidential
nomination among more than a dozen potential contenders.

In contrast, Hillary Rodham Clinton has spent recent weeks basking in the
glows of grandmotherhood and applause at a few public events — without any
major challenger for the Democratic nod, should she choose to pursue it.

While the potential GOP field appears stronger than four years ago,
Republicans remain without a front-runner.

“There are, like, 16 people who could run,” said former Mississippi Gov.
Haley Barbour, who downplayed the potential risk of so many candidates at
each other's throats. “They won't all run, of course, but a lot of quality
in there.”

The candidates aren't expected to start formally declaring their intentions
until the first quarter of next year. But the developing tensions were
already apparent as five potential candidates appeared together on stage in
a packed, grand ballroom to answering questions from moderator Chuck Todd,
the host of NBC's “Meet The Press” — a dress rehearsal of sorts for the
looming primary.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a former congressman, repeatedly crossed words with
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, challenging Walker's telling of the history of
the Bill Clinton administration. On another panel, Walker mentioned that
he’d been in high school at a time when Kasich had voted on a piece of
immigration legislation.

“Well, you don't look that much younger,” Kasich quipped.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry left little doubt that the race is on.

“I think the campaign has engaged. We're talking about issues here that are
going to affect the presidential election in 2016,” Perry said. “I think we
need to have this conversation with America.”

The governors who would be president agreed on one thing: their superiority
as candidates over their nongubernatorial competition. Those in attendance
repeatedly stressed that the party's best hope for reclaiming the White
House lies with a chief executive at the top of the ticket.

But they dismissed the idea of any kind of advance pact to ensure they
don't inflict too much damage during the primary.

“Um, no, no pacts, at least none that I'm involved in,” said Christie,
joking that he’d be closely watching Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, another
potential contender, to make sure he wasn't forging any deals.

Behind the scenes, however, that's exactly what the contenders were aiming
for.

Dozens of the party’s biggest donors enjoyed private audiences with
prospective candidates. They mingled in hotel corridors, at fancy dinners,
on a nearby golf course where Michael Jordan was spotted, and at fetes,
like an oceanside reception decorated with twinkling lights, a clam cake
station and ice sculptures.

The guest list included Republican heavy hitters like Paul Singer, Anthony
Scaramucci and Foster Friess.

Christie, who arrived with what appeared to be his entire senior team, said
he was enjoying spending time with donors “in an atmosphere that's a lot
more relaxed, like this one this week.”

Indeed, one top consultant who has served as senior adviser on numerous
campaigns was spotted walking through the lobby in his bathing suit on the
way to the pool between meetings. And at all times, lobbyists from
companies like Google hovered, slipping business cards to governors and
aides, who left one speed dating-style session with pockets bursting.

Still, the presidential undertones were more subtle at times than in annual
retreats of years past when prospective candidates like Mitt Romney, John
McCain and Rudy Giuliani held private meetings to craft campaign strategy
with key supporters.

“In prior election cycles, the RGA postelection meeting has been the
kicking off point for presidential campaigns,” said GOP operative Charlie
Spies, who led Romney's super PAC in 2012, echoing several other longtime
attendees. “This year's event was more low-key.”

The event was “not about asking. This is about thanking and
congratulating,” said longtime Republican adviser and money man Fred Malek.
“Part of it also is inspiration so that people will have their mind set on
moving ahead in the next cycle.”

*Politico: “Portman for (vice) president”
<http://www.politico.com/story/2014/11/rob-portman-2016-vice-president-113202.html>*

By Burgess Everett and Anna Palmer

November 28, 2014, 8:09 a.m. EDT

[Subtitle:] Supporters think he's No. 1 for No. 2.

Rob Portman’s making all the right moves for a dark horse presidential run.

And even some of his top supporters say he could be a frontrunner for the
veep spot.

The low-key Ohio Republican is fresh off playing a pivotal role in the
GOP’s Senate takeover, he’s traveled to early states Iowa and New Hampshire
and party insiders and fundraisers can’t speak highly enough of him. His
resume goes on and on: Former House member, George. W. Bush’s U.S. Trade
Representative, director of the Office of Management and Budget and now a
swing-state Republican senator.

On paper that mix of gravitas, pragmatic conservatism and swing-state roots
make him a perfect contender or even better complement to a more
charismatic conservative.

“I can’t imagine that he will not be on the [VP] short-list, day one, for
virtually any of the candidates that have a shot of getting the
nomination,” said former New York GOP Rep. Rick Lazio, a Portman confidante
urging him to run for president. “I can’t recall when he’s ever made a
gaffe. He’s just a very reliable partner to have on a ticket.”

In an interview with POLITICO before slipping out of the Capitol for the
holiday, Portman kept the door open to a presidential run — but also seemed
to be having an internal debate with himself over where he can best serve:
As a presidential hopeful who could set himself up to be a strong vice
presidential candidate, or as a deal-making legislator in a Capitol filled
with ideologues and bereft of the consensus-seekers of yore.

“I love being a manager. My favorite jobs have been OMB, USTR, management
jobs. Because you have the ability to inspire a team and accomplish big
things,” he said. “But I also value the role of a legislator because
ultimately the laws we pass here and the influence we have … on big issues
is important to the people of Ohio and the people of our country. So it’s
an honor to get to serve.”

Much of the the Republican Party is looking to turn the page on Bush-era
politics and policies as they look to draft someone who can defeat Hillary
Clinton and build on the GOP’s triumphant midterm election. The choices are
nearly endless. There’s the lighting-rod conservative Ted Cruz of Texas,
the intriguing libertarian Rand Paul of Kentucky and the energetic Marco
Rubio of Florida. That’s just in the Senate: A half-dozen current and
former governors wait in the wings, with only Jeb Bush of Florida and his
blood relationship to George W. Bush evoking the last decade of Republican
politics.

Then there’s Portman, who has decades of relationships with Republicans and
donors across the country, a rare fundraising acumen and a team player
reputation among Republicans. Yet K Street insiders and GOP strategists
rarely mention the low-key senator in their top tier of candidates.

The outstanding question: Is there appetite for an even-keeled Republican
insider to run for president — or serve as vice president?

“I think Rob would make a great president. I’d be thrilled if he decided to
run,” said Barry Volpert, CEO of Crestview Partners and GOP donor. “Winning
the majority in this last election has propelled him to the front lines.”

Added another GOP donor: “He is a very capable executive. If he wanted to
run for president I would support his candidacy.”

As the outgoing vice-chairman of the National Republican Senatorial
Committee, Portman directed more than $20 million to the GOP’s campaign
coffers and spearheaded a 14-page business plan that treated donors like
investors, directly confronted the fumbled 2010 and 2012 elections and sent
a message to deep-pocketed Republicans: Your money won’t go to waste.

He passed on a run to chair the NRSC, preferring instead to take a less
publicly partisan role: Seeking evasive consensus on the Hill while
steadily working Senate candidates like Montana Rep. Steve Daines, who he
courted for six months. With Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) playing the
energetic frontman of the NRSC, Portman operated mostly behind the scenes
as a fundraiser and consigliere to sooth donors of the GOP’s prospects.

“Because of his long relationships with Republicans across the country, his
involvement in presidential campaigns, he had a Rolodex of folks,” Moran
said of his partner.

Simultaneously Portman sketched out his narrow path to the White House: A
stable of new Senate colleagues ingratiated to him and a network of
deep-pocketed Republicans across the country who’ve gained trust in him.

But Portman has plenty of competition for the White House, starting in the
Senate and radiating across the country to conservative governors like
Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Mike Pence of Indiana and Govs. John Kasich
of Ohio and Chris Christie of New Jersey and Bush that offer much of the
same pragmatic energy as Portman.

“His candidacy is a bank shot at an away game,” another donor said. “He’s
not coming at this saying, ‘Here’s my plan, if we execute, we win.’ He’s
saying, ‘Here’s my plan and if a few things go my way we win.’”

It’s unclear whether he’ll be able to leverage his donor connections to
help build a credible money machine. One problem: Much of that NRSC cash is
institutional money coming from company political action committees and
donors who are cutting $5,000 to $10,000 checks. PACs do not make up a
significant amount of contributions for presidential candidates during
primaries. He also hasn’t gotten a megadonor super PAC to help fund a
renegade campaign.

The crowded field and his strong resume could lead Portman down another
road: The veep-stakes. He’s from the politically important state of Ohio,
his fundraising base would aid any national ticket and his deal-making
reputation and insider knowledge of Washington could contrast well with a
fire-breathing conservative.

Another option is to run for reelection and position himself to be an
influential senator for years to come.

“Whatever he decides to do, you should take him seriously,” advised Rubio.

Despite the muted enthusiasm among the GOP base two years out, Portman and
his allies see a real opening for a presidential run — but there are also
plenty of reasons to hit the breaks. Portman differs with most of his
potential rivals on same-sex marriage, precipitated by his son coming out
as gay.

“His change of heart on [same-sex marriage] was not politically expedient,
but he did it because he felt it was the right thing to do,” said one
Portman confidante. “We know some folks still aren’t happy with the switch.”

As an establishment player and consummate Republican insider, Portman’s
chances of success are much greater if Bush doesn’t run and if there is an
anti-Chris Christie sentiment among conservative voters in early primary
states like New Hampshire. And next to the class of political celebrities
he may have to run against, Portman will have to work hard to stand out.

“If there is a limitation, and it comes as no real surprise, it’s that he
doesn’t have any charisma. And in a day and age where charisma probably
counts more than it ever has simply because of the way our media works,
that is a tremendous limitation,” said a veteran Republican operative.

Taking to the Senate floor for a marathon speech railing against drone
policy or Obamacare’s woes a la Paul and Cruz is certainly not Portman’s
style. He’s more likely to get deep in the weeds with a policy reporter
than give sweeping bomb-throwing rhetoric.

He also holds on to the sort of legislative optimism that is rare in
today’s Capitol. Despite his story of bargaining and hopes for future deals
on trade and tax reform, Portman dislikes being described as a “moderate”
or “centrist.” During an interview he dismissed political labels until
settling on something he could endorse: Pragmatic conservative.

“I like that, I like that,” he said.

*Calendar:*

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

·  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 1 – New York, NY: Sec. Clinton hosts fundraiser for Sen. Mary
Landrieu (Times-Picayune
<http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/11/hillary_clinton_hosting_new_yo.html>
)

·  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>
)

·  February 24 – Santa Clara, CA: Sec. Clinton to Keynote Address at
Inaugural Watermark Conference for Women (PR Newswire
<http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hillary-rodham-clinton-to-deliver-keynote-address-at-inaugural-watermark-conference-for-women-283200361.html>
)