Subject: Correct The Record Thursday January 8, 2015 Afternoon Roundup
From: Burns Strider <[email-masked]>
To: CTRFriendsFamily <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2015 14:31:41 -0500
List-Id: <CTRFriendsFamily.americanbridge.org>

*​**Correct The Record Thursday January 8, 2015 Afternoon Roundup:*

*Tweets:*

*Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: .@HillaryClinton
<https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton> represents progressive values &
policies that have "the country more excited than ever" @RepTimRyan
<https://twitter.com/RepTimRyan>
http://www.rollcall.com/news/progressives_are_ready_for_hillary_commentary-239087-1.html
…
<http://t.co/wStdewXLpU> [1/8/15, 12:46 p.m. EST
<https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/553246273193529344>]

*Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: .@RepTimRyan
<https://twitter.com/RepTimRyan> says @HillaryClinton
<https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton> "would be the best person to lead our
country forward."
http://www.rollcall.com/news/progressives_are_ready_for_hillary_commentary-239087-1.html
…
<http://t.co/wStdewXLpU> [1/8/15, 12:01 p.m. EST
<https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/553234984056520704>]

*Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: The @GOP <https://twitter.com/GOP> has
been full of old attacks for a long time. Nothing new today. [1/8/15, 11:16
a.m. EST <https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/553223614422478848>]

*Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: .@GOP <https://twitter.com/GOP> stuck
on outdated playlist. Old. Debunked. Boring. [1/8/15, 10:52 a.m. EST
<https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/553217597832196096>]

*Headlines:*

*Time: Pres. Bill Clinton: “Bill Clinton Remembers Mario Cuomo”
<http://time.com/3659199/bill-clinton-remembers-mario-cuomo/>*

[Subtitle:] “Mario Cuomo’s America was one of community, compassion and
responsibility”

*Politico: “Report: Game on? Jeb Bush jabs Hillary Clinton”
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/jeb-bush-jabs-hillary-clinton-114073.html>*

“Jeb Bush is wasting no time taking on Hillary Clinton, even though neither
party’s potential 2016 standard-bearer has officially committed to a
presidential bid.”

*The Economist: “An army without generals”
<http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21638133-if-barack-obama-not-really-leader-democratic-party-who-army-without>*

“Hillary Clinton will dominate her party’s presidential primary if and when
she says she is running. At the moment, she is a spectral presence—freezing
the 2016 contest without offering leadership.”

*New York Times: “Senator Barbara Boxer Says She Won’t Seek Re-election in
2016”
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/09/us/politics/senator-barbara-boxer-says-she-wont-seek-re-election-in-2016.html?_r=0>*

“Mr. Rodham is a nephew of Hillary Rodham Clinton, whom Ms. Boxer appeared
to refer to in saying that in the coming two years, ‘I want to help our
Democratic candidate for president make history.’”

*Articles:*

*Time obituary: Pres. Bill Clinton: “Bill Clinton Remembers Mario Cuomo”
<http://time.com/3659199/bill-clinton-remembers-mario-cuomo/>*

By Pres. Bill Clinton

January 8, 2015, 6:26 a.m. EST

[Subtitle:] Mario Cuomo’s America was one of community, compassion and
responsibility

Mario Cuomo’s life story–the proud son of immigrants who raised him to
believe in faith, family and work and to use his own gifts to enter public
service and reach the pinnacle of New York politics–will always be
inspiring.

But it is especially important to us today because he believed that every
American, native-born or immigrant, should have the same chance he’d had,
and that that could only happen in a strong community with a compassionate,
effective government.

He deplored winner-take-all economics and winner-take-all politics. He
believed to the end that our country could give anyone the chance to rise
without pushing others out or down, and that at its best, the essential
role of government is to give everyone a fair chance to rise.

He never believed government could replace strong families and individual
initiative. The beautiful family he and Matilda created and the lives their
children have lived are more than enough proof of that.

He simply believed that without a “hand up” government, too many people
would be left behind and our country would be diminished. Once an avid and
able baseball player, Mario said in an interview for Ken Burns’ Baseball
series, “You find your own good in the good of the whole. You find your own
individual fulfillment in the success of the community.”

Everything Mario Cuomo did was part of his passionate determination to
strengthen the bonds of community, from his early efforts to address AIDS,
to his support for mentoring and health care programs for children who
needed them, to his initiatives to create more economic opportunities in
upstate New York. For him the struggle to solve particular problems was not
interest-group politics but community building, making the weak links
stronger.

He believed that he could do his part to build the “more perfect union” of
our founders’ dreams. He did it with a politics like Lincoln’s–whom he so
admired and wrote about–based on the better angels of our nature. He had a
fine mind, competitive drive and unsurpassed eloquence. While he loved to
debate, often fiercely, with reporters and opponents, he wanted his
adversaries to have a fair chance to make their case.

That was never more clear than in 1993, when his thorny critic, the New
York Post, hit hard times. As the Post graciously said on Jan. 1, “Mario
Cuomo stepped in and heroically performed a one-man rescue mission …
because he was convinced it was in New York’s best interests, not
necessarily his own.”

As all the political world knows, I owe a great debt to Mario Cuomo–for
declining to run for President in 1992, then electrifying our convention
with his nomination speech for me. I later wanted to nominate him for the
Supreme Court, but he declined. I think he loved his life in New York and
was content to be our foremost citizen advocate for government’s essential
role in building a strong American community, living and growing together.

In all the years since, Mario Cuomo never stopped believing that, in our
hearts, Americans don’t want to be divided, driven by resentment and
insecurity. He saw problems and setbacks as a part of the human condition,
mountains to be climbed and opportunities to be seized–together.

Mario Cuomo’s America of community, compassion and responsibility will live
as long as there are people who believe in it as strongly as he did, who
define our success by the chances we give to others who have dreams and the
determination to chase them.

In his keynote address to the 1984 Democratic Convention, Mario said, “We
still believe in this nation’s future … It’s a story … I didn’t read in a
book, or learn in a classroom. I saw it and lived it … Please, make this
nation remember how futures are built.”

That memory is Mario Cuomo’s lasting gift to us.

*Politico: “Report: Game on? Jeb Bush jabs Hillary Clinton”
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/jeb-bush-jabs-hillary-clinton-114073.html>*

By Lucy McCalmont

January 8, 2015, 8:07 a.m. EST

Jeb Bush is wasting no time taking on Hillary Clinton, even though neither
party’s potential 2016 standard-bearer has officially committed to a
presidential bid.

Speaking at a closed-press fundraiser in Connecticut on Wednesday night,
Bush suggested to potential donors that the former secretary of state would
have to explain President Barack Obama’s foreign policy mistakes, Hearst
Connecticut Media reported Thursday.

The outlet, anonymously citing attendees who heard Bush’s remarks, reported
that the former Florida governor took another not-so-subtle jab at Clinton.

“He said, ‘If someone wants to run a campaign about ’90s nostalgia, it’s
not going to be very successful,’” Hearst Connecticut Media reported,
citing another person present at the event.

Bush spoke to the crowd of 175 people for about 30 minutes, and spent
another 30 minutes taking questions. The event, a fundraiser for his new
Right to Rise PAC, was held at the home of former Goldman Sachs executive
Charles Davis.

Bush also dismissed broad comparisons to his famous family, according to an
attendee.

“He said, ‘Do you have a father? Do you have a brother? Are you the same
person?’” the unnamed source told Hearst.

A Bush spokesperson declined to comment, citing the closed-press nature of
the event.

*The Economist: “An army without generals”
<http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21638133-if-barack-obama-not-really-leader-democratic-party-who-army-without>*

[No Writer Mentioned]

January 10, 2015

[Subtitle:] If Barack Obama is not really the leader of the Democratic
Party, who is?

THOUGH leading the Republican Party can be a trying task, many politicians
want to have a go. Ambition swirls so thickly in the halls of the 114th
Congress, which was sworn in on January 6th, that it can almost be touched.
Republican leaders, whips and committee chairmen, even the bosses of
rebellious factions: all yearn to use their party’s newly won control of
the Senate and House of Representatives to make Barack Obama’s life
miserable and promote voter-pleasing conservative policies. As for the 2016
presidential nomination, around a dozen Republican bigwigs are circling the
starting-line of that contest, eyes agleam. The party is fractious, but it
is filled with energy, and those who would lead.

The contrast with the Democratic Party is striking. The party remains a
potent force in national politics, even after 2014’s mid-term elections
cost it control of the Senate and left it with fewer House members than at
any time since 1946. But as Democrats head into the final two years of the
Obama era, they resemble an army without a commander-in-chief, or even
generals whom footsoldiers might follow into battle.

In Congress the Democratic leaders of the Senate and House are both in
their 70s, as are many of their lieutenants. Both are crafty tacticians
more than inspiring thinkers. Neither represents the future. Out in the
country, Republicans can point to any number of governors who look like
conservative champions, busy turning their states into laboratories for
tax-cutting, government-shrinking experiments. Only a handful of Democratic
governors similarly dominate their states’ politics—the most prominent,
Jerry Brown of California, is 76 years old.

Hillary Clinton will dominate her party’s presidential primary if and when
she says she is running. At the moment, she is a spectral presence—freezing
the 2016 contest without offering leadership. If she does not run, it is
not obvious who could replace her. Some like to daydream about Senator
Elizabeth Warren, a Wall Street-bashing populist who is to the left of
centre in her home state, Massachusetts, which is in turn to the left of
centre of America as a whole. Ms Warren says she is not running for
president (she favours the present tense), which makes her more sensible
than her supporters: as a matter of cold electoral maths, she cannot win a
nationwide contest.

President Obama’s relations with the Democratic Party are increasingly
complicated. After a wretched 2014, during which he seemed buffeted by
events, Republicans successfully made the mid-term elections a referendum
on his competence, prompting Democrats in some conservative states to try
to disown him (in vain—most such Democrats lost anyway). Since then, Mr
Obama has defied predictions of his imminent irrelevance. He has used his
executive powers to shield millions of migrants from deportation, and
started to dismantle the (remarkably ineffective) embargo against Cuba. He
has sketched out future policies that may define his legacy, from new rules
to protect the environment to global trade pacts. Republicans will try to
thwart many of his plans. Global events continue to menace him. But as much
as his office permits, Mr Obama is setting the agenda.

Yet if Mr Obama is not quite the lame-duck president that critics foresaw,
he is still a lame-duck leader of the Democratic Party. Partly, this is a
question of differing incentives. Mr Obama wants a legacy. Democrats have
future elections to win. As Mr Obama conceded to National Public Radio
recently, such policies as unpicking the Cuban embargo are “frankly…easier”
for a president at the end of his term. Mr Obama has a strong interest in
achievements that can pass a Republican-held Congress. Two planned trade
pacts, one with Asia-Pacific countries, the other with Europe, are a case
in point. Republicans and some centrist Democrats want a deal. Left-wing
Democrats and unions are appalled.

In part, the end of the Obama era is a moment of political clarity,
exposing the oddly transactional nature of his ties to his own party. Mr
Obama did not become the Democrats’ champion by explaining what sort of
party they needed to be. He won office in 2008 by offering a new,
post-racial, post-partisan form of politics, buttressed by the promise of
his own life-story and brilliant electoral technology. He kept office in
2012 by turning out an “Obama coalition” that united the young, the poor,
non-whites, gays, urban hipsters, unmarried women and affluent liberals.
Other Democratic politicians went along for the ride, while grumbling that
their president was disappointingly aloof and risk-averse.

Breaches of decorum

Relations between Mr Obama and congressional Democrats are sourer than
ever. In an unusual breach of decorum, the strains of the 2014 election
prompted on-the-record grouching about the White House from a right-hand
man to Harry Reid, the Democratic leader in the Senate. A December budget
crunch saw Nancy Pelosi, the Democrats’ boss in the House, fulminate
against her own president’s willingness to cut deals with Republicans.

Greybeards counsel calm. Presidents inevitably see their clout ebb as
successors’ elections near, says Tom Daschle, who led Senate Democrats from
1995 to 2005. If Mrs Clinton runs for the nomination, she will become an
alternative centre of power which will grow in importance. If she does not
run, “there is a list of people waiting in the wings”, Mr Daschle soothes,
offering as examples two very different senators: Ms Warren and Kirsten
Gillibrand (the junior senator from New York and a politician of
Clinton-level pragmatism, without the Clintons’ experience).

Other Democrats are less sure, seeing a problem that goes beyond personnel
issues. “It is a little confusing who is leading the Democratic Party right
now,” says a member of Congress who hears nothing “galvanising” from Mr
Obama, and “no energy, no excitement”, from congressional bosses. Put
another way, Democrats feel leaderless because the party lacks big,
compelling ideas. Someone may yet fill that void. It needs to happen soon.

*New York Times: “Senator Barbara Boxer Says She Won’t Seek Re-election in
2016”
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/09/us/politics/senator-barbara-boxer-says-she-wont-seek-re-election-in-2016.html?_r=0>*

By Adam Nagourney

January 8, 2015

LOS ANGELES — Senator Barbara Boxer announced Thursday that she would not
seek re-election as senator from California, ending a 30-year career in
Congress and breaking a generational logjam in a state where the three top
political officeholders are over 70 years old.

“I am never going to retire — the work is too important,” Ms. Boxer, a
Democrat, said in a video interview with her oldest grandson. “But I am not
going to be running for the Senate in 2016.”

The decision by Ms. Boxer, who is 74, was widely expected and comes nearly
two years before she was to face re-election. It is unlikely to change the
fight for control of the Senate in 2016; California is overwhelmingly
Democratic, and officials from both parties said a Republican would have an
extremely difficult time winning the seat.

But it appears to signal what many Democrats, especially younger ones, have
been waiting for across this state: the beginning of a wave of retirement
by an older generation of Democrats who have dominated the upper realms of
elected office here. Among them are Gov. Jerry Brown, 76, who was sworn in
to his fourth and final term on Monday — because of term limits, he will
have to step down — and Senator Dianne Feinstein, who is 81 and up for
re-election in 2018.

Ms. Feinstein has given no indication of her plans. The other powerful
Democrat from California in Washington is Representative Nancy Pelosi, the
house Democratic leader, who is also 74.

The Democrats most often mentioned as likely to seek an open Senate seat
are Gavin Newsom, 47, the lieutenant governor, and Kamala Harris, 50, the
attorney general. They are hardly the only members of a younger generation
of politicians looking to move on here: Eric M. Garcetti, 43, the new mayor
of Los Angeles, is often mentioned as a potential candidate for governor;
since he just assumed office in 2013, Democrats said it was unlikely he
would move for Ms. Boxer’s Senate seat.

A fourth Democrat, Antonio Villaraigosa, 61, the former mayor of Los
Angeles, has also expressed interest in running for higher office, but in
interviews he has said he is more likely to run for governor once Mr. Brown
steps down.

Ms. Boxer made her announcement in an interview with her youngest grandson,
Zach Rodham, 19, saying she had chosen him as a surrogate for reporters who
had been hounding her with questions about her intention on Capitol Hill.

“I thought since you are my eldest grandchild, you could sit in for those
reporters, you could ask me those questions,” she said.

“Sure,” responded Mr. Rodham, who was wearing shorts during the interview.
Mr. Rodham is a nephew of Hillary Rodham Clinton, whom Ms. Boxer appeared
to refer to in saying that in the coming two years, “I want to help our
Democratic candidate for president make history.”

Ms. Boxer told her grandson that her decision to leave the Senate, where
she has served since 1993, after serving in the House, should not be seen
as stepping away from the harsh political environment there. She also said
it had nothing to do with her age.

“No, definitely not, Zach,” she said. “Here’s the thing: Some people are
old at 40. And some people are young at 80. It depends on the person. As
for me, I feel as young as I did when I was elected.”

“But you know what?” she continued. “I want to come home. I want to come
home to the state I love so much — California.”

Democratic officials said they thought it unlikely that Republicans would
put much effort into winning the seat, both because of the party’s
declining fortunes here — there are no Republicans holding statewide
positions in California now — and because this is such an expensive state
in which to run a race, given the number of high-cost media markets.

By contrast, a Democratic primary is likely to be highly competitive and
very expensive, given that a primary victory is almost certain to mean
winning the seat.

“California is a blue state and obviously we are optimistic about keeping
it,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, the No. 3 Democrat in the
Senate. “There will be a lot of strong candidates, but obviously you can’t
take anything for granted.”

Ms. Pelosi, who is from San Francisco, seemed taken by surprise when told
by reporters at her weekly news conference that Ms. Boxer had announced her
decision.

“What?” Ms. Pelosi said.

“It’s funny, she called me and she said she wanted to talk to me
personally,” Ms. Pelosi said. “I thought maybe she wanted to have dinner
tonight or something. Oh my.”