Subject: Correct The Record Friday December 19, 2014 Afternoon Roundup
From: Burns Strider <[email-masked]>
To: CTRFriendsFamily <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2014 14:02:56 -0500
List-Id: <CTRFriendsFamily.americanbridge.org>

*​**Correct The Record Friday December 19, 2014 Afternoon Roundup:*

*Tweets:*

*Pres. Bill Clinton* @billclinton: #Farewell
<https://twitter.com/hashtag/Farewell?src=hash> @StephenAtHome
<https://twitter.com/StephenAtHome>...But I know we'll meet again some
sunny day. Your friend, PrezBillyJeff [12/18/14, 11:54 p.m. EST
<https://twitter.com/billclinton/status/545804354000007168>]

*Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: .@HillaryClinton
<https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton> fought for long-term health monitoring
for 9/11 emergency & law enforcement personnel #HRC365
<https://twitter.com/hashtag/HRC365?src=hash>
https://www.congress.gov/bill/109th-congress/senate-bill/4022 …
<https://t.co/6V32KpT4WR> [12/19/14, 11:15 a.m. EST
<https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/545975827901714432>]

*Headlines:*

*Tampa Bay Times: “Bill Nelson phones Hillary Clinton with a simple
message: Run”
<http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/bill-nelson-phones-hillary-clinton-with-a-simple-message-run/2210718>*

“A couple weeks ago, Sen. Bill Nelson was at home in Florida and decided to
call up Hillary Clinton. She returned the call and Nelson, who was watching
60 Minutes with his wife, had a simple message: Get in the race for
president.”

*The Hill: “Clintons hit for $1.5 million in private flights”
<http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/227663-gop-hits-clinton-for-15-million-in-private-jet-flights>*

"'It is important, now more than ever, not to cede one of Clinton’s
greatest strengths — her passion for advancing the middle class and
renewing American upward mobility — to the right-wing talking points
factory and its efforts to sow seeds of mistrust on the left,' Correct the
Record Executive Director Isaac Wright wrote."

*MSNBC: “Delayed Clinton timeline gives hope to potential opponenets” [sic]
<http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/delayed-clinton-timeline-gives-hope-potential-opponenets>*

"Even as the super PAC Ready for Hillary has been working for almost two
full years to build a list of 3 million Clinton supporters, the former
secretary of state herself has been moving slowly. She’s now expected to
wait until spring to announce a run, if she decides to make one."

*USA Today: “Michele Bachmann is ready for Hillary”
<http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2014/12/19/michele-bachmann-hillary-clinton-2016/20639695/>*

“Now, as she leaves Congress, she will be free to pillory Clinton full
time.”

*New York Times: “A Socialist in 2016? For Bernie Sanders, at Least, It’s a
Question Worth Asking”
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/20/us/politics/a-socialist-in-2016-for-bernie-sanders-at-least-its-a-question-worth-asking-.html?_r=0>*

“With his fiery populist attacks on Wall Street and ‘the billionaire
class,’ he could become either a nettlesome thorn to Hillary Rodham Clinton
or a convenient foil for her, if she runs.”

*Bloomberg: “Populists Press Democrats to Ease Clinton-Era Embrace of
Bankers”
<http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-19/populists-press-democrats-to-ease-clinton-era-embrace-of-bankers.html>*

“Overturning the Democratic alliance with Wall Street won’t be easy. While
most of the finance industry’s campaign contributions in 2014 went to the
Republicans, Democrats still got $40 million. And Clinton, who represented
Wall Street as a U.S. senator from New York, is tied to her husband’s
legacy.”

*Yahoo: “The Gingriches’ guide to surviving a presidential campaign”
<http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/power-players-abc-news/the-gingrichs--guide-to-surviving-a-presidential-campaign--195754975.html>*

“The problem for Clinton, Gingrich predicted, will be the same one she had
in 2008. ‘She's gotten her candidacy ahead of her cause, which is what she
did in '08,’ he said. ‘We're ready for Hillary, but for what? I mean, I
think that's the real problem, and I think that's what Jeb Bush and the
others are going to have to answer for us is ‘So, why? … Why are you
running and what would you do?’”

*Articles:*

*Tampa Bay Times: “Bill Nelson phones Hillary Clinton with a simple
message: Run”
<http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/bill-nelson-phones-hillary-clinton-with-a-simple-message-run/2210718>*

By Alex Leary

 December 18, 2014, 11:03 a.m. EST

A couple weeks ago, Sen. Bill Nelson was at home in Florida and decided to
call up Hillary Clinton. She returned the call and Nelson, who was watching
60 Minutes with his wife, had a simple message:

Get in the race for president.

"It's time for a woman," Nelson said from the Capitol this week, recounting
the coversation. "I'm all for Hillary."

Clinton is almost certainly going to run but the question now is when
she'll announce.

"Florida will decide the election," Nelson said.

He spoke on the day Jeb Bush said he's actively exploring a run on the
Republican side. Nelson was Florida treasurer for the first two years of
Bush's first term as governor. "We had a very good personal and
professional relationship," Nelson said. Asked to characterize how Bush ran
the state, Nelson replied, "Reasonably so. That's when we had a number of
hurricanes and so I was with him quite a bit."

*The Hill: “Clintons hit for $1.5 million in private flights”
<http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/227663-gop-hits-clinton-for-15-million-in-private-jet-flights>*

By Peter Sullivan

December 19, 2014 9:48 a.m. EDT

The cost to campaigns and political committees of flying in Bill and
Hillary Clinton on private jets to campaign for the midterm elections
topped $1.5 million, according to a Politico review of filings.

Republicans have been pushing the narrative that Hillary Clinton is out of
touch, ahead of her likely presidential campaign, and the Republican
National Committee quickly seized on the article on Friday, sending out an
email entitled "High-flying Hillary Part II."

While the Clintons could not legally pay for their travel for a campaign,
the Politico review found that there were more than 60 payments made to the
company Executive Fliteways for flights in 2013 and 2014, as the Clintons
stumped for Democrats across the country.

The news comes as Clinton has also faced scrutiny for her paid speeches and
the travel requirements for her events. "Hillary Clinton isn't just
charging losing campaigns for extravagant travel, she also demands
chartered jets for speeches — even at public universities," the RNC email
states.

The Washington Post reported last month that at Clinton's speech at UCLA in
March, in addition to being paid $300,000, her team also rejected the
podium that originally was going to be used and specified that hummus must
be available backstage.

The pro-Clinton group Correct the Record felt the narrative was a serious
enough threat that it released a memo earlier this month seeking to rebut
the claims.

"It is important, now more than ever, not to cede one of Clinton’s greatest
strengths — her passion for advancing the middle class and renewing
American upward mobility — to the right-wing talking points factory and its
efforts to sow seeds of mistrust on the left," Correct the Record Executive
Director Isaac Wright wrote.

The questions come as liberal groups are urging Sen. Elizabeth Warren
(D-Mass.) to challenge Clinton from the left on economic issues.

In June, after Clinton came under fire for saying she was "dead broke" upon
leaving the White House, former President Bill Clinton defended her.

"She's not out of touch," he said.

*MSNBC: “Delayed Clinton timeline gives hope to potential opponenets”
<http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/delayed-clinton-timeline-gives-hope-potential-opponenets>*

By Alex Seitz-Wald

December 19, 2014, 7:01 a.m. EST

Hillary Clinton is taking her time announcing a second presidential run,
and that’s good news for some hoping to challenge her for the 2016
Democratic nomination.

“She’s the pacesetter in this thing. If she goes in January, that puts a
lot of pressure against anybody who wants to compete against her,” said Tad
Devine, a veteran Democratic strategist who is now advising Sen. Bernie
Sanders on a prospective presidential run. “If she holds off, that gives
others more opportunity to organize, particularly on the ground.”

Even as the super PAC Ready for Hillary has been working for almost two
full years to build a list of 3 million Clinton supporters, the former
secretary of state herself has been moving slowly. She’s now expected to
wait until spring to announce a run, if she decides to make one.

Meanwhile, Clinton has scheduled paid speaking gigs as late as mid-March,
and allies point to April as the most likely time for an announcement – a
big change from her first presidential run, when she made her move in
January.

The extra time will give potential opponents a chance to catch up with the
Clinton juggernaut, and might be especially useful for activists trying to
change Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s mind about a 2016 presidential race. Their
draft campaign officially kicked Wednesday night in Iowa, and even though
Warren reiterated that she’s not running, the drafters say a lot could
change in the coming months.

“This time before candidates announce is a key moment for us to organize
and build momentum to show that Elizabeth Warren is the leader our country
needs,” Erica Sagrans, the campaign manager for the super PAC Ready for
Warren, told msnbc.

Her group was joined this week by MoveOn.org and Democracy for America
(DFA), two of the largest progressive groups in the country, which together
pledged at least $1.25 million to the draft Warren effort. “Every
additional day gives us a little more time to develop the infrastructure
and support necessary to turn that passion into a movement that will build
progressive power and change minds,” said DFA’s Neil Sroka.

A poll this week from Monmouth University found that Democratic voters like
Clinton, but want her to face a primary challenge. Almost half said they
wanted Clinton to be their party’s nominee in 2016 – compared to just 6%
who said the same for Warren – but the same portion said it would be better
if she faced an active primary. Even 41% of Clinton supporters said they
preferred a challenge.

But even as those hoping to draft Warren stressed their decisions are not
dependent on those of any other prospective candidate, they acknowledged
the benefit of more time. “The more people get excited about her potential
presidency, and the more senator warren sees what the response is like in
Iowa and across the country, the more she’ll see that running for president
is the biggest opportunity she has to make difference in the lives of
regular people,” said Ben Wikler of MoveOn.

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, who is already staffing up for a
presidential run, has decided to delay his own potential announcement until
spring, reflecting Clinton’s delayed timeline, according to The Washington
Post.

So far, former Sen. Jim Webb is the only major Democrat to formally
announce that he’s exploring a presidential run.

The move caught some other potential candidates by surprise, including
Sanders, who is seriously considering a run, but had hoped to take his time
on the decision. “He thinks that campaigns too long,” said one source close
to the senator, even though “some people are pushing him to get out there.”
But with Clinton’s delayed schedule now clear, Sanders will have more time
to assess support before making a decision.

Sanders has been loathe to say anything negative about Clinton, but in a
public television interview while visiting Iowa this week, the senator
criticized “ruling families” who dominate presidential politics.

Some Clinton advisors pushed for an early announcement, echoing her 2007
timeline, but she decided to take her time for both personal and political
reasons, allies say. “Some in the orbit argued that Hillary should form an
early exploratory committee. The winning argument was that her timeline
should be well-thought-out and personal,” said one Clinton ally.

A slower timeline will spare her from several months on the grueling
campaign trail, save millions of dollars, and give her more time with her
new granddaughter. An April announcement would also allow her to skip the
first campaign finance reporting deadline of the year, meaning her first
fundraising report wouldn’t come out until July.

And the presence of three quasi-official pro-Clinton super PACs, often
referred to as the “shadow campaign,” mean Clinton can count on people
doing work on her behalf,  even if she’s not in the race herself.

*USA Today: “Michele Bachmann is ready for Hillary”
<http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2014/12/19/michele-bachmann-hillary-clinton-2016/20639695/>*

By Donovan Slack

December 19, 2014, 1:16 p.m. EST

WASHINGTON — Firebrand conservative Rep. Michele Bachmann is entering the
2016 presidential field after all, but not as a candidate. This time, she's
angling for a key role as a full-time critic of everything Hillary Rodham
Clinton.

Bachmann plans to sign with a national speakers' bureau and begin writing
weekly syndicated columns next month as she transitions out of Congress
after eight years. She has plans for a website and a nonprofit.

And she wants to tap her experience in Congress and her status as a former
Republican presidential candidate to target Clinton if she runs for
president.

"I was on the front lines of Benghazi, the Russian reset, all of President
Obama's failed foreign policy forays, including his failed strategy of
reaching out to Iran, and she was an author and the architect of his failed
foreign policies," Bachmann said in an interview this week. "So I want to
be involved in 2016 and hold her accountable for her decisions."

The Minnesota Republican is eager to begin the next chapter of her life,
which may read much like the last one. During her time in Congress and her
2012 presidential bid, Bachmann has made a name for herself as a fierce —
if sometimes gaffe-prone — rhetorical bomb-thrower.

She has called Obama a "dictator" and has accused him of having
anti-American views and declaring himself king. Just this week, she said
"Obama hearts the ayatollah in Iran." Bachmann sees Clinton as a direct
extension of Obama.

"If she would run and win, she would be Barack Obama's third and fourth
term," Bachmann said. "So I intend to weigh in whenever possible. That's my
goal, to continue to weigh in."

Bachmann's critics are quick to dismiss her as an intellectual lightweight,
but she still commands ardent devotion from her grass-roots supporters. She
was a driving force behind the rise of the Tea Party movement, which helped
shift control of the House to Republicans in 2010 and has since pushed the
Republican Party as a whole to the right. Bachmann raised millions for the
cause and contributed to Tea Party candidates. She founded and led a Tea
Party caucus in Congress, and she hosted and spoke at Tea Party rallies at
the U.S. Capitol and across the country.

"What I was able to do was give voice to that movement on a federal level,"
she said this week.

Bachmann still has a political action committee, Many Individual
Conservatives Helping Elect Leaders Everywhere — or MICHELE PAC — that
raised more than $500,000 in the last election cycle and still has
$150,000. There are no signs it will shut down anytime soon.

Her criticisms of Clinton are nothing new. Earlier this year, she told a
conservative conference that Clinton is "not commander in chief material,"
that she "fails to inspire confidence," and that "practically anything that
she has touched in her record as secretary of state — including her utter,
abject failure in Benghazi — should disqualify her from ever being
considered for the presidency." Bachmann has used those denunciations to
raise money for MICHELE PAC.

Now, as she leaves Congress, she will be free to pillory Clinton full time.

*New York Times: “A Socialist in 2016? For Bernie Sanders, at Least, It’s a
Question Worth Asking”
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/20/us/politics/a-socialist-in-2016-for-bernie-sanders-at-least-its-a-question-worth-asking-.html?_r=0>*

By Sheryl Gay Stolberg

December 19, 2014

AMES, Iowa — Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont who calls
himself a socialist, was riding in the back seat of a rented blue minivan
this week when his aide abruptly announced they were being pulled over by
the Iowa State Police for speeding.

“Hi ya, I’m Senator Bernie Sanders, how ya doing?” Mr. Sanders piped up, in
his unmistakable Brooklyn accent, after the aide explained to the police
officer that they were late for the senator’s appearance here. The officer
issued no ticket, just a warning to slow down: “No need making a headline
for something silly.”

Mr. Sanders, though, was in Iowa hoping to make headlines. At 73 and
famously gruff, he may be on one of the most quixotic adventures in
American politics: In a country that just put Republicans in charge of
Congress, he is testing whether Democrats will embrace a socialist for the
White House in 2016. He is certainly the only potential candidate to carry
a brass key chain from a campaign of Eugene V. Debs, a five-time Socialist
Party nominee for president.

He has virtually no chance of winning the nomination, but he does have a
chance to shape the debate — presuming he actually runs. With his fiery
populist attacks on Wall Street and “the billionaire class,” he could
become either a nettlesome thorn to Hillary Rodham Clinton or a convenient
foil for her, if she runs.

“Sanders could become the vessel for the anger of the Democratic left,”
said David Yepsen, a longtime Iowa political reporter who now directs a
public policy institute at Southern Illinois University. “Now that
Democrats are searching for a nominee, how liberal are they going to be?
And the fact that he’s a little quirky could almost have some appeal.”

Here in Ames, that much was clear at least among the crowd of 250 college
students, liberal activists and retirees who packed a church basement to
hear Mr. Sanders. Using a milk crate as a podium, he delivered the kind of
tirade for which he is well known in Washington. He did not mention his
encounter with the police officer.

He railed against big banks (“Break ’em up!), fretted over climate change
and income inequality, and deplored the high cost of a college education
(“Totally moronic.”). He embraced a single-payer health system (“Guess what
everybody! Health care is a right!”), proposed strengthening labor unions
and lamented a lack of voter participation (“All over this country people
are throwing up their hands in despair.”).

But Mr. Sanders reserved his greatest ire for what he called “one extreme
right-wing billionaire family,” the brothers Charles and David Koch. In his
view, they are the root of what is wrong in American politics.

“The Koch brothers are worth $85 billion. You might think that’s enough to
get by, leave a couple of bucks to your kids,” the senator thundered, his
voice rising, face reddening. “But apparently they feel an obligation to
destroy Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.”

The crowd lapped it up. “We need a debate in the Democratic Party about
where we’re going,” said Sandy Easter, a 65-year-old alternative healer and
homeopath who distributed “Run, Bernie, Run” stickers. “I think he’s folksy
— the real thing.”

But quirky and folksy can take a candidate only so far, and Mr. Sanders is
hardly without liabilities. For starters, there is the socialist label.

“That’s something that Bernie is going to have to overcome,” conceded the
Democratic strategist Tad Devine, who is advising Mr. Sanders. “He is going
to have to convince people he is a serious, credible candidate.”

Mr. Sanders will turn 75 in 2016. After three decades in public office, he
cannot exactly market himself as new or fresh, like Barack Obama did in
2008 or Mr. Sanders’s fellow Vermonter Howard Dean (who has endorsed Mrs.
Clinton) did in 2004.

And Mr. Sanders has competition: Liberal groups like MoveOn.org are
mounting a campaign to draft a populist with a far larger national
following, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, even though she
insists she is not running.

On a recent morning in the Capitol, the two senators could be found in
opposite corners of the private Senate dining room. Over a Vermont-worthy
breakfast of yogurt with granola and berries (with a touch-of-Brooklyn
English muffin on the side), Mr. Sanders called Ms. Warren a friend, and
said he had discussed his intentions with her.

“Private conversation,” he said, waving off questions about specifics.
Pressed on whether he would run if she did, he flashed his prickly side.
“Look,” he said, “Elizabeth is over there. You want to talk to her? Go talk
to her.”

With his socialist leanings and unruly shock of white hair that evokes mad
scientist references on Twitter, people think Mr. Sanders ought to be
funny, but he is stone-cold serious. That trait earns him respect in the
Senate, but could give his campaign a mandatory seminarlike quality.

“He seems rather humorless,” said Michael Kazin, a Georgetown University
historian who wrote in The New Republic this spring that a Sanders run
would be good for Democrats.

Mr. Dean has a different take. “Bernie actually does have a sense of
humor,” he said. “But I would agree it’s well concealed.”

The son of a Polish-born paint salesman who “came to this country without a
nickel in his pocket,” Mr. Sanders grew up listening to his parents fight
about money, a fact that he says shaped his political views. He says wryly
that “unlike, historically, most of my colleagues in this institution,” the
Senate, he does not wake up each morning with visions of the Oval Office.
“I honestly believe anybody who really, really wants to become president is
a little bit crazy, because the problems facing this country and the world
are so overwhelming.”

He wonders if he is the man who can solve them. So a few months ago, he had
a heart-to-heart with Mr. Devine, who has advised him in previous races.

Mr. Devine said Mr. Sanders should not be underestimated; he raised $8
million for his 2012 election, without a serious opponent, and still has
nearly $4.5 million in the bank. He has enthusiastic followers on Facebook
and Twitter.

But in order to avoid being dismissed as a gadfly, Mr. Devine said he told
the senator that he would have to raise about $50 million, presumably
through small online contributions. Not only that, he would have to build a
ground operation in states like Iowa and New Hampshire and run as a
Democrat to avoid being seen as a spoiler.

“He is going to have to convince millions of people that he’s got a real
candidacy,” Mr. Devine said.

Thus the trip to Iowa, Mr. Sanders’s fourth visit to the state this year.
He has also been to California, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and
Mississippi — part of an effort, he said, to figure out if he can indeed
recruit millions into an “unprecedented grass-roots campaign.” He said he
will decide over the next few months, based on “gut reaction,” if he should
run.

Matthew Covington, an organizer for the Iowa Citizens for Community
Improvement Action Fund, which has been hosting events for Mr. Sanders
around the state, said he hoped Mr. Sanders would. After the event in Ames,
Mr. Covington said Mr. Sanders was “laying out ideas and policy proposals
that resonate with a lot of people.”

But could he win? Mr. Covington looked stricken at the question, and buried
his face in his hands. “Can I not answer that?” he asked.

*Bloomberg: “Populists Press Democrats to Ease Clinton-Era Embrace of
Bankers”
<http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-19/populists-press-democrats-to-ease-clinton-era-embrace-of-bankers.html>*

By David J. Lynch

December 19, 2014, 5:00 a.m. EST

When populist Democrats such as Senator Elizabeth Warren complain about the
consequences of Wall Street influence on government policy, here’s what
they mean:

Since the March 2009 depths of the credit crisis, the KBW Bank stock index,
which includes the nation’s largest financial companies, has gained 297
percent. During that same period, workers’ inflation-adjusted average
hourly earnings have actually fallen.

Warren’s anti-bank revolt -- which almost derailed a government spending
bill and may yet cost investment banker Antonio Weiss a top Treasury
Department job -- signals a widening split among Democrats over economic
policy.

“We’re seeing the same sort of division in the Democratic Party now that we
saw throughout the 1980s,” said Stuart Rothenberg, a political analyst.
“Between the Clinton pragmatists and the ‘true believers.’”

Even if Warren doesn’t challenge presumed Democratic presidential
frontrunner Hillary Clinton, the former Harvard professor’s popularity
among the grass-roots threatens the continuation of the business-friendly
policies that originated two decades ago with Robert Rubin, a former
Goldman Sachs (GS) and Citigroup executive who served as Treasury secretary.

“A lot of people from the investor community look at Hillary as a return to
Rubin economics from the ’90s,” said Chris Krueger, senior policy analyst
for Guggenheim Securities in Washington. “Even if Hillary wins, she’s going
to need the backing of Warren and that part of the party. And with that
backing will come an understanding.”

Tall Task

Overturning the Democratic alliance with Wall Street won’t be easy. While
most of the finance industry’s campaign contributions in 2014 went to the
Republicans, Democrats still got $40 million. And Clinton, who represented
Wall Street as a U.S. senator from New York, is tied to her husband’s
legacy.

The post-1992 era, which saw Democrats win four of six presidential
elections, has been better for capital than labor. Corporate profits as a
share of the economy have more than doubled since President Bill Clinton’s
inauguration while employee compensation’s share has slid.

Workers would be getting $500 billion more this year if the economic pie
were divided as it was in early 1993, according to data compiled by
Bloomberg.

As a result, Democrats such as Warren of Massachusetts want the party’s
eventual nominee to worry less about bond traders’ profits and more about
ordinary Americans’ pay.

“There’s a role for a Democratic candidate to really go after the
economic-fairness issue,” Senator Carl Levin of Michigan said at a Dec. 16
Bloomberg breakfast. “Whoever the candidate is, if it’s Hillary Clinton, I
hope she will be able to step on some of the biggest toes around, and she’s
going to have to do it.”

Financial Crisis

The Democratic Party’s ties to Wall Street were frayed by the 2008
financial crisis, which resulted in a taxpayer bailout of the banks and
swept Obama into office. At a March 2009 White House meeting, the president
warned bankers of the ugly popular mood of the time. “My administration” he
told them, “is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.”

The Dodd-Frank law, the biggest overhaul of financial regulations since the
Depression, followed in 2010. Yet today, the banks are bigger than they
were before the crisis. And a provision in last week’s spending bill erodes
Dodd-Frank by easing rules shielding taxpayers from bank losses.

Bigger Debate

Reflecting concern over the financial industry’s prominence in Washington,
at least seven Democratic senators have publicly declared their opposition
to Weiss, Lazard Ltd. (LAZ)’s global head of investment banking, as
undersecretary of the Treasury for domestic finance.

“It really is a piece of a much bigger debate: whether or not what’s good
for Wall Street is good for America,” said Dennis Kelleher, head of Better
Markets, a nonprofit group that promotes stronger financial regulation.
“The prevailing view, at least since the Clinton administration, is that it
is.”

That view has been shaken by a decade in which the typical American family
lost ground: Median household income in October was $53,713, more than 6
percent below the 2000 figure, according to Sentier Research.

In response, organized labor is seeking greater public spending on
infrastructure, new overtime rules and the right to organize, as well as
tighter limits on banks, said Damon Silvers, the AFL-CIO’s policy director
and special counsel in Washington.

The populists also want easier monetary policy designed to sustain growth
rather than focused on a concern over inflation, which erodes bond values.
And they want an unapologetic attack on the widening income inequality,
which may involve changes to the tax code.

“It’s a real fight within the party,” said Silvers.

Third Time

The debate among Democrats over Wall Street’s political heft suggests that
in 2016 the financial industry will find itself as a central focus for the
third consecutive presidential election.

“This is much more about the presidential election than anything else,”
said Simon Johnson, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology and critic of the banks.

Democrats attacked Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney’s
private-equity background in 2012 four years after the giant financial
institutions triggered a global crisis.

On Dec. 12, a group called “Ready for Warren” released a letter signed by
more than 300 former Obama campaign aides and organizers calling on her to
run in 2016. In an interview with NPR this week, Warren said, “I’m not
running for president.”

Changing Course

For Democrats, Wall Street has played a major role in determining policy
since Bill Clinton named Rubin as Treasury secretary. Clinton, who had
campaigned in 1992 on a slogan to “put people first” with new spending of
$50 billion a year, reversed course after winning the White House and
emphasized cutting the deficit.

Clinton eventually balanced the federal budget for the first time in 28
years, lowered trade barriers, overhauled welfare and reappointed
Republican Alan Greenspan as chairman of the Federal Reserve. In so doing,
the Arkansas Democrat put his party behind a centrist economic approach
that spurred a rapid economic expansion and cheered the finance industry.

Personnel as well as policy bore a Wall Street pedigree. Three of the past
four Democratic Treasury secretaries worked for Citigroup before or after
their government tour, according to Warren, who says similar revolving
doors spin at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM)

Campaign Money

Now, the wavering alliance between Democrats and Wall Street is reflected
in campaign donations. After swooning for candidate Obama in 2008, when the
finance industry gave 58 percent of its cash to Democrats, the industry has
tilted toward Republicans. The president’s rhetorical jibes at “fat-cat
bankers” and the passage of the Dodd-Frank law explain the soured romance.

This year, 38 percent of the industry’s $176 million in campaign
contributions went to Democrats, according to data from the Center for
Responsive Politics.

Though bankers see Obama as too tough on finance, many party progressives
think he has too often done the industry’s bidding.

As the next presidential campaign approaches, Democrats such as Warren,
Senator Bernie Sanders, a Vermont socialist, and former Senator James Webb
of Virginia will push Hillary Clinton to side more with workers. The former
secretary of state has given paid speeches to investment banks while
declaiming the rich-poor gap in other venues.

Warren is “trying to influence how Hillary frames her candidacy and the
issues she focuses on,” David Axelrod, a former top adviser to Obama, told
MSNBC this week.

In a recent Bloomberg News poll, 41 percent said Clinton’s Wall Street ties
were a disadvantage compared with 52 percent who welcomed them.

Banks Bigger

Populists in both parties share an antipathy for concentrated financial
power. And despite the Dodd-Frank act, which was partly intended to prevent
banks that were “too big to fail” from requiring taxpayer bailouts, the
biggest institutions remain swollen.

The five largest banks hold more than $9 trillion in assets, equal to 52
percent of the economy, according to the Federal Reserve. Six years ago, on
the eve of Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy, the assets of the five largest
institutions equaled 48 percent of U.S. output.

Both Republican and Democratic presidents have been overly dependent upon
Wall Street for policy advice, says Cam Fine, president of the Independent
Community Bankers of America, which represents more than 6,500 smaller
lenders.

“It is all Wall Street all the time,” he said.

Industry executives dispute that, saying the regulators on the Financial
Stability Oversight Council, which is designed to watch for potential
bubbles, aren’t Wall Street veterans.

“Look at who’s around that table now, and they’re all -- they’re all
excellent, but they all have either academic backgrounds or government
backgrounds, for the most part,” former Treasury official Lee Sachs,
co-founder of Alliance Partners, told Bloomberg Television. “Actually the
thing that’s missing today is someone with a finance or market background.”

*Yahoo: “The Gingriches’ guide to surviving a presidential campaign”
<http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/power-players-abc-news/the-gingrichs--guide-to-surviving-a-presidential-campaign--195754975.html>*

By Jeff Zeleny, Richard Coolidge and Jordyn Phelps

December 19, 2014

As the wife of a former presidential candidate, Callista Gingrich has some
advice for the spouses of 2016 presidential hopefuls.

“Focus on the positive, try not to let the negativity get you down, because
you really have to keep your [attention] on those issues that are most
important to the future of this country. And some days that's a challenge,”
Gingrich said. “But just be open-minded and appreciate the moment.”

Gingrich, who is out with a new children’s book, “From Sea to Shining Sea,”
said that part of staying positive means steering clear of reading the news
if you’re the subject of the report. “Probably avoid that,” she told “The
Fine Print” in a joint interview with her husband, Newt Gingrich.

“We kept begging her,” her husband, the former speaker of the House and
2012 GOP presidential hopeful, chimed in. “Margaret Thatcher had a ground
rule: That she never read stories about her. And I think there's a certain
virtue to don't get the Google Alerts. … If you look at the Twitter, for
example, as we both do a lot of, there's a group of people on Twitter who
really like to get all their anger out; so, if you pay too much attention,
it can really get you down.”

But don’t expect the Gingriches to put their advice to personal use again
come 2016: He’s not running. They said their days on the frontlines of a
presidential campaign are in the past.

“We had an opportunity, and I think we worked very hard,” Callista Gingrich
said. “There is a new crop of candidates, and we will help as much as we
can and be involved in the process.”

“There is a new generation coming down the road and a couple of people who
have been around for a while,” added Newt Gingrich, who rattled off a
roster of nearly a dozen Republicans whom he expects will run in 2016.

From that list, Gingrich said he doesn’t consider anyone a frontrunner --
not even former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

“I don’t think he is,” Gingrich said. “I don’t think anyone is a
frontrunner. I think if you go back and look at his brother in 1999, the
amount of money he had raised, the dominance he had over the field, no one
has anything like that. Hillary arguably is a frontrunner, although I think
she's a very fragile one.”

The problem for Clinton, Gingrich predicted, will be the same one she had
in 2008.

“She's gotten her candidacy ahead of her cause, which is what she did in
'08,” he said. “We're ready for Hillary, but for what? I mean, I think
that's the real problem, and I think that's what Jeb Bush and the others
are going to have to answer for us is ‘So, why? … Why are you running and
what would you do?’”

Callista Gingrich said some moderate Republican women voters might
gravitate to Hillary Clinton's candidacy, if she runs. She said it is time
for Republicans to nominate a woman on their ticket.

"Oh, I think we're more than ready, but I think somebody needs to step
forward that's able to handle the job ," she said. "Right now, we're not
hearing about any of those likely people. So, I'm very hopeful that we'll
see a woman run from the Republican Party in the very near future."

Callista Gingrich also discussed her newest children’s book, which is the
fourth edition of a history series that follows a time-traveling elephant,
Ellis, through major events in U.S. history.

“My books are really meant to serve as an introduction to the key moments
that have shaped our nation,” Callista Gingrich said of the series. “And
unfortunately, today, many of our kids are failing to learn our American
history, including our founding principles and values and instead learning
revisionist or politically correct history.”

She went on to add that the books are applicable to households across the
political spectrum. “These books are not meant to be Republican books or
conservative books, but really they're pro-American books,” she said.

For more of the interview, and to hear Callista Gingrich’s thoughts on when
the Republican Party will have a female candidate for president, check out
this episode of “The Fine Print.”