Subject: Correct The Record Monday December 15, 2014 Morning Roundup
From: Burns Strider <[email-masked]>
To: CTRFriendsFamily <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2014 08:47:00 -0500
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*​**Correct The Record Monday December 15, 2014 Morning Roundup:*

*Headlines:*

*Washington Post: Democrats divided on their path to 2016
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/democrats-divided-on-their-path-to-2016/2014/12/14/5ff3ba68-82fd-11e4-9f38-95a187e4c1f7_story.html?postshare=1961418613807967>*

"In both instances, the question was not whether Democrats supported the
individual provisions — they generally do not. It was whether individual
members considered them so egregious as to merit blowing up a wide-ranging
deal to which Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) had been a party
and for which President Obama was personally lobbying."

*CNN: “Progressives gird for Capitol Hill battle”
<http://edition.cnn.com/2014/12/14/politics/progressives-congress-battle/>*

"Progressive members of the Democratic Party are gearing up for what they
expect to be many battles needed to defend their values as Republicans seek
to chip away at a variety of Democratic priorities when they take control
of Congress next year."

*The Daily Beast: “The Most Powerful Democrat in America”
<http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/15/the-most-powerful-democrat-in-america.html>*

"Warren doesn’t need their money and represents a state where, barring a
weird scandal, she can get reelected as long as she wants, so she can do
what depressingly few senators can—speak her mind on money issues."

*The Daily Beast: “Bush, Christie, Romney: Who’ll Be the GOP Class
Warrior?”
<http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/15/bush-christie-romney-who-ll-be-the-gop-class-warrior.html>*

“BH Global Aviation is just one of at least three such Bush-driven funds.
In other words, BH Global might look like a Republican analog to the
Clinton Global Initiative... Instead, it’s unapologetically about making
money.”

*Washington Post: “Jeb Bush’s move to release book, e-mails stokes
expectations of White House bid”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/jeb-bushs-move-to-release-book-e-mails-stokes-expectations-of-white-house-bid/2014/12/14/dc6683a0-83c5-11e4-a702-fa31ff4ae98e_story.html?hpid=z1>*

“Bush’s pending compilation of documents also serves as a challenge to
former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has come under
criticism because the State Department has failed to meet its deadlines to
release records related to her tenure.”

*The Hill column: Lanny J. Davis: “Clinton and Warren — Facts, not labels”
<http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/227094-clinton-and-warren-facts-not-labels>*

“The fact is, Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren and most Democrats are more
united on the basic issues than I can recall in a long time.”

*Articles:*

*Washington Post: Democrats divided on their path to 2016*
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/democrats-divided-on-their-path-to-2016/2014/12/14/5ff3ba68-82fd-11e4-9f38-95a187e4c1f7_story.html?postshare=1961418613807967>

By Karen Tumulty and Sean Sullivan
December 14, 2014

In the six weeks since their repudiation in the midterms, Democrats have
seen the opening of fissures within their once-disciplined ranks, marking
the start of an internal struggle between now and the 2016 election over
the ideological identity and tactical direction of the party.

The tension — shown in high relief during the messy final days of the
congressional session — is in some ways a mirror image of the stresses
within the Republican Party, which has been divided between its tea party
and establishment factions in recent years.

In the case of both parties, the argument pits the more populist, purist
elements of the base against the more pragmatic center.

For Democrats, “it is a conflict that was looking for an occasion,” said
William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, who was a
policy adviser to former President Bill Clinton. “The election provided the
occasion.”

Having lost big in November, two wings within the party have been trading
recriminations over which was more to blame while jostling for position to
be the face of the Democrats going into 2016.

They are personified by former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton,
the presumptive presidential front-runner by virtue of her stature and
fame, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, the anti-Wall Street
clarion favored by many on the left to challenge Clinton for the Democratic
nomination.

If the loss of the Senate intensified strains within the party, the $1.1
trillion spending bill that passed Saturday night raised two issues that
acted as matches to gasoline. One was a provision rolling back portions of
the 2010 financial regulatory law known as the Dodd-Frank Act. The other
loosened campaign donation limits, allowing the wealthy to give three times
the current maximum to the national political parties. That means even more
clout for rich donors and the interests they represent.

In both instances, the question was not whether Democrats supported the
individual provisions — they generally do not. It was whether individual
members considered them so egregious as to merit blowing up a wide-ranging
deal to which Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) had been a party
and for which President Obama was personally lobbying.

“What we saw over the last couple of days is an example of a debate that is
probably going to go on for a while in the party,” said Jim Manley, a
Democratic strategist and former aide to Reid.

Proponents of the legislation argued that they had succeeded in preventing
even more provisions weakening Dodd-Frank from being inserted in the bill.
And at any rate, they said, the legislation was far better than anything
Democrats could expect should they allow the debate to continue into next
year, when Republicans will be in control of the House and Senate.

But Warren urged her colleagues to hold the line, particularly against the
banks whose political influence she accused her own party of abetting.

“Enough is enough with Wall Street insiders getting key position after key
position and the kind of cronyism we have seen in the executive branch,”
she said in a fiery speech on the Senate floor. “Enough is enough with
Citigroup passing eleventh-hour deregulatory provisions that nobody takes
ownership over but that everybody comes to regret. Enough is enough.”

So strident was her opposition that it drew comparison with Sen. Ted Cruz
(R-Tex.), who had led the charge against the bill from the right based on
opposition to Obama’s immigration policies.

Democratic leaders denied any symmetry.

“Elizabeth Warren, even if people don’t agree with her, she’s constructive.
She’s not like Ted Cruz,” Sen. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.) said Sunday on
CNN. “She’s working hard to move things in her direction. And that’s a good
thing.”

On the House side, there also was a Democratic schism. Minority Leader
Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) marshaled opposition to the spending bill, while her
second-in-command, Democratic whip Steny H. Hoyer (Md.), voted for it.

As the drama was playing out on Capitol Hill on Friday, more than 300
former Obama campaign staff members released a letter calling on Warren to
run, saying, “we want someone who will stand up for working families and
take on the Wall Street banks and special interests that took down our
economy.” Last week, the liberal group Moveon.org also announced that it
would put at least $1 million into an effort to draft Warren, who has
repeatedly said she does not intend to run for president and who was
recently named to a spot in the Senate Democratic leadership.

Neither statement mentioned Clinton, who many on the left think is too
sympathetic to Wall Street and corporate interests. She has yet to make
clear what her main rationale for running would be if she decides to seek
the presidency.

“I don’t think anyone is dying to have a primary so much as we are to have
the right issues debated in this presidential election and beyond,” said
Steve Hildebrand, who was Obama’s 2008 deputy campaign manager. Hildebrand
said he has not committed to any candidate.

Democrats who opposed the spending bill claimed a moral victory, with
Pelosi writing in a letter to her rank-and-file members that their
resistance had “strengthened our position.”

Some said it also framed the terms of political engagement going forward.

“I think the overarching narrative that is most powerful right now is that
everyday citizens are being left out — almost locked out — of their own
democracy, when you look at Washington, when you look at the influence that
special interests have,” said Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.). “Democrats want
to find a way to give people their voice back.”

It may be that the current struggle will nudge the party further to the
left and help it coalesce around a message. Or the episode may have
underscored the dysfunction of an era of intense polarization, where
meeting in the middle has become all but impossible — even within a single
political party.

As retiring Rep. James P. Moran (D-Va.) exited a marathon meeting of his
caucus over the spending measure, he reflected on what will be one of his
final experiences in two dozen years on Capitol Hill.

“I think that this particular experience, as many others, has validated my
decision to leave,” he said.

*CNN: “Progressives gird for Capitol Hill battle”
<http://edition.cnn.com/2014/12/14/politics/progressives-congress-battle/>*

By Alexandra Jaffe

December 14, 2014

Washington (CNN) -- Washington is entering a new era of kamikaze
governance, this time with Democrats at the helm.

Thursday night's spending showdown saw progressive Democrats unexpectedly
emerge as the agitators ready to drive the nation off a cliff to win
concessions — and progressives say it will happen again.

"The fight last night was a shot across the bow that progressives are ready
to stand and fight, and there are millions of Americans ready to jump into
the fray," Ben Wikler, Washington director for MoveOn.org, a progressive
group, said on Sunday.

Progressive members of the Democratic Party are gearing up for what they
expect to be many battles needed to defend their values as Republicans seek
to chip away at a variety of Democratic priorities when they take control
of Congress next year.

A prime example of such skirmishes came last week. Massachusetts Sen.
Elizabeth Warren objected to a GOP provision -- attached to a broad
spending bill -- that rolled back a key portion of the Wall Street reform
law. Her opposition prompted dozens of Democrats to defect and triggered a
last-minute scramble for support; President Barack Obama himself made calls
to win lawmakers back and stave off a potential government shutdown.

The spending bill eventually passed the Senate on Saturday night and on
Sunday, Democratic leaders downplayed a possible rift within the party.

But the nearly 2,000 progressive activists and operatives who descended on
Washington over the weekend for the annual Rootscamp gathering felt
otherwise.

Panels addressed things like #HillaryProblems and the lack of understanding
between the grassroots and establishment wings of the Democratic Party. And
panelists and attendees alike endorsed the newly antagonistic moves from
their elected officials this week.

"How do we make change in general, as we're seeing from the streets of DC
to Ferguson to New York? I do think that sometimes you have to shut it
down," said Alana Krivo-Kaufman, a 27-year-old Rootscamp attendee and an
organizer with Jewish Voice for Peace.

And with Republicans taking control of the Senate next month, the
imperative for progressives to hold their ground on key issues could grow
ever more urgent.

Jim Manley, a Democratic strategist and former Senate leadership aide, said
Republicans have given every indication they'll attempt to use a series of
upcoming deadlines, including the need to raise the debt ceiling next year,
to peel back Democratic policies passed under Obama.

"What we saw just now is just a taste of what's to come for two years," he
said.

*Obama's standing within the party diminished*

And Democrats no longer feel beholden to their de facto leader — the
President — as he enters the final, lame-duck years of his presidency. Some
now openly admit he's going to have to navigate a difficult terrain within
his own party in the new Congress.

Jeremy Bird, the former national field director for Obama's re-election
campaign, told CNN the left is still adjusting to the new political
landscape.

"Everybody's sort of figuring it out, post-midterms, how it's all going to
shake out," he said of Obama's leadership role among Democrats. "I'm sure
there'll be other disagreements. And it's a different world with a
Republican Senate and a Republican House."

Many progressives are frustrated with what they believe has been too much
waffling from the President and other Democratic leaders on the issues that
matter most to the base -- behavior they argue contributed to their losses
in the midterms.

"All the Democrats who lost were ones who ran to the center," Krivo-Kaufman
said, echoing a frequent refrain heard from panelists at Rootscamp.

That frustration has fueled a progressive backlash against the more
moderate dealmakers in the party, and is what's made Warren so attractive
to so many, her supporters believe.

Erica Sagrans, who heads a grassroots super PAC working to draft Warren to
run for President, said the issue with candidates in the midterm was they
were "afraid" to stand on their principles.

"We can't have candidates who are afraid to take risks and say what they
believe in and stand up for something," she said. "You can't just have
these Democrats who are everything to everyone and play things very safe
and are picked by party insiders to not offend anyone."

Sagrans said the watered down soundbites are meaningless to voters,
whereas, "Warren's style of being unafraid of who she is, of being honest,
of speaking up" resonates.

*Campaign-trail fallout*

The elevation of Warren as a prominent figure in these policy fights, and
of Wall Street reform as a key issue for progressives, is certain to put
former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a difficult spot as she
prepares for a potential presidential bid. More than 300 former Obama
campaign staffers signed a letter urging Warren to run for President this
week.

Clinton, meanwhile, continues to face skepticism from progressives who
believe she's too cozy with Wall Street.

And while Warren has repeatedly said she's not interested in a run, her
supporters believe even having her in the mix, and focusing the
conversation on Wall Street reform, could help shape Clinton's potential
candidacy.

Indeed, the activity surrounding Warren, and the emerging rift within the
party, had even Democratic Party officials on Friday predicting a spirited
primary battle for the presidential nomination.

"Regardless of who decides to run, we're gonna have a really competitive
and interesting primary process," said Matt Compton, the Democratic
National Committee's digital director.

*The Daily Beast: “The Most Powerful Democrat in America”
<http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/15/the-most-powerful-democrat-in-america.html>*

By Michael Tomasky

December 15, 2014

[Subtitle:] Elizabeth Warren’s weekend heroics have endeared her even more
to the Democratic base, and it’s time Hillary started getting worried.

Are future historians going to look back on the past weekend as the one in
which Elizabeth Warren took over the Democratic Party? She didn’t win the
fight she led over the weekend to have the provision weakening the
Dodd-Frank law stripped out of the spending bill, but she was never going
to win that vote. What she did win, though, was the ever-more intense ardor
of her growing number of liberal fans. They’d march with her over hot
coals. There’s no other Democrat in the country with that kind of following.

So it’s hardly impossible that Warren could come to be the leader of the
Democratic Party. Hillary Clinton, who hasn’t been cutting an inspiring
figure across the landscape of late, makes a few more “dead broke”
missteps. Warren decides to run after all. The two go head to head through
the primaries, but somehow Warren taps into Democrats’ emotional
nerve-endings in a way Clinton simply can’t, and she becomes the nominee.
And then...

As I said, that’s hardly an insane scenario, and it’s one Clinton should
heed, and heed pretty quickly. The general assumption has been that Warren
won’t challenge Clinton, and that’s probably correct. But Warren is well
aware of how adoring and numerous her followers are and how much leverage
that gives her in the party, and what she wants is to push the party to
embrace her economic views. I doubt she really expects that she can be
elected president, and I wonder if she even would really want the gig
(she’s shown practically no interest in foreign policy, and that is
destined to be by far the hardest and most hair-graying part of the job).
But if she becomes convinced that challenging Clinton is the best—or
only—way for her to maximize her leverage, then she might just do it.

Surely, after this last week, she can’t be blamed if she’s feeling a bit
more intoxicated. After watching her astounding call to break up Citigroup,
her admirers have been rushing forth with pleas and petitions for her to
run. Referring to Citi’s role in the lobbying effort to get that anti
Dodd-Frank provision put in the spending bill Congress just passed, Warren
said on the Senate floor last Friday: “If a financial institution has
become so big and so powerful that it can hold the entire country hostage,
that alone is reason enough to break them up. Enough is enough. Enough is
enough, with Wall Street insiders getting key position after key position,
and the kind of cronyism that we have seen in the executive branch. Enough
is enough, with Citigroup passing eleventh-hour deregulatory provisions
that nobody takes ownership over but everybody will come to regret.”

I can’t remember the last time a prominent senator issued such a direct
challenge to one of America’s leading corporations. That kind of talk went
out of style long ago, in favor of the corporate leg-spreading so much more
typical of our campaign-cash-obsessed era. Warren doesn’t need their money
and represents a state where, barring a weird scandal, she can get
reelected as long as she wants, so she can do what depressingly few
senators can—speak her mind on money issues.

But she does have this problem: The media will always peg her as “left,” a
word that in modern American media usage is clearly a pejorative. And if
she just gets stuck there, her influence, however great among the
Democratic base, will never grow outside of it. More centrist Democrats
will make a few gestures in the Warren direction, but nothing more.

So Warren’s great challenge is to counter that dismissal by showing that
her ideas do indeed have appeal outside the hard-shell Democratic Party
base. They do, potentially—a number of polls have shown that Americans,
including many in the center and even some on the right, have negative
views of Wall Street and would back tighter regulation. She can speak to
goo-goo eyed crowds in Boston and New York and San Francisco and Los
Angeles, and while she’ll wow the already converted and rake in the money,
she won’t be changing anything. But if she can take her message to Des
Moines and Louisville and Columbus and Jacksonville and demonstrate that
audiences are receptive there, then she’ll break out of the box the media
wants to assign her. And if she can do that, she’ll become a figure of
un-ignorable influence, and she’ll start making the likes of Clinton really
pay attention.

But Clinton should be paying attention anyway. The feeling I sense right
now about Clinton is: not very much real excitement, and just the slightest
bit of resentment at her inevitability. She seems a little remote. She
comments, sometimes, on issues that arise, but it always seems to take her
a little longer than it ought to. She has a Twitter feed, but she tweets
about once a week, and it’s always a total snooze. Why shouldn’t she—who
needs to find ways to make people forget she’s nearly 70—use Twitter to
comment on the news, and say some interesting and edgy things?

Those come under symbolism. Substantively, Clinton needs to see that what
Warren represents is real and, once she starts taking positions, take some
that demonstrate that she hears what these exasperated millions are trying
to say about inequality and the rigged system. No one expects her to be
Elizabeth Warren, but everyone expects Clinton to hear and respect Warren.
If she doesn’t send convincing signals that she does, then Warren may well
feel that she needs to run after all. The choice is Clinton’s.

*The Daily Beast: “Bush, Christie, Romney: Who’ll Be the GOP Class
Warrior?”
<http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/15/bush-christie-romney-who-ll-be-the-gop-class-warrior.html>*

By Lloyd Green

December 15, 2014

[Subtitle:] Bush, Christie, and Romney are already duking it out. The
winner will be the one who most squarely gets on the side of the working
class.

It’s not even 2015, but the Republicans’ rich-guy establishment primary is
underway for real. Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, and Mitt Romney are each doing
their best to keep their hopes and options alive. Stories abound of
high-end donors being asked to keep their powder dry, while the party’s
would-be nominees figure out what they want to do next.

Yet, the most interesting detail of this minuet is watching Romney put on
his political “consultant cap” and chivvy Jeb for being tied to England’s
Barclays Bank and the now defunct Lehman Brothers. In the words of Mitt,
“You saw what they did to me with Bain Capital . . . What do you think
they’ll do to Bush over Barclays?”

So what was Mitt talking about? According to a report published last April
in The New York Times, in 2008 Bush, serving as an advisor to Lehman, went
to Mexican billionaire and Times shareholder Carlos Slim in a failed
eleventh-hour effort to resuscitate the dying investment bank.  Slim turned
Bush down, and Lehman filed for bankruptcy in September 2008, just weeks
before the presidential election.

Jeb next found himself as an advisor to Barclays, which had picked through
the carcass of what was left of Lehman. These days, Barclays finds itself
under investigation both here and in England for purported foreign exchange
manipulation and other sins, even after the bank has already paid out
hundreds of millions in fines in connection with rigging interest rates. To
be clear, Bush was not involved in any wrongdoing, but Barclays’ woes are
out there.

Then last week, Bloomberg Businessweek ran a banner headline “Jeb Bush Has
a Mitt Romney Problem.” This report dished on how filings with the U.S.
Securities and Exchange Commission listed “Bush as chairman and manager of
a new offshore private equity fund, BH Global Aviation, which raised
$61 million in September, largely from foreigninvestors.”

To put things into perspective, BH Global Aviation is just one of at least
three such Bush-driven funds. In other words, BH Global might look like a
Republican analog to the Clinton Global Initiative, the Bill, Hillary, and
Chelsea Clinton Foundation, and the Hillary Clinton $300,000 speech tour
without the self-aggrandizement or the pretense. Instead, it’s
unapologetically about making money.

Yet financialism can leave voters feeling queasy, and candidates grasping
for answers. For example, even after the late Sen. Ted Kennedy pummeled
Romney over his investments as Romney unsuccessfully sought to unseat the
Senator in 1994, Romney was flummoxed when the Obama campaign bashed him
over Bain.

This year, Kansas’s voters rejected the independent bid of Greg Orman, a
private equity player, to unseat Senate incumbent Pat Roberts. After
leading Roberts, the wheels came off of Orman’s candidacy when word got out
that he had sat on the board of a private-equity firm founded by Rajat
Gupta, a convicted felon and inside-trader.

And in the case of Romney, it’s unclear if he has really internalized that
lesson. After Romney lost in 2012, he still hadn’t figured it out. In a
post-election interview with The Washington Post’s Dan Balz, Romney could
only acknowledge of his infamous 47 percent remark that “well, clearly that
was a very damaging quote and hurt my campaign effort.” He also continued
to channel his inner Mitt, telling Balz that Americans remained most
concerned about borrowing and spending—when in fact jobs were and are the
top priority for an overwhelming majority of Americans.

Memo to all Republican contenders: The GOP is now the home of white
working- and middle-class voters. It’s no longer about Thurston Howell III.

As for Christie, much as he tries, he can’t shake free of Bridgegate. The
word out of New Jersey is that federal prosecutors may criminally charge
Christie’s aides under a provision of the U.S. Code that makes it illegal
to intentionally misapply federal funds and property. Here, prosecutors may
argue that since the George Washington Bridge is the beneficiary of federal
funds, and the bridge was shutdown purely for the sake of political
revenge, then Christie’s aides broke the law. To add to his woes, New
Jerseyans are telling pollsters that their guy just isn’t ready for prime
time. Christie is also the same fellow who spent his 2013 election night
with Steven A. Cohen, whose hedge fund shortly thereafter pleaded guilty to
insider trading.

So where to go from here? For openers, the Republicans should start taking
about how falling oil prices are giving working Americans the tax break the
Obama administration begrudges them. Next, the GOP should hammer away at
how our roads, bridges, and tunnels are crumbling, and push for an
infrastructure initiative. If building America’s highways was good enough
for President Eisenhower, and is also expressly endorsed by the
Constitution, how can the Republicans go wrong by rebuilding America?

Yes, the party has been opposed to public works projects, but the reality
is that America’s infrastructure is deteriorating, and the longer we wait,
the greater the problem becomes. Obviously, such a campaign should be tied
to the fact that America’s workforce is dwindling, with men and women, but
particularly men, dropping out and spending their days staring at the
internet or glued to television.

In the end, talking about family values is one thing; doing something about
them is something else, and without well-paying jobs, marriage is quickly
becoming one more totem of the upper reaches of the social ladder. Scolding
Blue America may feel satisfying, but it doesn’t mesh with the reality that
the high-end Deep Blue suburbs of Larchmont and Newton are places where
families thrive and worship.

Instead, the Republicans should tie their push for infrastructure to
getting folks off the couch and back to work. As a matter of dollars and
cents, America in the short term may be able to afford disability and food
stamps. Still, over the longer haul, able-bodied Americans sitting on the
sidelines watching our roads crumble is not a recipe for success. Rather,
it is a death knell for the American dream.  Wayne and Garth are not
national role models.

After the story broke in Bloomberg about Jeb’s latest business ventures,
the Republican donor class grew understandably defensive about the implicit
attack on the financial industry and simultaneously protective of Jeb. That
alone, however, won’t cut it with the Republican base or with the country.
Wall Street may channel dollars to the GOP, but it doesn’t fill it with
votes -- which lie elsewhere, and elsewhere being the American heartland.

Still, there’s time to get things right. The GOP should embrace the work
ethic as its mantra, and this time act like they mean it. Losing three
elections in a row would be embarrassing.

*Washington Post: “Jeb Bush’s move to release book, e-mails stokes
expectations of White House bid”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/jeb-bushs-move-to-release-book-e-mails-stokes-expectations-of-white-house-bid/2014/12/14/dc6683a0-83c5-11e4-a702-fa31ff4ae98e_story.html?hpid=z1>*

By Robert Costa and Matea Gold

December 14, 2014, 9:42 p.m. EST

Jeb Bush’s decision to release a policy-laden e-book and all his e-mails
from his time as governor of Florida has further stoked expectations among
his allies that he will launch a presidential bid.

Bush announced the moves in an expansive interview that aired Sunday on a
Miami television station. He mused about the kind of campaign he would run
and addressed his views on immigration and education reform that rile parts
of the GOP base.

At several points in the interview, Bush sounded like a
candidate-in-waiting. He said the process of cataloguing his e-mails and
writing the book reminded him that “if you run with big ideas and then
you’re true to those ideas . . . you can move the needle.”

He indicated he would make a move soon. “End of this year, early next year,
I’ll make a decision to really pursue this or to stand down,” Bush said.

A tightknit group of longtime aides, led by California-based strategist
Mike Murphy and

Florida-based confidante Sally Bradshaw, have been huddling with Bush in
recent weeks, sketching out the look and feel of a possible 2016 campaign.

Their thinking is that Bush, who was last on a ballot in 2002, would need
to be aggressive and digitally savvy, challenging any impressions that he
is an establishment moderate with sclerotic campaign skills.

Instead, they would attempt to cast him as an accessible conservative
reformer who is not of Washington, according to Republicans who have spoken
with Murphy and Bradshaw.

The ramped-up activity this month by Bush’s team — which has caught many in
the GOP off-guard — could be seen in how quickly he moved to defuse new
questions about his work for a private-equity firm.

In the interview, which was taped in Coral Gables, Fla., on Saturday, Bush
rejected the idea that his high-finance experience could be a liability, as
it was for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in 2012.

“I think that practical experience is something that might be useful in
Washington, D.C., to be honest with you, where it’s all in this bubble,
where they have no concept what impact the massive amount of rules and
taxes and regulations . . . has on the entrepreneurial spirit of this
country,” Bush told WPLG-TV. “I’m not ashamed. Taking risk and creating
jobs is something we ought to have more of.”

If he runs, the former governor said, he will divest himself of his
business interests.

Bush used the interview to highlight what his advisers believe are his
strengths: his wonky style and an open approach to discussing his
gubernatorial record. Early next year, he plans to unveil a Web site with
250,000 e-mails — the entire trove from his time as governor.

“Part of serving or running — both of them — is transparency, to be totally
transparent,” Bush said.

Florida legal experts noted that the state’s public-records law requires
the release of Bush’s e-mails and other correspondence as governor, with
few exceptions.

But posting all the documents online is an extra measure that could provide
a sharp contrast with his would-be rivals for the Republican nomination.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has been dogged by investigations into his
aides’ role in a bridge-closing scandal, while Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker
has been fighting efforts by state prosecutors to investigate possible
illegal political coordination by his associates.

Bush’s pending compilation of documents also serves as a challenge to
former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has come under
criticism because the State Department has failed to meet its deadlines to
release records related to her tenure.

“If he does throw his hat in the 2016 race, he’ll run a different type of
campaign,” Republican consultant Ana Navarro, a Bush friend who worked in
his gubernatorial office, said in an e-mail Sunday. “He’s setting a high
bar for transparency and putting pressure on others to follow suit.”

Meanwhile, Bush plans to complete a yet-untitled e-book after the holidays
that will be released in the late winter or early spring. The book is
expected to lay out his arguments on issues such as education, immigration
and the economy and could be the first in a series if he runs, according to
people familiar with the project.

Monday, Bush is traveling to Columbia, S.C., to deliver the winter
commencement address at the University of South Carolina.

Democrats are closely watching Bush’s maneuvers and say that he could be a
formidable candidate if he were able to make it through a Republican
primary contest.

“I think he would be the toughest guy for us,” Howard Dean, the former
Vermont governor and past Democratic National Committee chairman, said in
an interview Sunday. “He could raise a lot of money, and in a general
election, you have to be respectful that anything can happen. . . . He’s
going to have a stance on immigration that is much more constructive than
the one held by others in his party, and I don’t think he’ll back away.”

Bush on Sunday said he would try to persuade Republicans to embrace his
perspective on immigration.

While he said that undocumented immigrants should pay penalties for not
following the law, Bush urged lawmakers and others to not “ascribe evil
motives for people wanting to put food on the table for their families.”

The former governor continued to defend Common Core, the voluntary reading
and math standards adopted by 43 states and the District of Columbia. He
says the standards help better prepare students. But he said he shared
“common ground” with critics of the standards, saying the federal
government should not get involved.

“They shouldn’t use their coercive powers to try to dictate the tests or
dictate anything,” Bush said. “Certainly, curriculum shouldn’t come close
to Washington, D.C. — God forbid that would happen.”

Bush indicated that, if he runs, he will try to avoid the trap that befell
Romney when he moved to the right during the GOP primaries.

“He got sucked into other people’s agendas, and I think it hurt him a
little bit,” he said, mentioning that he thinks “almost daily” about what
would have happened if Romney won the presidency.

“You have to be true to who you are,” Bush said. At a time when “everything
is digitized, your life is open for 24/7, the idea that you can just kind
of say you’re for one thing and then change it after you win the primary”
is unrealistic.

Reporter Michael Putney, who conducted the interview with WPLG-TV colleague
Glenna Milberg, has covered Bush for years and was struck by his upbeat
demeanor.

“I think it’s now a question of ‘when’ he runs,” he said, “rather than ‘if’
he runs.”

*The Hill column: Lanny J. Davis: “Clinton and Warren — Facts, not labels”
<http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/227094-clinton-and-warren-facts-not-labels>*

By Lanny J. Davis

December 15, 2014, 6:00 a.m. EST

As a supporter of Hillary Clinton for president if she runs, I don't mind
the efforts of some Democrats to urge Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) to
change her mind and run for president. I admire Warren, especially her
recent effort to strip the "cromnibus" budget bill of a rollback of
Dodd-Frank. On the other hand, she is now being described in the Senate by
some Republicans as the "Ted Cruz of the Democratic Party." A major
progressive Democratic House member who supported Barack Obama in 2008
expressed the same concern over the weekend on a liberal-oriented cable
network. Unfair, and not good.

The fact is, Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren and most Democrats are more
united on the basic issues than I can recall in a long time. They have all
focused on the plight of the squeezed middle class and working families
stuck in wage stagnation, their children burdened by substantial student
loan debts while the income disparity between the super wealthy and the
rest of America grows every year with no end in sight.

Unfortunately, many in the media seem bent on creating bogus substantial
differences among them, using empty labels as pejoratives, devoid of facts.
For example, a recent Bloomberg news article recently reported that
pro-Warren Democrats are concerned about Clinton's "pro-business economic
policies and a roster of Wall Street donors." But what facts support these
labels?

Like Warren, Clinton supported the creation of the Consumer Financial
Protection Bureau. As a U.S. senator, Clinton opposed extending tax cuts to
those earning over $250,000 a year. She supports ObamaCare, increasing the
minimum wage and the president's strict regulations to reduce carbon
dioxide emissions and the planetary threat of global warming. "Pro business
economic policies?"

Of course, in her two successful campaigns for the U.S. Senate from New
York, and in her 2008 presidential campaign, Clinton accepted donations
from those who work on Wall Street. So did President Obama in 2008 as well
as 2012. But what policies did either support, influenced by such
donations? None are cited — none exist.

On foreign policy, former Secretary of State Clinton supported the moderate
opposition to the brutal Syrian dictator, Bashar Assad – the current policy
of Obama. She supported Obama's policies backing the use of NATO air power
(including French and British planes as well as U.S.) to assist the popular
revolt against Libya's military dictator, Moammar Gadhafi. She supports
Obama's limits on U.S. ground forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Does that
justify the label of "hawkish" for her and Obama? Really?

Of course, there are differences in style and approach. Like President Bill
Clinton, Hillary Clinton believes in a lean and efficient government as a
partner of the job creation engine of the private sector. And she has
demonstrated over the years an ability to work with Republicans to get
things done. Howard Dean recently endorsed Hillary Clinton for president.
He wrote in Politico Magazine:

“Hillary Clinton is by far the most qualified person in the United States
to serve as President. ... [S]he has a record in the Senate of successfully
working with both sides of our very combative political spectrum in order
to accomplish goals that improve the lives of ordinary Americans.”

Warren has repeatedly stated that she is not running for president in 2016.
Perhaps that is because she sees no substantial policy differences that
would motivate her to change her mind if fellow progressive Democrat
Hillary Clinton becomes a candidate. And the senator understands that
Clinton is now in the strongest position to become the nation's first woman
president, leading every possible Republican presidential candidate in the
polls, as well as on the four personal qualities that Americans most value
in a president.

But if for some reason Warren changes her mind and decides to run, vigorous
competition and debates among fellow progressives on the best ideas to
achieve similar goals will end up strengthening the ultimate Democratic
Party nominee — just as was the case for Barack Obama in 2008.

That is why Democrats must resist the media's apparently unavoidable
temptation to create excitement and — may I suggest it? — high ratings and
lots of column inches by depicting bogus divisions among Democratic
candidates. Supporters of the various candidates need to stick to the facts
about their favored candidate and avoid empty, inaccurate labels in
describing other Democratic candidates — and insist that the media and the
pundits do the same.

*Calendar:*

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

·  December 15 – New York, NY: Sec. Clinton discusses closing gender data
gaps with Michael Bloomberg (AP
<https://twitter.com/KThomasDC/status/542345675493892096>)

·  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>
)

·  January 21 – Saskatchewan, Canada: Sec. Clinton keynotes the Canadian
Imperial Bank of Commerce’s “Global Perspectives” series (MarketWired
<http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/former-us-secretary-state-hillary-rodham-clinton-deliver-keynote-address-saskatoon-1972651.htm>
)

·  January 21 – Winnipeg, Canada: Sec. Clinton keynotes the Global
Perspectives series (Winnipeg Free Press
<http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/Clinton-coming-to-Winnipeg--284282491.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>
)

·  March 19 – Atlantic City, NJ: Sec. Clinton keynotes  American Camp
Association conference (PR Newswire <http://www.sys-con.com/node/3254649>)