Subject: ​Correct The Record Thursday December 18, 2014 Afternoon Roundup
From: Burns Strider <[email-masked]>
To: CTRFriendsFamily <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 15:40:25 -0500
List-Id: <CTRFriendsFamily.americanbridge.org>

*​**Correct The Record Thursday December 18, 2014 Afternoon Roundup:*

*Tweets:*

*Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: .@HillaryClinton
<https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton> said by investing in children's
education, "we are saying that the future is worthwhile"#HRC365
<https://twitter.com/hashtag/HRC365?src=hash>
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/27/world/a-clinton-and-a-bhutto-share-a-joke-in-pakistan.html
…
<http://t.co/VYcR1AICqC> [12/18/14, 12:06 p.m. EST
<https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/545626105093169153>]

*Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: .@HillaryClinton
<https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton> implored that we shouldn't "condone &
practice torture anywhere in the world" #HRC365
<https://twitter.com/hashtag/HRC365?src=hash>
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/hillary-clinton-pass-laws-forbidding-torture-113631.html#ixzz3MAMHyc9G
…
<http://t.co/W1fo5ugswI> [12/17/14, 3:51 p.m. EST
<https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/545320321893793792>]

*Headlines:*

*Washington Post blog: Plum Line: “Morning Plum: Obama, unbound, puts his
stamp on 2016”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/12/18/morning-plum-obama-unbound-puts-his-stamp-on-2016/>*

“When you step back and look at the degree to which these actions are
beginning to frame that contest [the 2016 election], it’s striking.”

*New York Times Magazine: “Can Liberal Zionists Count On Hillary Clinton?”
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/21/magazine/can-liberal-zionists-count-on-hillary-clinton.html?&hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=1>*

“The political quandary for liberal Zionists is that, as part of the Jewish
majority that will vote for Clinton regardless, they aren’t in a great
position to make demands and are reduced to hoping that Clinton secretly
agonizes over the issue as much as they do.”

*BuzzFeed: “Ted Cruz: ‘I Can Only Laugh’ When Obama, Clinton Discuss Income
Inequality”
<http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/ted-cruz-i-can-only-laugh-when-obama-clinton-discuss-income#.okm990Wdw>*

“Ted Cruz is attacking President Obama and Hillary Clinton on income
inequality.”

*Washington Post blog: Post Politics: “Rand Paul supports opening up
relations with Cuba”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/12/18/rand-paul-supports-opening-up-relations-with-cuba/>*

“On the Democratic side, presumed frontrunner Hillary Clinton said she
supports Obama's decision.”

*The Hill blog: Ballot Box: “Dems blame 2014 drubbing on failed economic
message”
<http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/polls/227540-dems-lack-of-economic-message-led-to-campaign-losses>*

"The analysis found that Democrats focused too much on 'piecemeal policy
proposals' like the minimum wage and equal pay for women, which 'struck
voters as falling well short of the level of change necessary to set our
country and our economy back on track.'"

*NBC News: “Why 2016 Will Be a Battle Between the Grassroots and the
Donors”
<http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/why-2016-will-be-battle-between-grassroots-donors-n270401>*

“Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, has the long-standing support of wealthy
Democrats, gathered between her and Bill Clinton over more than two decades
in politics.”

*New York Times: “As 2016 Nears, Hillary Clinton Keeps in Mind Mistakes of
2008 Campaign”
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/19/us/politics/as-2016-nears-hillary-rodham-clinton-keeps-eye-on-mistakes-of-2008-campaign.html?_r=0>*

“Little by little, Mrs. Clinton is taking steps that suggest she has
learned from the mistakes, both tactical and personal, of her failed
candidacy.”

*Washington Post blog: The Fix: “The Associated Press just did something
very smart”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/12/18/the-associated-press-just-did-something-very-smart/>*

“Given how drastically over-covered Hillary Clinton's expected presidential
campaign will be -- particularly given the small chance she will face a
genuinely competitive primary -- having more people in these state capitols
to mine the records of the various governors running for the big office is
a smart investment.”

*Politico: “Clinton aide met with Warren-aligned liberal group”
<http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/hillary-clinton-elizabeth-warren-progressive-change-campaign-committee-113675.html>*

“On Thursday, PCCC founder Adam Green confirmed that he had met with a
Clinton aide in the last few weeks, but declined to identify the aide or
describe what was discussed.”

*Articles:*

*Washington Post blog: Plum Line: “Morning Plum: Obama, unbound, puts his
stamp on 2016”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/12/18/morning-plum-obama-unbound-puts-his-stamp-on-2016/>*

By Greg Sargent

December 18, 2014, 9:22 a.m. EST

For years, progressives have sharply criticized President Obama for shaping
major decisions around the idea that scaling back his ambitions would
ultimately secure the GOP cooperation he had long sought. But the GOP
takeover of Congress has effectively freed Obama from that illusion,
leaving him little choice other than to be as aggressive and ambitious as
possible in unilaterally pursuing his agenda wherever he can.

This is now setting in motion a series of arguments that will shape the
next race for the presidency.

In a very good piece, the New York Times’ Michael Shear reports that
Obama’s decision to pursue normalized relations with Cuba is only the
latest in a pattern that may characterize his last two years in office:

“The announcement…follows similar decisions by Mr. Obama in recent weeks to
defy Republicans on immigration, climate change policy, the regulation of
the Internet and negotiations with Iran…

“Mr. Obama’s unilateral action on Cuba is part of a pattern that will
define the end of his presidency. Frustrated by congressional inaction and
Republican efforts to block legislation, the president has increasingly
pushed the limits of his executive authority in domestic and international
policy making — an approach that anticipates, and largely dismisses, angry
responses from his critics…

“Mr. Obama is returning to the original case he made as a presidential
candidate, casting himself as a transformational leader who is eager to
discard old conventions of politics and policy in ways that appeal to the
sensibilities of younger people. Although the midterm elections last month
were a victory for Republicans, who took control of the Senate and added to
their House majority, the results seem to have only accelerated the
president’s use of regulatory, diplomatic and executive authority.”

Republicans like to say all of this unilateral action defies the will of
the people as expressed in the last election. If that is so, then
Republicans will surely be glad to hear that much of what Obama is setting
in motion may be litigated in another electoral contest — the 2016
presidential race.

When you step back and look at the degree to which these actions are
beginning to frame that contest, it’s striking. Hillary Clinton has now
endorsed Obama’s move on Cuba. GOP presidential hopefuls are lining up
against it. She has vowed to protect Obama’s actions on climate “at all
costs,” a stance that could take on added significance if a global climate
treaty is negotiated next year. Potential GOP presidential candidates will
likely vow to undo those actions and line up against U.S. participation in
such a treaty.

Clinton has come out in support of Obama’s action to shield millions from
deportation. GOP presidential hopefuls have lined up against it,
effectively reaffirming the party’s commitment to deporting as many
low-level offenders and longtime residents as possible. And so on.

As Shear’s piece notes, all these actions appear geared to “the
sensibilities of younger people.” But it goes beyond this. They are geared
to the priorities of many of the voter groups that are increasingly key to
Democratic victories in national elections: millennials, nonwhite voters,
and college educated whites, especially women. The Cuba shift may appeal to
young voters, particularly younger Cubans in the key swing state of
Florida. The move on deportations could sharpen the contrast between the
parties in ways that enhance the Democratic advantage among Latinos. The
moves on climate could appeal to millennials and socially liberal upscale
whites.

The common thread uniting all of these is a Democratic gamble that such
groups will be swayed by an agenda that is forward-looking and more
accepting of evolving demographic, international and scientific realities,
and will see the GOP as increasingly trapped in the past.

One big unknown is whether the next Democratic nominee can get out the
Obama coalition in the numbers he did. But it increasingly looks like a
good deal more of the Obama agenda than expected — in the form of all these
unilateral actions — may be on the ballot in 2016 to appeal to these voter
groups. Republicans delighted in arguing that Obama’s policies were soundly
rejected in the last election. But we’re now playing on a presidential year
field, and Obama’s new approach appears to be only getting started.

*New York Times Magazine: “Can Liberal Zionists Count On Hillary Clinton?”
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/21/magazine/can-liberal-zionists-count-on-hillary-clinton.html?&hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=1>*

By Jason Horowitz

December 17, 2014

Daniel Zemel first visited Israel fresh off his bar mitzvah, in 1966. A
bookish Jewish kid from Chicago, Zemel had a love for Israel inherited from
his grandfather, Rabbi Solomon Goldman, a friend of Albert Einstein’s who
was president from 1938 to 1940 of the then left-leaning Zionist
Organization of America. With the other members of his Jewish education
group, the 13-year-old Zemel spent two weeks in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and
Haifa. He lunched in cafeterias with the kibbutzniks he idolized, ate
frozen treats on the beach and climbed a lookout tower, peering into
Jerusalem’s still forbidden Old City. A year later, Zemel was ecstatic when
Israeli forces captured everything he had surveyed and beyond, including
the Temple Mount, the West Bank and Gaza, in the Six-Day War with Egypt,
Syria and Jordan. Over the decades, as Israel matured and began to wrestle
with the occupation, Zemel did, too. He visited Israel again and again, as
a college student, a rabbinical student and an assistant rabbi in Minnesota.

In 1983, Zemel became the head rabbi of Temple Micah, in the Northwest
section of Washington. In the constellation of liberal American synagogues,
there are a handful that stand out for their political engagement and the
influence of their members — Leo Baeck Temple in Los Angeles, Congregation
Beth Elohim in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and KAM Isaiah Israel on Barack
Obama’s old block in Chicago. But none have more connections to Capitol
Hill.

In the fall, Zemel, a contemplative 62-year-old with horn-rimmed glasses, a
bushy mustache and a bald dome from which his skullcap incessantly slips,
stood before his congregation in a state of unrest. It was the start of the
Jewish New Year, and he had decided to express his anguish over Israel in
the form of a sermon about the direction his beloved country had taken. All
summer, during the war in Gaza, Zemel and many of the members of his
progressive congregation had been racked with worry. In his book-lined
office, decorated with an Israeli flag and a poster of Yoda holding a
Hebrew bible, emails from congregants had been regularly popping up on
Zemel’s computer screen, railing about Israelis “killing children.” Zemel
sat with congregants as they wept on his couch.

The entire year 5774, in fact, was a trying one for Zemel and other liberal
Zionists, who increasingly find themselves torn between their liberalism
and Zionism and stranded in the disappearing middle between the extremes of
a polarized American Jewish community. Micah’s liberal Zionists remained
wedded to a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians and estranged
from the policies of a right-wing Israeli government, along with the
reflexively Israel-can-do-no-wrong sentiment on Capitol Hill. But they also
felt alienated by Jewish groups to their left, some of which chanted, “Stop
the murder, stop the hate, Israel is a racist state.”

Zemel, fighting a nagging cold, looked out at the robust crowd on Rosh
Hashana. He knew that the people gathered before him — and the people they
knew — could help determine United States policy toward Israel. Some of
them even had a direct line to Hillary Clinton, the early favorite to be
the Democrats’ nominee for president in 2016. Sara Ehrman, who is 95 and a
veteran of Jewish-American politics, was a mentor to Clinton; she sat next
to Maria Echaveste, a former official in Bill Clinton’s administration and
a convert to Judaism whom President Obama nominated to become ambassador to
Mexico. Al From, an architect of the Democratic resurgence of the 1990s and
adviser to Bill Clinton, sat across the aisle. Arrayed around them sat
newspaper, magazine and television journalists in a congregation that
included David Gregory, a former host of “Meet the Press”; Jake Tapper, a
CNN anchor; and Dana Bash, a Washington correspondent for CNN and the
former wife of Jeremy Bash, who was a national-security official in the
Obama administration. Another member of the congregation is Alan Cooperman,
director of religion research at the Pew Research Center, which a year
before published a landmark portrait of Jewish Americans that showed, among
other things, that less than a third of young Jews said “caring about
Israel” was essential to their Jewish identity.

Zemel adjusted his skullcap. “Tonight we celebrate the creation of the
world,” he said. “But in this season we also take a look at ourselves: We
acknowledge our past, our errors, who we are. What better time to look in
the same way at the only Jewish country in the world? The events of this
summer actually only strengthened my decision to speak about Israel and
American Jewry’s ongoing and evolving relationship with that mystifying,
infuriating yet enchanting place.”

As the sermon progressed, Zemel became more impassioned. He recounted the
story of the reprisal murder in July of a Palestinian teenager from East
Jerusalem by Israeli extremists. “I am so ashamed,” he shouted. He bemoaned
the growing ultranationalism in Israel by saying it had “dragged through
the mud” what he called “the greatest ethical tradition in history.” Heads
nodded in the pews. “In many segments of American Jewry,” Zemel said, “one
is free to disagree with the president of the United States, but the prime
minister of Israel is sacrosanct. How patently absurd!” Zemel’s criticism
of the current Israeli government pivoted to a discussion of how the
Holocaust and that summer’s flare-ups of anti-Semitism in Europe reminded
them all that Israel was existentially necessary. “We must love Israel even
harder,” he concluded, quoting from the Israeli national anthem. “Od lo
avda tikvateinu. We have not yet lost our hope.”

For Zemel and his faithfully Democratic congregation, that hope and anxiety
has come to rest most squarely on Hillary Clinton. This has happened at the
same time that Clinton has staked out a firmly hawkish, pro-Israel position
on Gaza and Israeli security. In August, many liberals were discouraged
after reading a Clinton interview with Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic. In
it, she struck a tone on Israel that was markedly more hard-line than that
of the Obama administration, generally avoiding empathy with Palestinian
losses and asserting, “If I were the prime minister of Israel, you’re damn
right I would expect to have control over security” on the West Bank.

Asked about her tough talk, liberal Zionists tend to blame the requirements
of American presidential-campaign politics. A vast majority of Jews care
far more about social issues and the economy than they do about the issue
of Israel and will always vote for the Democratic candidate. “Democrats who
are Jewish will turn out in droves in support of her,” Haim Saban, a media
mogul and major Clinton-campaign financier told me. And the Jewish donors?
“Without a doubt.”

But Clinton knows that there is a wealthy and influential sliver of
more-moderate Democratic Jews for whom Israel is a priority. They are less
conservative than the G.O.P.'s top Jewish donors, like Sheldon Adelson, the
billionaire casino owner, but feel protective enough of Israel that they
could plausibly support a Republican if they sensed anything less than
complete support from a Democrat. The political arithmetic for Clinton is
easy — knowing you can take the larger liberal Jewish vote for granted, you
support Israel’s right-wing government to keep moderates from bolting.

The political quandary for liberal Zionists is that, as part of the Jewish
majority that will vote for Clinton regardless, they aren’t in a great
position to make demands and are reduced to hoping that Clinton secretly
agonizes over the issue as much as they do. Saban, the major
Clinton-campaign financier, told me that Clinton was pained by the
consequences of Israel’s actions, just not publicly. “I can tell you that
privately she has expressed empathy for the Palestinians,” he told me. “She
has.” Victor Kovner, a Democratic bundler who has a Chuck Close painting of
Hillary Clinton hanging in his New York office, assures fellow liberal Jews
that Clinton is on their side. “She is running for president, this isn’t
true-self time,” he said. He suggested that Bill Clinton had demonstrated a
much more nuanced view.

But other Clinton supporters have no patience for hand-wringing liberal
Zionists, especially because there is little daylight between them and
Clinton on actual policy. “What do they want her to do?” said Ann Lewis, a
senior adviser on Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign who is involved with
Jewish issues.

The standard line for Hillary Clinton, who declined to be interviewed for
this article, is that she has been a consistent voice for Israel and for
peace over the last quarter-century. But other Clinton intimates, including
those in Temple Micah, say they have watched her position shift by degrees
over the decades. Ehrman, for one, recalled an early iteration of Hillary
Clinton as a promising liberal voice on Israel. Ehrman first met Clinton
during George McGovern’s 1972 presidential campaign in Texas. Back in
Washington, Ehrman hosted Clinton, who had landed a job on the Watergate
committee, in her apartment for a year, and the two became close. Ehrman
later drove Clinton to Fayetteville, Ark., telling her all the way that she
was making a mistake by giving up a promising career to marry the “country
lawyer” Bill Clinton.

In the early 1980s, Ehrman became political-education director of the
American Israel Public Affairs Committee — or Aipac — the country’s most
potent pro-Israel lobbying group. When the Clintons came to Washington as
president and first lady, Ehrman became deputy political director of the
Democratic National Committee. “I did all the Jewish stuff around the White
House,” Ehrman said. That work culminated in organizing the Oslo Accords
ceremony, at which Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin shook hands with the
Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat on the south lawn of the White House,
sealing an agreement between Jews and Palestinians to end their conflict.
On the morning of the signing ceremony, Hillary Clinton called Ehrman with
a special reward. “ 'I want you to stand at the front door of the
diplomatic entrance, the main entrance, and I want you to see them coming
in,' ” Ehrman recalled her saying.

The event was a high point of liberal Zionism’s harmony with Washington
politics. “It was totally, totally amazing,” said Zemel, who also attended
the event. Clinton’s interest in the issue did not end there. In May 1998,
speaking via satellite to young Arabs and Israelis gathered in Switzerland
for a conference, she became one of the first people associated with the
Clinton administration to call for a two-state solution. “I think that it
will be in the long-term interest of the Middle East for Palestine to be a
state,” she said, adding that “the territory that the Palestinians
currently inhabit, and whatever additional territory they will obtain
through the peace negotiations,” should be considered “a functioning modern
state.”

The White House, seemingly uncomfortable with her statement, clarified that
she was expressing a personal view. Her willingness to embrace the
Palestinians soon caused another problem. In 1999, Ehrman accompanied
Hillary Clinton on a trip to Ramallah, during which Clinton listened to
Suha Arafat, the wife of the Palestinian Authority leader Yasir Arafat,
deliver a speech in Arabic accusing the Israeli government of gassing
Palestinian women and children. At the conclusion of the remarks, Clinton
embraced Suha Arafat and offered a customary peck on the cheek. The moment
news of the kiss hit the wires, a high-ranking Clinton administration
official placed an angry call to the cellphone of Rob Malley, a Middle East
adviser to the president, who was traveling with the first lady, demanding
that he fix the problem. But the damage to Hillary Clinton was done.

The next day, some New York Jewish leaders seized on the incident to
discredit Hillary Clinton’s candidacy for the United States Senate, which
was unofficially well underway. The New York Post ran a front-page headline
reading “Shame on Hillary.” It was around this time that she enrolled in
political Hebrew School. Under the tutelage of the senior New York senator,
Chuck Schumer, she became extremely adept at winning the trust of audiences
who held an absolute pro-Israel position. Schumer did, however, need to
assure attendees at one campaign fund-raiser that “she will look to me to
see how to vote” on Jewish issues.

Clinton was elected to the Senate in 2000 and struck a tone that was in
sync with the Bush administration, which had aligned itself with the
Israeli right. In 2007, she went further than the administration when she
released a position paper calling for “an undivided Jerusalem” as the
capital of Israel. In 2008, as a presidential candidate, she warned Tehran
that America would “totally obliterate” Iran if it attacked Israel.

By this time, Clinton was an Aipac favorite, and Aipac had changed from the
time that Ehrman had worked there. Founded in 1954 to strengthen the
U.S.-Israel relationship regardless of political ideology, the lobby has
become increasingly conservative in its politics and Orthodox in its
membership, while developing an unparalleled network of donors around the
country. Its financial power, demonstrated at annual megaconferences that
bring together presidential candidates and congressional power brokers, has
translated into legislative might. Aipac-backed bills — on, for example,
support for the Israeli military or sanctions against Iran — usually pass
unanimously in Congress.

Many liberal Jews, alienated by Aipac over the years, were encouraged when
Barack Obama ran against Clinton in the 2008 presidential primary. They
appreciated that he took a more nuanced position when it came to supporting
Israel, one that better reflected the political debate within Israel and
among American Jews. They saw him as the rare presidential candidate who
spoke their language and who seemed willing to push Israel toward peace.
They expressed relief when he said that you could be committed to Israel
while criticizing the policies of the right-wing government. “I think there
is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt an
unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that you’re opposed to Israel, that
you’re anti-Israel,” he said. “And that can’t be the measure of our
friendship with Israel.”

Once elected, Obama seemed to understand that he needed someone to lend him
credibility with the Israeli government and its American defenders, a tough
friend of Israel who could muscle the country away from settlements and
toward a peace agreement. An aide to Obama called Malcolm Hoenlein, the
executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish
American Organizations, and asked him to call Hillary Clinton to see if she
would be “agreeable” to being named secretary of state.

Early in her tenure as secretary, she was harshly critical of Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the country’s increasingly conservative
culture, surprising and appalling Aipac and many of her supporters in New
York. She excoriated Israel’s settlement growth and the “antidemocratic”
tendencies of its right wing and also the practice, in the ultra-Orthodox
Jewish community, of gender discrimination “reminiscent of Rosa Parks.”

As Clinton pressured Israel to make peace from the State Department, the
Obama administration looked to J Street, a new and progressive Jewish
lobby, to give members of Congress financial backing and credibility on
Israel so that they could support the president without fear of being
cash-starved by Aipac or called anti-Israel. J Street boasts of helping
Obama defeat an Aipac-backed bill that would have scuttled the
administration’s Iran nuclear talks. For the most part, though,
unquestioning support for Israel has remained dominant in Washington. Even
before she left the administration, Clinton essentially shed any pretense
that she was still playing the role of impartial arbiter. As Israel flouted
her own government’s demand that it not build more settlements in East
Jerusalem, Clinton spoke so effusively about Netanyahu at a December 2012
conference that political observers considered the speech tantamount to a
presidential announcement. Since then, Clinton has further distanced
herself from her job as secretary of state, making light of her role as
Netanyahu’s disciplinarian for Obama and calling herself the president’s
“designated yeller.”

This explanation of Clinton’s earlier rebukes of Israel is already gospel
among her pro-Israel supporters. Lewis, a backer of the independent super
PAC Ready for Hillary, told me that Clinton “was not in the lead on making
policy.”

Clinton’s return to campaign form has left liberal Zionists with little
choice other than rationalization. “I sense that the people who advise
Hillary Clinton on Jewish politics came of age in an era when the rules of
the game were different,” Jeremy Ben-Ami, the founder and president of J
Street, told me, suggesting that the time of reflexive support for Israel,
regardless of their government’s policies, had ended. When I asked if he
could persuade Clinton that such a position was no longer tenable, he
answered, not so convincingly, “We definitely need to try.”

Other liberal Zionists are hoping that Bill Clinton could be a more
sympathetic voice within a Clinton White House. After Zemel’s Rosh Hashana
sermon, in which he talked about the need for “Jewish genius” to solve the
problem in Israel, Al From told me, “Bill Clinton has this little bit of
genius.”

Zemel concurred. “I want Hillary,” he said. “So I can get a second round
with Bill.”

Over the summer and fall, many of Micah’s congregants and other influential
liberal Zionists around Washington aired their discomfort with Clinton on
Facebook and in op-ed pages and journals. But they were made even more
uneasy by the specter of an increasingly loud Jewish left wing that is
openly hostile to Israel and advocates punishing it economically.

At a Shabbat service in August, Zemel’s 22-year-old daughter, Ronit, a
senior at Macalester College in St. Paul, sat in the front row of Micah’s
sanctuary. She listened to her father say, “What is needed to make peace
between the peoples of these two lands is probably more than humans can
summon,” which is from “My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of
Israel,” a history of the country’s ethical struggle since its
independence, by Ari Shavit, a columnist for the left-leaning Israeli paper
Haaretz.

In a few days Zemel’s daughter would head back to school, where she had
served as co-chairwoman of the student wing of J Street, known as J Street
U. The idea of going back to campus, she told me, gave her “the worst
feeling ever.” She felt besieged by pro-Palestinian groups advocating
boycott, divestment and sanctions, or B.D.S., modeled after the boycott
movement that helped end South African apartheid policies. “I’m more
ashamed of Israel now,” she said. “But I am viewing it from a place of love
and caring, and I know that they are not. So I’m very scared.” Shavit
expressed a similar concern. In November, he visited Temple Micah, and
speaking as a “liberal to liberals” he worried about young American Jews
losing their Jewish identity and drifting away from Israel.

Chief among the fears of liberal Zionists were groups like Jewish Voice for
Peace, which in June helped provide a Jewish seal of approval for the
Presbyterian Church to divest from companies seen as profiting from Israeli
occupation of the West Bank. Rebecca Vilkomerson, the executive director of
Jewish Voice for Peace, said that as a result of the war, 60,000 new
supporters signed the group’s online petitions or open letters in liberal
Jewish publications.

Vilkomerson (whose sister, an entertainment writer, is a friend of mine)
said she felt no sympathy for the concerns of the liberal Zionist
agonistes, whom she considered toothless and intellectually dishonest in
their attempts to reconcile their liberal values with Israel’s right-wing
government. She reserved special indignation for what she referred to as
“PEPs,” or politicians who were “progressive except for Palestine.”

Vilkomerson pointed to a Pew poll taken during the summer, which showed
that the core constituencies of the Democratic electorate, people under 30,
African-Americans and Hispanics, blamed Israel more than Hamas for the war.
She was also encouraged by the angry response of some delegates at the 2012
Democratic National Convention who booed an amendment to the party platform
that would recognize Jerusalem as the present and future capital of Israel.
If the left wing makes the case to Clinton and her Democratic successors
that the political calculus on Israel is changing, then, Vilkomerson
predicted, they will be forced to recalibrate their position. Hillary
Clinton, she said, “is totally politically calculating.”

While Lewis says that Clinton should “take seriously” the increasingly
intense conversation about the appropriate support for Israel, Clinton, at
least for now, is not budging. After all, Elizabeth Warren, the
Massachusetts senator often mentioned as a more liberal alternative to
Clinton, has taken much the same position. “I would not argue that this is
something to worry about,” Lewis told me.

In November, Zemel took 30 of his congregants on the synagogue’s annual
trip to Israel. It’s exactly the sort of pilgrimage that Zionists consider
the most effective means of strengthening a connection to Judaism and, as a
result, of increasing American Jewish support for Israel. But Zemel and his
delegation saw signs in the region that troubled them. A third Intifada
seemed possible in East Jerusalem, where Muslims and Jews clashed over holy
places. Palestinian extremists ran over Israeli commuters and stabbed
worshiping rabbis. Right-wing Israeli government ministers promoted the
spread of settlements and proclaimed the death of the two-state solution.
In November, they also proposed a bill that seemed to dilute Israel’s
commitment to democracy by explicitly declaring the country a Jewish state.
Netanyahu forced the justice minister, Tzipi Livni, a favorite of American
liberal Zionists, out of his government.

“One is torn,” Zemel told me from Tel Aviv. “I can’t imagine not wanting to
come to Israel every chance I get. But what would happen if an Israeli
government were to decide, ‘O.K., we’re going to declare the entire West
Bank to be part of Greater Israel and we’re not going to grant the
Palestinians full citizenship.’ How could I then come to visit this
country? But how could I not come? I just can’t imagine it.”

Zemel always felt Israel should be able to chart its own course, without
the United States or any other nation forcing its hand. But as the tour
progressed and the group encountered stun grenades and concrete blocks in
Jerusalem, Zemel said he began to believe that Israel needed an emergency
intervention from the United States.

“If a person is killing themselves,” he told me. “You save them from
themselves.”

But there is a sinking feeling among many liberal Zionists that
Washington’s opportunity for intervention has passed. The Obama
administration’s efforts to broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace have
collapsed and its attention has turned to terrorist groups like ISIS and
the curbing of Iran’s nuclear program. European nations, frustrated with
what they consider America’s unwillingness to force Israel to get out of
the West Bank and embrace the two-state solution, have begun to recognize
Palestine. Clinton has shown little inclination to risk political damage by
reprising her old role as a friend and a critic of Israel.

At a Brookings Institution forum in Washington on Dec. 5, Clinton addressed
an audience of American Jews and Israeli officials, including Livni. She
offered platitudes about the two-state solution and studiously avoided any
of her past criticism of Israel. On her way out, as she shook hands and
gave hugs, I asked Livni, who is trying to oust Netanyahu in elections in
March, if America’s liberal Jews should have any expectation that a new,
more progressive Israeli government could form. “It’s not only their hope,”
she said. “It’s our hope.”

Zemel was discouraged by Clinton’s remarks. “She didn’t say anything,” he
complained. But he, too, clung to the idea that she had a private view that
coincided with his own. “I hope,” he said. It’s a theme that Zemel often
returns to when talking about Israel. On Yom Kippur, the holiest day in
Judaism, he told a Micah congregant who was depressed about Israel’s
rightward lurch that Jews were “a people of endless patience” who “view
things in the long term.” At the breaking of the fast at his home that
evening, he showed off a 19th century text that belonged to his
grandfather, when he led the (at the time) liberal Zionist Organization of
America — which is now a right-wing group financed in part by Adelson.
Despite everything, Zemel remained optimistic, telling me that the song
“Somewhere Over the Rainbow” was a Zionist anthem. “There’s no place like
home? What could be more Jewish?”

*BuzzFeed: “Ted Cruz: ‘I Can Only Laugh’ When Obama, Clinton Discuss Income
Inequality”
<http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/ted-cruz-i-can-only-laugh-when-obama-clinton-discuss-income#.okm990Wdw>*

By Andrew Kaczynski

December 18, 2014, 1:31 p.m. EST

[Subtitle:] “And income inequality — you know, I have to admit, I can only
laugh any time President Obama or Hillary Clinton talk about income
inequality, because it’s increased dramatically under their administration.”

Ted Cruz is attacking President Obama and Hillary Clinton on income
inequality.

“Over the last six years of the Obama presidency, the rich have gotten
richer,” Cruz said Thursday on the Laura Ingraham Show. “The top one
percent today earn a higher share of our income than any year since 1928.
And income inequality — you know, I have to admit, I can only laugh any
time President Obama or Hillary Clinton talk about income inequality,
because it’s increased dramatically under their administration. And the
working men and women are getting hammered. There are 92 million Americans
right now not working — we have the lowest labor force participation since
1978.”

President Obama has often discussed closing the gap between the rich and
the poor in the United States, making inequality the theme of a December
2013 speech on economic mobility.

“The combined trends of increased inequality and decreasing mobility pose a
fundamental threat to the American Dream, our way of life, and what we
stand for around the globe. And it is not simply a moral claim that I’m
making here. There are practical consequences to rising inequality and
reduced mobility.”

Clinton likewise made income inequality the theme of a speech at the New
America Foundation in May of this year.

“Now, these are the kinds of daily struggles of millions and millions of
Americans. Those fighting to get into the middle class and those fighting
to stay there. And it was something of a wakeup call when it was recently
reported that Canadian middle-class incomes are now higher than in the
United States. They are working fewer hours for more pay than Americans
are, enjoying a stronger safety net, living longer on average, and facing
less income inequality.”

*Washington Post blog: Post Politics: “Rand Paul supports opening up
relations with Cuba”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/12/18/rand-paul-supports-opening-up-relations-with-cuba/>*

By Sean Sullivan

December 18, 2014, 1:20 p.m. EST

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) says he supports opening up relations with Cuba, a
position that that puts him at odds with much of the would-be Republican
presidential field.

“The 50-year embargo just hasn’t worked,” Paul told Tom Roten of WVHU in
Huntington, West Virginia on Thursday, according to the Associated Press.
"If the goal is regime change, it sure doesn’t seem to be working and
probably it punishes the people more than the regime because the regime can
blame the embargo for hardship."

He added: “In the end, I think opening up Cuba is probably a good idea."

President Obama announced Wednesday that the United States would reopen its
embassy in Havana and ease restrictions on travel and commerce with Cuba.

Other potential White House hopefuls have spoken out against Obama's
decision. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and Louisiana
Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) took issue with it. So did former Florida governor
Jeb Bush (R).

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) has not weighed in.

On the Democratic side, presumed frontrunner Hillary Clinton said she
supports Obama's decision.

*The Hill blog: Ballot Box: “Dems blame 2014 drubbing on failed economic
message”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/12/18/rand-paul-supports-opening-up-relations-with-cuba/>*

By Jonathan Easley

December 18, 2014, 10:13 a.m. EST

The economy is far and away the most important issue to voters, and
Democrats’ failure to make a compelling argument on that front sunk them in
the midterms, the party's analysis of the 2014 election cycle found.

“This data underscores a deeper problem and is an admonishment to Democrats
to use the coming months to fashion, hone, and then campaign on an economic
plan,” the analysis, authored by Democratic pollster Celinda Lake, reads in
part.

“If Democrats fail on this front – even in 2016 with a broader, more
diverse, and more progressive electorate – they could well face an election
outcome not altogether different from what they just experienced last
month.”

The George Washington University Battleground Poll, which served as a basis
for the Democratic analysis, found that a plurality, 29 percent, believe
the economy is the most important issue facing the new Congress. That’s a
nearly two-to-one advantage over immigration, the next closest issue.

A strong majority, 77 percent, said they’re at least somewhat worried about
current economic conditions. Voters in the Middle Class are the most
pessimistic than other groups on the direction of the economy.

“Two years into Obama’s second term, the American public is worried and
highly pessimistic about the state of the economy and the prospects of
improvement for the next generation,” said Christopher Arterton, the
director of the GW poll. “When the new Congress convenes in January, voters
want the politicians in Washington to address this issue above all else.”

The analysis found that Democrats’ focused too much on “piecemeal policy
proposals” like the minimum wage and equal pay for women, which “struck
voters as falling well short of the level of change necessary to set our
country and our economy back on track.”

Some Democrats are already taking this message to heart.

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said last month that Democrats blew it when
they came into power in 2008 by spending all of their political capital on
healthcare instead of measures to help the Middle Class.

And this week, groups on the left launched an effort to draft Sen.
Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) for president, believing her message of economic
populism is what’s missing in the Democratic Party.

“Tell me who is ahead on the economy in 2016 and I’ll tell you who is going
to be president,” Lake said at a Christian Science Monitor event on
Thursday.

Some political watchers are doubtful that Democratic presidential
frontrunner Hillary Clinton, with her close ties to Wall Street and
lucrative public speaking gigs, is well-suited to be the party’s standard
bearer on that front.

But Lake argued that if Democrats can fashion the right message, polling
shows voters are on board with the core tenet of liberalism: that the
government exists “to help Americans overcome challenges that would
otherwise be insurmountable.”

“The error of the Democratic Party may not be in standing for an active
federal government, but instead failing to articulate that role with
specificity and in ways that relate directly to both the country’s and
individual voters’ needs and priorities,” Lake wrote.

Fifty-two percent of voters in the GW poll said the government should do
more to solve problems and meet the needs of people, against 48 percent who
said the best thing the government can do for the economy is to not meddle
in the markets.

“Far from running away from their vision of government, Democrats should
embrace it and –without getting lost in abstract discussions of process –
make their case for a government that is active, engaged, and accountable
in its efforts to put ordinary people first and to restore the promise of
the American Dream,” the analysis said.

“Once Republicans take control of both Houses of Congress in the New Year,
the pressure on Democrats to unify and offer a bold economic plan for the
country will only increase.”

Republicans swept into power in the midterm elections, picking up 13 seats
in the House and gaining their largest majority since World War II, while
picking up a solid majority in the Senate.

*NBC News: “Why 2016 Will Be a Battle Between the Grassroots and the
Donors”
<http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/why-2016-will-be-battle-between-grassroots-donors-n270401>*

By Leigh Ann Caldwell

December 18, 2014, 10:36 a.m. EST

While the majority of Americans aren't yet paying attention to a
presidential race, the chase for precious financial support is already well
underway. Donors -- that active subset of the American citizenship -- are
watching developments closely and actively working to ensure that their
candidate, or cause, comes out on top.

The problem is that major disagreement exists between the moneyed class
that is critical to give a candidate the resources needed for a national
campaign and the activists that are more far more numerous and active in
each party's primary process. And it's a bridge that candidates are going
to have to work hard to close.

On the Democratic side, the grassroots has been energized by the populist
message of Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who insists she has no
plans to jump in the race. Candidate or not, the liberal group MoveOn.org
Political Action has pledged to spend $1 million to begin organizing
activists in the first two critical nominating states in Warren's name.
Another progressive group, Democracy For America, has also pledged $250,000
to the effort.

On Wednesday the group held a high-profile meeting, recruiting volunteers
to open offices and put the infrastructure in place for a potential Warren
race. They plan to do the same in New Hampshire in early January.

Warren has sparked the excitement of a critical component of the Democratic
Party's activists with her anti-Wall Street crusade and support for the
working class. But $1.2 million is far from the tens of millions Warren
would need to run a presidential primary campaign. And her distaste for
Wall Street has bought her few friends among the high-dollar moneyed class
who could fund a presidential run. In addition, her supporters might be
rabid, but they still have a lot of work to do to convince casual
Democratic voters. In a new NBC News poll, only 37 percent of Democrats
back Warren. Even though Democracy For America's members support a Warren
run, it's leader, former Vermont Governor and presidential candidate Howard
Dean, said he would like to see a Hillary Clinton presidency.

Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, has the long-standing support of wealthy
Democrats, gathered between her and Bill Clinton over more than two decades
in politics. This would be the fourth presidential campaign for a Clinton,
giving them a deep rolodex of donors and tremendous name recognition,
evident in the NBC poll that found 82 percent of Democrats approve of
Clinton. And her more moderate stance on regulation and the economy doesn't
scare the financial industry.

"If it turns out to be Jeb versus Hillary we would love that and either
outcome would be fine," a Republican-leaning Wall Street lawyer told
Politico in April. "It's Rand Paul or Ted Cruz versus someone like
Elizabeth Warren that would be everybody's worst nightmare."

Victoria Kaplan, field director for Run Warren Run, which is part of MoveOn
Action, said that Warren has proven to be a prolific fundraiser and that if
she decided to jump in, she'd have "significant support."

"Washington DC insiders like to think they know what it takes to be
president," Kaplan added.

Warren has raised a significant amount of money, bringing in more than $42
million for her inaugural Senate race in 2012. But she was running against
a Republican in one of the most high profile races in the country. The
competition for funds against Clinton would be much different. One of
Warren's biggest contributors was EMILY's List, whose president has been
mentioned for the role of Clinton's campaign manager.

The gap between the donors and the grassroots is just as exposed on the
Republican side, too. Now that former Florida Governor Jeb Bush has inched
closer to a presidential run by "exploring" the presidency, donors are
thrilled.

David Beightol called Bush talented and said he's the only one - other than
Mitt Romney - who knows what it takes to run a presidential campaign as
both his brother and father have done it.

"He's the guy with the talent … and I think he'll win," Beightol said.

Donors want electability and they think a moderate candidate has a better
chance of winning the general election. Numerous articles have been written
about donors hoping to "clear the field" here and here.

Meanwhile, the grassroots of the party is not so excited about a potential
Bush candidacy. Outspoken syndicated radio host based in Iowa, Steve Deace,
put out an advisory saying Bush will "never" be president because of
conservatives' dissatisfaction with the former governor. According to a new
NBC News poll released Wednesday, only 31 percent of Republicans could
support a Bush presidency.

Putting the Bush name aside, which receives mixed reviews in Republican
circles, activists are skeptical of his support of comprehensive
immigration reform and education standards known as Common Core. Bush
himself even said he wouldn't move to the right just to obtain the
nomination.

Unlike donors, conservative activists don't buy the notion of electability.

"We have been sold a bill of goods about electability and moderation. The
last time I checked with President Romney and President McCain, that didn't
work," Iowa leader of social conservatives Bob Van der Plaats said.

The grassroots are more pumped about a potential run by a social
conservative like former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee or former
Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum. Some in the base are charged over the
possibility of a bid by Kentucky Senator Rand Paul or tea party favorite
Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. Then there's neurosurgeon Ben Carson whose direct
and sometimes brazen remarks electrify the base.

Can a candidate with the support of donors and not the base win a primary?
Or vice versa?

Republican donor and bundler Beightol insists that conservative activists
will grow to like Bush when they let him explain his positions.

"Once they hear him speak about those two things (Common Core and
immigration), he'll be fine," Beightol predicted.

A Republican strategist challenged the idea "that big money interest is
trying to marshal all the support." He pointed to grassroots candidate Rick
Santorum's unexpected win in the Iowa caucuses in 2012 over the
well-financed establishment favorite Mitt Romney.

While Santorum gave Romney a solid run, igniting social conservatives and
outperforming most political watchers, in the end, Romney won that
nomination. While Santorum had the support of one sugar daddy, entrepreneur
Foster Friess who financed most of his campaign, Romney raised $60 million
more than Santorum during the primary.

Candice Nelson, director of the Campaign Management Institute at American
University, said the role of money is significant.

"If you have a donor base, you have the resources to get your message out
and to build a grassroots campaign," Nelson added. "You need money to do
everything else."

Romney's primary win, despite luke-warm feelings from the Republican base
about the candidate, was not an anomaly. In presidential primaries dating
back to at least 1992, the candidate with the most money won. For instance,
in 2008, Republican nominee John McCain, another moderate that
conservatives were not thrilled about - who even ran out of money at one
point in the primary - had raised $36 million by the time his closest
competitor, Huckabee, who dropped out of the race in early March. Huckabee
amassed only about $16 million, according the Center for Responsive
Politics.

On the Democratic side, then-candidate Barack Obama outraised Hillary
Clinton in the long-drawn out primary that didn't end until June. Notably,
Obama was extremely successful at turning his grassroots support into a
donor base while also, eventually, appealing to the high-donor class.

In 2004, John Kerry outraised Howard Dean, mostly by giving himself loans
from his vast fortune. And in 2000, Al Gore had more money than Bill
Bradley and George Bush far outraised John McCain. The pattern continues:
Republican Bob Dole outraised Pat Buchanan in 1996 and Bill Clinton
outraised Jerry Brown and Paul Tsongas in 1992.

In most presidential races since 1972, however, the era of unlimited
donations to third party political groups didn't exist. Kathy Kiely,
managing director of the Sunlight Foundation said, that now with the advent
of unlimited spending, big donors are able to deepen the divide between
what the grassroots wants and what the donors want.

"Prior to the emergence of super PACs, you had to have the ability to raise
a lot of money in small amounts. You had to be able to get a very broad
base of support and mobilize that support over the long haul," Kiely said.

With unlimited spending, the gap between donors and voters might be more
difficult to close.

*New York Times: “As 2016 Nears, Hillary Clinton Keeps in Mind Mistakes of
2008 Campaign”
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/19/us/politics/as-2016-nears-hillary-rodham-clinton-keeps-eye-on-mistakes-of-2008-campaign.html?_r=0>*

By Amy Chozick

December 18, 2014

During the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries, Hillary Rodham Clinton
emphasized her strength and experience over her softer, more relatable
side. Today, she gushes about having “that grandmother glow.”

As she lost the nomination to President Obama, Mrs. Clinton was accused of
being wooden and overly shielded by staff members. Last month, she mingled
casually at an Upper West Side apartment, greeting donors and shunning a
podium and rope line.

And in 2008, Mrs. Clinton’s best asset, her husband, Bill Clinton, became
an albatross. Today, the former president has a tough-minded chief of staff
from Mrs. Clinton’s world who tries to keep close control over his events —
and his occasional off-script remarks.

Little by little, Mrs. Clinton is taking steps that suggest she has learned
from the mistakes, both tactical and personal, of her failed candidacy.
After more than six years of pundits dissecting what went wrong in 2008,
her circle of advisers is beginning to draft a blueprint for a different
kind of campaign. And although Mrs. Clinton has since bolstered her public
image while serving as secretary of state, her next campaign will in part
be assessed by her ability to avoid the errors of the last one.

“Was it the best managed campaign? Of course not, they lost,” the
Democratic strategist Donna Brazile said of 2008. “But what lessons will
they apply to the future if she decides to run?”

Some things have clearly changed: Those close to Mrs. Clinton now embrace a
view that her gender can be more of an asset than a liability. But familiar
hazards remain, especially the air of inevitability that seems to surround
the Clinton camp, along with the lack of a broader rationale for her
candidacy.

“Inevitability is not a message,” said Terry Shumaker, a prominent New
Hampshire Democrat and former United States ambassador. “It’s not something
you can run on,” he added.

These topics are being quietly discussed at private dinners with donors, at
strategy talks hosted by an outside “super PAC” and in casual conversation
as Mrs. Clinton greets friends at holiday parties and a Clinton Foundation
fund-raiser in New York.

“If she runs, it will be different,” said Mrs. Clinton’s spokesman, Nick
Merrill.

Last month, at a gathering hosted by Ready for Hillary, a super PAC
intended to build grass-roots support for a Clinton candidacy, strategists
explained to donors over lunch and in presentations that Mrs. Clinton would
need to run in 2016 the way she did after she began to struggle in the 2008
primary season.

By the time the delegate tallies favored Mr. Obama, Mrs. Clinton began to
show a vulnerable, less scripted and entitled side. She adopted a message
focused on lifting the middle class, and she connected with women and white
working-class voters over kitchen table issues. She won primaries in Ohio
and Pennsylvania.

“I always found it remarkable that working-class women could connect to her
life despite the fact that this is somebody who operated in the highest
circles in America,” said Geoff Garin, a pollster who succeeded Mark Penn
as the campaign’s chief strategist in 2008.

Mrs. Clinton is keeping a quiet schedule over the next several weeks. She
is holding frequent meetings to listen directly to the type of strategic
advice that during her last campaign was filtered through a tiny cadre of
loyal but sparring advisers.

Most of those advisers, including Mr. Penn, still have ties to the
Clintons, which makes some of the more than a dozen supporters interviewed
for this article wonder whether the personnel problems and infighting that
plagued the last campaign could really be resolved in another one.

Ready for Hillary, which since its inception has tried to signal that
things must be done differently in 2016, counts former White House aides
like Harold M. Ickes, Craig T. Smith and Ann Lewis as advisers. But it also
includes Jeremy Bird and Mitch Stewart, Obama organizers whose presence Mr.
Ickes called “Exhibit A of new ways of doing things.”

Obama operatives like Buffy Wicks and Jim Messina have been brought on to
run another pro-Clinton super PAC, Priorities USA Action.

“Inner circles change over time depending on the nature of the enterprise,”
Mr. Ickes said. “There are always people with their noses out of joint,” he
added, but the Clintons “are good at picking people.”

Super PACs are ostensibly banned from collaboration with candidates, and
Ready for Hillary does not constitute Mrs. Clinton’s innermost circle. The
group, run by a mix of young devotees and older loyalists, will dissolve if
she declares her candidacy. But its efforts in the long pre-campaign
period, particularly in the approach to data and outreach to young college
students, are likely to influence how the official campaign would function.

The group has also helped Mrs. Clinton keep well-meaning, but distracting,
supporters at bay. It is a strategy that Mr. Obama adopted in 2007 to make
sure that supporters felt useful and included without allowing the
candidate to become overwhelmed with advice, as Mrs. Clinton did in 2008.

Mr. Bird called the approach “respect, empower, include” and said, “It’s a
consistent challenge all campaigns have.”

This is perhaps a bigger challenge for Mrs. Clinton, given that she and her
husband have built an extraordinary network of friends, donors and advisers
over their decades in public life, all of whom will be invested in trying
to get them back to the White House.

“She will be very careful to make sure there are clear lines of authority
and that the people in charge are not in charge because they are old
cronies, but because they’re the smartest people to run the campaign,” said
Richard Socarides, a former White House aide.

In 2008, the smartest person on Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, her husband,
became a liability. Mr. Clinton enraged black voters by comparing Mr.
Obama’s victory in the South Carolina primary to the Rev. Jesse L.
Jackson’s 1984 and 1988 victories in the state and called Mr. Obama’s
antiwar position “the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen.”

Since then, Mr. Clinton has regained his status as the party’s most
powerful surrogate, as demonstrated in a blockbuster speech at the 2012
Democratic National Convention. But the former president is also famously
defensive, especially when his legacy and his wife are under attack, both
of which would happen in a 2016 campaign.

Mr. Clinton’s chief of staff, Tina Flournoy, who is close to Mrs. Clinton,
is trying to keep a careful watch on the former president’s events while
closely collaborating with his wife’s office, said several people with
knowledge of Ms. Flournoy’s approach who spoke on the condition of
anonymity to preserve their relationships with Mr. Clinton.

Ultimately, though, topics that his office would like to avoid, namely 2016
and any criticism of the current administration, come up.

For example, last month in Little Rock, Ark., a Politico reporter, Mike
Allen, lobbed a couple of unexpected questions at Mr. Clinton after he
delivered prepared remarks at the “Playbook Cocktails with Bill Clinton”
event.

Mr. Clinton made news by questioning whether Mr. Obama’s delay on an
immigration overhaul affected the weak turnout of Latinos in the midterm
elections. Mr. Clinton’s team appeared livid with the organizers about the
unanticipated questions.

"I had misunderstood the parameters, and I’m very sorry about that,” Mr.
Allen said. A spokesman for Mr. Clinton declined to comment.

People close to Mrs. Clinton say she smartly adjusts and moves forward
after making errors — whether her heavy-handed approach to overhauling
health care as first lady or her remark to ABC News in June that she and
her husband were “dead broke” when they left the White House.

Or, as Mrs. Clinton liked to say in the 2008 campaign, when she warned
voters not to be swept up by Mr. Obama’s promise to bring hope and change
to Washington: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

*Washington Post blog: The Fix: “The Associated Press just did something
very smart”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/12/18/the-associated-press-just-did-something-very-smart/>*

By Chris Cillizza

December 18, 2014, 1:17 p.m. EST

Here's an announcement from the AP that you probably missed today:

“Building on The Associated Press’ unmatched presence in all 50 U.S.
statehouses, we are adding to our competitive advantage by creating a team
of state government specialists.

“As announced today to the AP staff, the specialists will collaborate with
statehouse reporters, as well as on their own projects and stories focused
on government accountability and strong explanatory reporting. Their
over-arching goal will be ‘to show how state government is impacting the
lives of people across the country,’ said Brian Carovillano, managing
editor for U.S. news.”

This is a very, very good idea.

As I have written many times in this space, one of the
undertold-but-massively-important stories of the shrinkage of mainstream
media organizations over the last decade is the disappearance of really
good state capitol coverage. Many state and regional newspapers who took as
their prime mission covering the machinations -- politically and from a
policy perspective -- of each of the state capitols have been forced to
make deep cuts in their budgets for that sort of reporting. And, for the
most part -- and the WaPo may well be an exception in the Jeff Bezos era --
major national news organizations haven't been able to adequately fill that
void.

The result? Not surprisingly, less coverage -- and, as importantly, fewer
reporters with deep institutional knowledge -- of state capitols.  That's
particularly bad given how much is happening -- particularly when it comes
to policy incubation -- at the state level of late, and how much it affects
the national policy debate.

The AP never really left state capitol coverage. (They were all over Kansas
Gov. Sam Brownback's problems in the state -- and with his state
legislature -- over the last few years.) But, adding an entirely new team
to elevate to do deeper explanatory and investigative work in state
capitols shows that the AP understands just how much they matter not only
to states but to the federal government.

And that's not even mentioning the fact that at least eight governors (or
former governors) -- Mike Huckabee, Rick Perry, Jeb Bush, Scott Walker,
Chris Christie, John Kasich and Bobby Jindal  for Republicans, Martin
O'Malley for Democrats -- are in some stage of considering a run for
president in 2016. Given how drastically over-covered Hillary Clinton's
expected presidential campaign will be -- particularly given the small
chance she will face a genuinely competitive primary -- having more people
in these state capitols to mine the records of the various governors
running for the big office is a smart investment.

Then there is the intangible value of having reporting tentacles in a
state. The Post provides a great example in its Virginia coverage. Roz
Helderman's time spent in Richmond was absolutely in integral to her series
of stories that led to the conviction of Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell on 11
counts of corruption. The Post's commitment to Virginia also meant that T.
Rees Shapiro was perfectly positioned to raise questions about Rolling
Stone's story of a sexual assault at the University of Virginia or scramble
dozens of reporters to the mass shooting at Virginia Tech in the middle of
the last decade. Or that the Post can be all over the absolutely
remarkable/appalling story of state Del. Joe Morrissey.

In our own small way, we here at The Fix have done what we can to preserve
the importance of state capitol reporting with our annual list of the best
state-based political reporters. (We last did this in 2013 and plan to
update our list next year.) And the Post announced just today a partnership
with the Texas Tribune, one of the best state-reporting models -- ok, the
best model -- in the country.

State-level political journalism has taken a huge hit over the last 10
years. Let's hope the AP's move is the leading edge of a journalistic
reinvestment in the states.

*Politico: “Clinton aide met with Warren-aligned liberal group”
<http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/hillary-clinton-elizabeth-warren-progressive-change-campaign-committee-113675.html>*

By Maggie Haberman

December 18, 2014, 11:42 a.m. EST

A Hillary Clinton adviser recently met with the head of the Progressive
Change Campaign Committee, the liberal issues group most closely affiliated
with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, both sides confirmed.

The meeting is the first sign that Clinton’s team is trying to build a
bridge with those who are actively supporting Warren, whom many on the left
want to see challenge Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination in
2016.

MSNBC first reported that the meeting might take place. On Thursday, PCCC
founder Adam Green confirmed that he had met with a Clinton aide in the
last few weeks, but declined to identify the aide or describe what was
discussed.

Although Green’s group has been tied to Warren, whose progressive stands
have earned her adulation but who insists she’s not running for president,
the PCCC has not joined the “Draft Warren” efforts being led by MoveOn.org.

MoveOn, which has a wide membership that began during the Bill Clinton
impeachment days and morphed into anti-war activism during George W. Bush’s
presidency, has stepped up with a $1 million down payment for the draft
effort.

Another group, Ready for Warren, has struggled mightily with fundraising
after being disavowed by the Massachusetts senator. The Howard Dean-founded
Democracy for America also is spending $250,000 on the draft effort, which
had an Iowa kick-off on Wednesday evening.

Although it has stayed out of the draft effort, Green’s group is pushing
forward with a focus on Warren’s message of economic populism. Her stances
gained new potency last week as she fought against congressional approval
of the “cromnibus” bill and a provision that benefited big banks.

“Our unique role is, we’re trying to impact the playing field,” Green said.

A Clinton spokesman acknowledged the meeting but declined comment and would
not provide details.

Clinton, a former secretary of state and former senator, has not commented
in-depth about the cromnibus bill. But earlier this week, she gave a very
liberal-leaning speech on police relations with the black community.