Subject: ​Correct The Record Friday January 9, 2015 Morning Roundup
From: Burns Strider <[email-masked]>
To: CTRFriendsFamily <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2015 10:11:04 -0500
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*​**Correct The Record Friday January 9, 2015 Morning Roundup:*

*Headlines:*

*Bloomberg: “Bush Team Sets Bold Fundraising Goal: $100 Million in Three
Months”
<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-01-09/bush-team-sets-bold-fundraising-goal-100-million-in-three-months>*

[Subtitle:] “The former Florida governor is looking to send a message to
the rest of the potential field.”

*Politico: “Axelrod: Clinton ‘wasn’t a very good candidate’ in 2007”
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/david-axelrod-hillary-clinton-elections-114101.html>*

"After Iowa, Clinton rebounded to win the New Hampshire primary, setting
off a neck-and-neck contest with Obama that didn’t end for nearly five more
months."

*New York Times: “Experts Say That Battle on Keystone Pipeline Is Over
Politics, Not Facts”
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/09/us/senate-panel-approves-keystone-pipeline-bill.html>*

“Neither pipeline was an issue in the 2008 presidential campaign, nor did
the Keystone pipeline draw much attention in the next few years as the
State Department under Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton reviewed
the project.”

*Bloomberg: “Bush, Warren Agree: The Clinton Era Has Problems”
<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-01-08/bush-warren-agree-the-clinton-era-has-problems>*

“The nod to Hillary Clinton, Obama's top diplomat from 2009 to 2013, comes
as Bush moves closer to a White House bid while Clinton continues mulling
one.”

*Politico Magazine: Jill Lawrence, Al Jazeera America writer: “Why Warren
Won’t Run”
<http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/01/elizabeth-warren-wont-run-114088.html#.VK_Ep_ldWSo>*

“Being president, or even just running for president, would dilute what the
left loves best about Warren and also, perhaps, what the nation needs most
from her.”

*Capital New York: “Not ready for Hillary just yet”
<http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/city-hall/2015/01/8559712/not-ready-hillary-just-yet>*

“There are plenty of Democratic elected officials like [New York City’s
public advocate Letitia] James in Hillary Clinton’s adopted home state,
ones who were in the vast majority of the local political firmament that
supported Clinton last time and are eager to wave the flag ahead of any
official announcement of her presumptive bid for president. There are also,
for now, plenty who aren't.”

*Time: “Bernie Sanders: Class Warrior for President”
<http://time.com/3660515/bernie-sanders-presidential-campaign/>*

“During an hour-long visit to TIME’s Washington Bureau on Thursday, the
junior Senator from Vermont, self-described ‘Democratic socialist’ and
incoming ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee laid out his vision
for a presidential campaign, with all the requisite qualifications since he
has yet to make a final decision on running.”

*The Hill: “O'Malley to decide on 2016 run by spring”
<http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/228991-omalley-to-decide-on-2016-run-by-spring>*

“Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley on Thursday said he will decide in the
spring whether to run for president in 2016, possibly becoming a rival to
likely Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton.”

*BuzzFeed: “Martin O’Malley Knocks Brown Campaign For Not Defending His
Record”
<http://www.buzzfeed.com/rubycramer/martin-omalley-knocks-brown-campaign-for-not-defending-his-r#.fvP2498VvQ>*

“But as he considers a bid for the Democratic nomination, another race
still casts a shadow over O’Malley’s next move: the loss last fall of
Anthony Brown, his lieutenant governor and hand-picked successor, to Larry
Hogan, the Republican businessman few thought could win in a state
considered left-leaning.”

*Articles:*

*Bloomberg: “Bush Team Sets Bold Fundraising Goal: $100 Million in Three
Months”
<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-01-09/bush-team-sets-bold-fundraising-goal-100-million-in-three-months>*

By Michael C. Bender and Jonathan Allen

January 9, 2015, 5:50 a.m. EST

[Subtitle:] The former Florida governor is looking to send a message to the
rest of the potential field.

Jeb Bush's allies are setting a fundraising goal of $100 million in the
first three months of this year—including a whopping $25 million haul in
Florida—in an effort to winnow the potential Republican presidential
primary field with an audacious display of financial strength.

The targets were confirmed by multiple Republican sources involved in
finance meetings with Bush's team. They requested anonymity to discuss
internal deliberations. One said the point is to persuade some
establishment candidates to stay on the sidelines in the 2016 race.

The attempt to intimidate the wide-open field with a shock-and-awe
fundraising machine echoes the strategy Bush's brother, former President
George W. Bush, used to win the White House in 2000. In 1999, then-Texas
Governor Bush raised $37 million in the first half of the year and $29
million in the third quarter, breaking records and pressuring other
contenders, such as Elizabeth Dole, Dan Quayle, John Kasich, and Lamar
Alexander, to end their campaigns swiftly or decide not to start one.

Even coming close to the $100 million goal would send a similar message to
Jeb Bush's potential rivals, including New Jersey Governor Chris Christie,
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, and would
have the added benefit of locking up some of the party's most formidable
fundraisers and donors.

Bush spokeswoman Kristy Campbell said the former Florida governor's
internal documents show different targets. "These alleged goals are not
accurate," Campbell said, declining to elaborate on the differences.
"Governor Bush has not had a political organization until now. He is just
in the initial days of reaching out to people and making plans to support
conservative causes and conservative candidates in the coming months."

The sources said the goals are being featured in presentations the nascent
Bush operation to donors in Florida, Texas, and New York.

Bush will kick off the Florida effort next week with a fundraiser at the
Orlando-area home of C. David Brown, a corporate and government
transactions attorney who was Bush's choice for state transportation
commissioner in 2000. The event is expected to raise at least $1 million,
as are other events scheduled or being planned for Tampa, Jacksonville,
Tallahassee, and Palm Beach, Republican sources said.

The gathering in Orlando highlights Bush's early advantages as he weighs
whether to run for president. The brother of one former president and son
of another, he has a nationwide fundraising network that his family
assembled over decades.

Brown, the Orlando event host, was a top fundraiser for George W. Bush's
two presidential campaigns. Jeb Bush, who was Florida's governor from 1999
to 2007, remains popular in his home state, which is traditionally one of
the largest sources of cash for presidential candidates. In the 2012
election, White House contenders—mostly Republicans—collected $50 million
in Florida, making it the fourth most generous state, according to the
Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks political giving.

Bush launched a pair of fundraising committees earlier this week, including
one that can collect unlimited donations, and has been meeting with donors
for several weeks. Heather Larrison, the National Republican Senatorial
Committee finance director for last year's election and head of former
Louisiana Governor Haley Barbour's leadership PAC, is overseeing the
national fundraising operations. Ann Herberger, Bush's former Florida
finance director and a consultant for Mitt Romney's 2008 presidential
campaign, will be deeply involved.

This week, Bush visited with financial backers from KKR and Bridgewater
Associates, a pair of New York-based investment firms, and held a
fundraiser Wednesday in Greenwich, Conn. He's also met with contributors in
Miami, Chicago and Dallas, and will return to Texas later this month for
what one donor characterized as an organizational meeting. On Friday, Bush
is expected to travel to Boston for more meetings before returning to Miami.

Jack Oliver, former President George W. Bush's 2004 finance director, told
Bloomberg Politics last month that Republican primary candidates will need
to have raised $100 million by the end of 2015; Bush's allies aim to hit
that target in a single quarter. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee,
who is considering running for president, told the Washington Times that he
hopes to raise at least $25 million by the first week of February.

Christie is a proven fundraiser, raising a record $106 million in his two
years as head of the Republican Governors Association, but he has
complications as a sitting governor. The Securities and Exchange Commission
rules prohibit some of Wall Street's biggest donors from giving money to
governors.

Bush, out of office for eight years, has no such problem.

*Politico: “Axelrod: Clinton ‘wasn’t a very good candidate’ in 2007”
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/david-axelrod-hillary-clinton-elections-114101.html>*

By Jonathan Topaz

January 8, 2015, 8:18 p.m. EST

David Axelrod on Thursday jabbed at Hillary Clinton, saying that she wasn’t
a very strong candidate during the first part of her campaign for the 2008
presidential nomination.

The chief strategist for Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign said
that Clinton, who lost to Obama in the Democratic primary that year, was
too cautious during the early stages, when she was considered the
prohibitive favorite.

“When you play not to lose, you often lose. And my perception of Secretary
Clinton was that she wasn’t a very good candidate in 2007,” Axelrod said at
a Thursday evening event at the University of Chicago Institute of
Politics, where he serves as director. The comments preceded a conversation
with outgoing Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, who has said repeatedly that
he is considering a run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016.

Axelrod said he thought that once Clinton came in third in the 2008 Iowa
caucuses, she became a much more formidable candidate.

“[O]nce she wasn’t the frontrunner anymore, once she was fighting for her
place, she threw all the caution away and I think she started relating to
voters in a much more visceral way that reflected who she really is,”
Axelrod said. “If I had any advice for her, it would be: Be that person.”
After Iowa, Clinton rebounded to win the New Hampshire primary, setting off
a neck-and-neck contest with Obama that didn’t end for nearly five more
months.

Axelrod also said that Clinton failed to provide a convincing rationale for
her candidacy in her unsuccessful bid, echoing a criticism he made in
November. “In 2007, the mistake they made was they allowed the candidacy to
get out ahead of the rationale for it,” he said of Clinton’s team.

“It wasn’t clear what the campaign was about. And I think campaigns have to
be about something,” Axelrod added.

The strategist, who served for a time as White House senior adviser during
Obama’s first term, said that presidential candidates on both sides in 2016
will need to fashion a message on middle-class economic issues and stagnant
wages.

Clinton has not yet made a public decision on whether she will run for the
Democratic nomination. Axelrod said he doesn’t believe she has made up her
mind, but that if she chooses to run, she will be in a “more dominant”
position to win the primary than any candidate in his lifetime.

Still, Axelrod said that Clinton proved she was “vulnerable” in her primary
loss to Obama and that she will need to avoid the “inevitability trap” to
earn the 2016 nod.

*New York Times: “Experts Say That Battle on Keystone Pipeline Is Over
Politics, Not Facts”
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/09/us/senate-panel-approves-keystone-pipeline-bill.html>*

By Coral Davenport

January 8, 2015

WASHINGTON — In 2009, the Obama administration approved a 986-mile pipeline
to bring 400,000 barrels of oil sands petroleum a day from western Canada
to the United States. Almost no one paid attention. Construction on the
pipeline, called the Alberta Clipper, was quietly completed last year.

In that same period, the administration considered construction of a
similar project, the Keystone XL. So far only in the blueprint stage, this
pipeline has become an explosive political issue that Republicans are
seizing as their first challenge to President Obama in the new Congress.

The Republican-controlled House is set to pass a bill to force approval of
Keystone on Friday and the Senate is expected to pass the measure in coming
weeks. Republicans say the pipeline will create jobs and spur the economy
while environmentalists and some Democrats say it will destroy pristine
forests and create carbon pollution. Mr. Obama has vowed to veto the bill.

But most energy and policy experts say the battle over Keystone overshadows
the importance of the project as an environmental threat or an engine of
the economy. The pipeline will have little effect, they say, on climate
change, production of the Canadian oil sands, gasoline prices and the
overall job market in the United States. At the same time, Mr. Obama’s
promised veto will not necessarily kill the pipeline because the president
will retain the authority to make a final decision about its fate.

“The political fight about Keystone is vastly greater than the economic,
environmental or energy impact of the pipeline itself,” said Robert N.
Stavins, director of the environmental economics program at Harvard. “It
doesn’t make a big difference in energy prices, employment, or climate
change either way.”

Environmentalists who have been arrested outside the White House protesting
Keystone say that extracting petroleum from the Canadian oil sands produces
more carbon emissions than conventional oil production and that the
pipeline will provide a conduit to market for the oil. But a State
Department review of the project last year concluded that building the
pipeline would not significantly increase the rate of carbon pollution in
the atmosphere because the oil is already making its way to market by
existing pipelines and rail.

Republicans promote the project as a major source of employment and an
economic engine, but the State Department review estimated that Keystone
would support only about 35 permanent jobs. Keystone would create about
42,000 temporary jobs over the two years it will take to build it — about
3,900 of them in construction and the rest are in indirect support jobs,
such as food service. In comparison, there were 241,000 new jobs created in
December alone. Over all, the jobs represented by Keystone account than for
less one-tenth of 1 percent of the American economy.

“This pipeline has become a symbolic issue all out of proportion to
reality,” said Robert McNally, the president of the Rapidan Group, a
Washington-based energy consulting firm and a former top energy official in
the George W. Bush administration. “Why is what ought to be a routine
matter turned into an all-consuming Armageddon battle?”

The story of how a routine pipeline became such a politically volatile
infrastructure project began during the George W. Bush administration, when
the companies that hoped to build both the Alberta Clipper and the Keystone
XL submitted their permit applications to the State Department.

Neither pipeline was an issue in the 2008 presidential campaign, nor did
the Keystone pipeline draw much attention in the next few years as the
State Department under Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton reviewed
the project. By the summer of 2011, top State Department officials signaled
that they were on the verge of approving the pipeline.

That was when environmentalists, led by an activist named Bill McKibben,
made their move. Disappointed that Mr. Obama had failed to pass a climate
change bill in his first term, they wanted to push him on environmental
issues. They settled on the pipeline as their symbol and in that summer of
2011 staged the White House protests demanding that Mr. Obama stop
Keystone. They hoped to send the message that by approving the pipeline,
Mr. Obama would lose the support of his political base in the 2012
re-election. The State Department delayed the decision.

In those protests, Republicans saw an opening. “When folks started to get
arrested outside the White House, it was obvious something was going on,”
said Michael McKenna, a Republican energy lobbyist who frequently consults
on political strategy with House Republican leaders. In their internal
polls on the issue, the strategists found that Americans generally
supported the project — often by a ratio of 3 to 1, Mr. McKenna said. Those
numbers bear out today: A November poll by Pew Research found that 59
percent of Americans supported the project.

“We saw that this thing could be a killer for us,” Mr. McKenna said. “It’s
easy to grab on to. It’s a simple narrative. It’s easy to explain to
candidates and easy for them to turn around and explain to voters.”

Republican consultants advised candidates to take on the issue, and the
candidates did. Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential nominee in 2012,
promised to approve the Keystone on his first day in office. Americans for
Prosperity, the conservative advocacy group with financial ties to the
billionaire libertarians Charles and David Koch, criticized Mr. Obama’s
delay of the Keystone decision in their first ad in the 2012 campaign
season.

Two years later, Republican candidates for the House and Senate aired about
10,000 ads featuring the Keystone pipeline, according to data provided by
Kantar Media/CMAG, a political media analysis firm. Gov. Chris Christie of
New Jersey, a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2016,
frequently mentions his support of Keystone as a centerpiece of a possible
job creation plan. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the new majority
leader, vowed that his first bill on the Senate floor would be a forced
approval of Keystone. The political fight over Keystone will probably last
a long time. Mr. Obama has said he will issue a final decision on the
project only after a Nebraska court issues a verdict on a dispute over the
pipeline’s proposed route through that state. Then the State Department
will complete its additional environmental review, which could push the
decision back for months, if not years.

Until then, Mr. McKibben and his fellow environmentalists will continue to
push on the issue and hope to claim a symbolic victory if Mr. Obama vetoes
the project.

“It does not solve climate change if we stop Keystone,” Mr. McKibben said.
“But if we build out the oil sands, it’s an enormous quantity of carbon
that won’t leave the ground. If the president blocks Keystone XL, he
becomes the first world leader to say, ‘Here’s a project we’re not doing
because of its effect on the climate.’ ”

But the oil will continue to flow out of Canada with or without the
Keystone.

“There are several oil pipelines that cross the Canadian border, and the
oil is already moving to market through them,” said Christine Tezak, an
analyst with ClearView Energy Partners, a Washington consulting firm. “It
seems strange that we’re going through such gyrations over this particular
piece of infrastructure, when the State Department said, ‘Oh, sure’ to the
Alberta Clipper.”

*Bloomberg: “Bush, Warren Agree: The Clinton Era Has Problems”
<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-01-08/bush-warren-agree-the-clinton-era-has-problems>*

By Annie Linskey

January 8, 2015 3:57 p.m. EST

[Subtitle:] A high-profile Republican and Democrat each take aim.

Potential Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush and firebrand liberal
Senator Elizabeth Warren found a common target this week: The Clinton era,
ranging from Bill Clinton's presidency to Hillary Clinton's State
Department tenure.

Bush's barbs occurred behind closed doors at a fundraiser for his new
political action committee in Greenwich, Conn., on Wednesday. He never
mentioned Hillary Clinton by name, according to a person who attended the
fundraiser, but he was asked about what many in the room considered
President Barack Obama's failed foreign policy. Bush said there would only
be one 2016 contender associated with Obama's foreign policy, said the
attendee, who declined to be named since the event was closed to the press.

The nod to Hillary Clinton, Obama's top diplomat from 2009 to 2013, comes
as Bush moves closer to a White House bid while Clinton continues mulling
one.

Bush was also asked about his family connections to the presidency and
whether he would have considered running if Clinton weren't likely to join
the race, since their shared legacy liabilities could cancel each other
out. Bush said his candidacy would be about the future, not the past,
according to the attendee. He tried to distinguish himself from the other
presidents in his family, saying he loves his father and brother but is a
different person. He also quipped about Florida creating more jobs than any
other state during his tenure as governor—including Texas, the state his
brother led.

He repeatedly used the word inclusive to describe how his potential
campaign would reach out to groups that haven't flocked to the GOP in the
past, specifically Hispanics and Asians, according to the attendee. The
fundraiser audience also asked him about his stance on Common Core
education standards and immigration, which could be hot-button topics in
the Republican primary.

Kristy Campbell, a Bush spokeswoman, declined to comment on his remarks.

Meanwhile in Washington on Wednesday, Warren used a speech to an AFL-CIO
summit on raising the minimum wage to highlight a different Clinton's
policies. She railed against the “trickle-down economics” that started in
the 1980s and slammed the deregulation policies that marked Bill Clinton's
presidency. Like Bush, Warren did not mention the Clintons by name.

“Pretty much the whole Republican Party—and, if we’re going to be honest,
too many Democrats—talked about the evils of big government and called for
deregulation,” Warren said  She took pains to make clear who she wasn't
talking about: Bush's father. “George Bush Sr. called it voodoo economics,”
Warren said. “He was right.”

Her speech reflected the discontent with which many in the audience
remember the last few decades. “The top 10 percent got all the growth in
income over the past 30 years—all of it—and the economy stopped working for
everyone else,” Warren said.

*Politico Magazine: Jill Lawrence, Al Jazeera America writer: “Why Warren
Won’t Run”
<http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/01/elizabeth-warren-wont-run-114088.html#.VK_Ep_ldWSo>*

By Jill Lawrence

January 8, 2015

Love her or hate her, Elizabeth Warren knows exactly who she is. When she
took tennis lessons years ago, Warren hit so many balls over fences, hedges
and buildings that her instructor—now her husband—considered her his worst
student ever. “Once I had a weapon in my hand, I gave it everything I had,”
she explained in her autobiography.

Today, the Massachusetts senator is deploying seemingly every political
weapon at her disposal in defense of the middle class—and, in typical
fashion, giving it everything she’s got. Aggressive, intense,
single-minded—she is all of these, and that’s why she’s considered such a
formidable advocate for families trying to survive on what she calls “the
ragged edge.” But for all the same reasons, Warren would be miscast in the
roles of presidential contender and president—and why would liberals want
her to take that road, anyway? Warren’s attention would be diverted in a
thousand different directions by a campaign. If she somehow managed to
dethrone Hillary Clinton and win the White House, say good-bye to public
dressings-down of Wall Street executives at Senate hearings and—most
likely—to no-holds-barred attacks on “sleazy lobbyists,” “cowardly
politicians” and banks that cheat families.

Being president, or even just running for president, would dilute what the
left loves best about Warren and also, perhaps, what the nation needs most
from her. Being speculated about as a candidate for president, on the other
hand, sometimes can be useful. Back in 1991, Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West
Virginia told me he did not discourage speculation about a run for
president because he was thrilled by the attention it generated for his
ideas on health policy. So it is with Warren. She remains vastly
influential as long as she retains her unique role in the national
conversation. But if she actually were to run, all that would change. And
her record so far suggests she knows it.

Warren often seems exasperated by all the presidential talk—and at the end
of 2013, she pledged to serve out her Senate term—but more recently she has
been playing a minimalist version of the speculation game. She is sounding
less certain about what’s ahead, and she consistently uses the present
tense in her repeated denials of interest, conspicuously avoiding a
Shermanesque vow never, ever to run or serve.

Even these slight openings have been succor for the draft-Warren movement
launched last month by MoveOn.org and Democracy for America. Giving the
keynote this week at the AFL-CIO’s first National Summit on Wages, Warren
also sounded like she was consciously leading a national movement,
repeatedly declaring “what we believe” is needed to take back the economy
from politicians who “made deliberate choices that favored those with money
and power.”

Yet if one looks more closely at what Warren is doing than what she is
saying, very little of it suggests that she is thinking about the
presidency at all. She has doubled down on her longtime causes instead of
broadening her portfolio in ways that are typical preparation for a
presidential run. Her rhetoric, meanwhile, is as sharp and confrontational
as ever. Congress should have “broken you into pieces,” Warren said of
Citigroup recently on the Senate floor. In one of her final fundraising
emails of 2014, she vowed to continue her fight for “accountability and a
level playing field so nobody steals your purse on Main Street, or your
pension on Wall Street.”

She is also 65 years old, and if it’s not going to happen now, it may be
never.

***

Warren’s rise from obscure law professor into fiery national advocate for
the disadvantaged has hardly been an accident, and her background says a
lot about where her passions lie now. The Oklahoma native spent most of her
professional life teaching at Harvard Law School but says she grew up
“hanging on to the edge of the middle class by my fingernails” after her
father had a heart attack and lost his job. Her parents lost their car and
almost lost their house. As a young law professor, Warren did pioneering
research on bankruptcy and discovered that its chief victims were families
in crisis over an illness, a divorce or a lost job—families just like her
own.

Thus was born her career as the nemesis of a financial system that she
viewed even before the 2008 Wall Street collapse as complicit in a “rigged”
system that fostered debt, foreclosures, bankruptcy and other ways to ruin
low- and middle-income Americans. It was a straight line from there to her
2009 role overseeing the Troubled Asset Relief Program (aka the bank
bailout) and, in 2010, setting up the new federal agency that was her
brainchild, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Republicans,
corporate America and even some Democrats were so alarmed by the prospect
of Warren actually running the bureau that Obama chose someone else as its
permanent director. But Warren turned the rejection into an improbable
Senate victory in Massachusetts in 2012.

What she did when she arrived was telling. She joined three committees that
are platforms for fighting Wall Street and income inequality: the Committee
on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs; the Committee on Health, Education,
Labor and Pensions; and the Special Committee on Aging (she’s adding Energy
and Natural Resources this year). “She seems to be advertising her depth,
not her breadth,” said one past and potentially future adviser to Clinton.

That’s a huge contrast to White House prospects past and present. As a new
senator in 2005, Barack Obama joined the Foreign Relations and Homeland
Security committees. Republicans Marco Rubio and Rand Paul are on the
Foreign Relations and Intelligence panels. Ted Cruz is on Armed Services,
as was Clinton during her Senate tenure. All have used the Senate to
educate themselves on issues that face commanders in chief. If Warren
suddenly turned up on one of those committees, we might wonder about her
stated indifference to a White House campaign. But she hasn’t—suggesting
she might understand herself and her place in national politics better than
some of her fans do.

Consider a typical December day for President Obama. He talked to Japanese
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe about his reelection and to Australian Prime
Minister Tony Abbott about the coffee-shop hostage tragedy in Sydney. He
appeared in the Cabinet Room to announce a dramatic shift in Cuba policy.
He issued a list of commutations and pardons. He gave remarks at two
back-to-back Hanukkah receptions at the White House. And that’s only what
was evident from a public schedule and press notifications.

Warren obviously studies up and votes on diverse issues in Congress and
handles the full range of concerns of her Massachusetts constituents. She’s
no doubt perfectly capable of developing expertise on anything that might
face a president. But would she want to, and would that be the best way for
her to serve? Right now she is the public figure most identified with
trying to make Washington work for ordinary Americans. It’s hard to think
of anyone else who could match her record of getting both headlines and
results.

Almost all new senators have experience serving in or at least running for
elective office, and those that don’t often come from the business world.
That makes Warren quite unusual. The Senate Historian’s Office gave me the
names of three academics who became senators. But unlike Warren, they had
all been steeped in politics for decades as candidates, strategists,
advisers and organizers. Paul Douglas of Illinois won a race for Chicago
City Council and lost one for the Senate before winning his seat.
Minnesota’s Paul Wellstone ran for state auditor and chaired two
presidential campaigns in his state. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a veteran of
four presidential administrations who once ran for president of the New
York City Council, was a domestic-policy expert who also had served as a
United Nations ambassador and U.S. ambassador to India.

The Senate class of 2014 further underscores Warren’s rare path. The new
senators include six House members, two state legislators, one former
governor, one former state attorney general, one business executive and
one—Ben Sasse of Nebraska—who has been a presidential aide, a House chief
of staff, a business consultant and a university president. Obama, whose
alleged inexperience was a top Republican talking point in 2008, spent
eight years in the Illinois legislature before he won a Senate seat in
2004. Imagine if, comparable to Warren, he had run for the Senate as a
full-time University of Chicago professor with a singular, longstanding
focus on the plight of low-income neighborhoods (the type he once served as
a community organizer).

Even more illustrative, imagine if Ralph Nader had tried for and won the
White House in the thick of his role as a transformational consumer
advocate in the 1960s and 1970s. Working from outside government, he
inspired passage of more than a dozen landmark laws including the Freedom
of Information Act, the Whistleblower Protection Act and others that set
safety standards for vehicles, meat, air, water, offices, mines, pipelines
and consumer products. From within the Oval Office, with his prickly
personality and myriad urgent issues of all kinds demanding his attention,
would Nader’s contribution have been so immense?

The groups behind the draft-Warren movement are convinced that she would
have more impact on the national debate as a candidate, and that she would
keep up the same fight at the White House. “Nobody thinks she’ll be
president and go Washington on them,” says Ilya Sheyman, executive director
of MoveOn.org Political Action. Nor are the Warren forces daunted by
Clinton’s dominance (she was at 60-plus percent in December polls of a
theoretical Democratic primary field, while Warren drew 9 to 13 percent).
Warren’s message is so powerful and resonant, Warren fans say, that she
could go all the way. And they’re adamant that they can run a draft-Warren
campaign without doing harm to Clinton. “The hunger for Elizabeth Warren
comes out of sense that she has a vision and a track record that meets the
moment, and not a reflection on any other candidates. Our campaign will be
entirely positive and entirely focused on Elizabeth Warren,” Sheyman says.

But all of those are arguable propositions. Whatever the moment, first of
all, presidents rarely get to govern the way they intend. Bill Clinton did
not campaign on pledges to raise taxes or balance the federal budget, but
faced with deficits, that’s what he did. George W. Bush called education
the civil rights issue of our time and looked to education as his legacy.
Then 9/11 happened, and he became a highly controversial war president.
Obama was the anti-war contender who would end U.S. military involvement in
Iraq and Afghanistan. But the rise of the Islamic State and regional chaos
have forced him to be, like Bush, a wartime commander in chief. There is no
telling what a President Warren might face, and whether it would have
anything to do with the problems she has devoted her life to studying and
solving.

Second, Warren’s message is powerful precisely because she doesn’t have to
calibrate it or depart from it. She is free to stake out positions without
worrying about the give-and-take and practicalities of governing. In
pursuit of a “grand bargain” to get a handle on the soaring federal debt,
for instance, Obama once proposed curbing the growth of Social Security
cost of living adjustments; Warren, by contrast, wants to increase Social
Security payments. He has nominated Antonio Weiss to be Treasury
undersecretary for domestic finance; she has led a campaign to kill the
nomination because he is a Wall Street veteran who helped Burger King
escape U.S. tax obligations.

Warren tried and failed to get House Democrats to defeat a massive
“cromnibus” budget bill over a provision that, at the behest of Citigroup,
loosened a 2010 restriction on big banks and (in her words) put taxpayers
“right back on the hook” to bail them out. When it moved to the Senate, she
went after Citigroup for “its grip over policymaking” in Congress and the
executive branch in a floor speech that Democracy for America called “a
model of historically transformative political rhetoric.” Obama, however,
signed the bill because it had money to fight Ebola and the Islamic State,
preserved his immigration and health policies, and funded the government
until fall 2015. That’s even though he agreed with Warren on the merits.

The purest messengers hold appeal to some in both parties, but support for
them would come at a cost, no matter how positive the campaign. Even if
Warren ran and was nothing but nice regarding Clinton, the race inevitably
would be all about the contrast between her fiery, stand-your-ground
populism and Clinton’s longstanding membership in the Democratic
establishment—in particular her eight years representing Wall Street as a
senator from New York. Also, the purist message is inconsistent with the
qualities of recent presidential winners. Obama was the candidate who saw
not red or blue states but “one America, red, white and blue.” Bush 43
similarly said he was a uniter, not a divider. While those have proven to
be largely unattainable goals, polling shows voters overwhelmingly favor
compromise over standoffs and absolutism.

Perhaps the strongest rationale for a Warren run is to elevate her impact.
But she is already having plenty. A team player, she has been a prodigious
fundraiser and campaigner for conservative as well as liberal Democrats.
She is a wellspring of policy and messaging ideas for her party, such as
her bill to let some people refinance their student debt. Harry Reid, the
Senate minority leader, just added her to the Democratic leadership lineup.
“She obviously has created a ton of clout for herself,” says one Democratic
strategist, adding that the Reid move alone “speaks volumes about the power
base she’s created.”

Nader in his heyday did not need a White House campaign to be influential,
and Warren is proving that she doesn’t, either. She is already in the best
place possible to give it everything she has on the issues that keep her up
at night.

*Capital New York: “Not ready for Hillary just yet”
<http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/city-hall/2015/01/8559712/not-ready-hillary-just-yet>*

By Dana Rubinstein

January 9, 2015, 5:17 a.m. EST

Letitia James, New York City’s public advocate and a staunch progressive,
still remembers the time Hillary Clinton asked for her endorsement during
the 2008 presidential race.

“I was in the ladies room when she called me and she said, ‘Hi, this is
Hillary.’ And I said ‘Hillary who?’”

James endorsed the former U.S. senator from New York and will endorse her
if she runs this time around, too.

There are plenty of Democratic elected officials like James in Hillary
Clinton’s adopted home state, ones who were in the vast majority of the
local political firmament that supported Clinton last time and are eager to
wave the flag ahead of any official announcement of her presumptive bid for
president.

There are also, for now, plenty who aren't.

Over the past week, Capital reached out to more than two dozen New York
Democrats, including all 19 members of the City Council’s “progressive
caucus” and asked them to talk about the presidential election.

Several Democrats were more than ready to declare.

“Were you at the funeral?” asked Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer,
when reached by cell phone the day of Mario Cuomo’s funeral.

Clinton was there and “she looked fabulous,” “stunningly beautiful,”
"fantastic," "radiant" and “presidential,” said Brewer, adding, “I’m a
Hillary supporter, that’s all I know.”

Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer, a progressive whose district is in northwest
Queens, and who, when he was a Democratic state committeeman in 2008, went
to pro-Hillary rallies with his mother, was similarly effusive.

“If Hillary Clinton decides to run, which I would wholeheartedly encourage
her to do, I think it would be a great thing for New York and a great thing
for the country,” he said.

Of the 19 members of the Council's progressive caucus, 15 had no
on-the-record comment.

Two of the members who did comment were equivocal.

“I haven’t even started thinking about that,” said Councilman Ben Kallos, a
member of the Council’s progressive caucus from Manhattan. “I’m just
focused on the next year.”

Challenged on the question of whether he could possibly have no idea of who
he might support when the time comes, Kallos said, "Not even the foggiest.
I think I’m spending all of my time focusing on stopping the [East 91st
Street] marine transfer station and getting laws passed in the next year.
Not even at 2016 yet. But it sounds like a fun article to be writing.”

Then he recounted, unbidden, a recent episode of "Alpha House" that
featured a cameo appearance by Elizabeth Warren.

There are plenty of reasons why a New York Democrat, cold-called in early
2015 by a reporter, might equivocate, or be loath to address the issue of
2016 in any way.

Possible, perfectly legitimate reasons for this hesitation include: a
genuine lack of enthusiasm for Clinton's still-unannounced candidacy, and a
desire to see what the rest of the field looks like; a desire to be courted
before committing; a sense that questions like "who are you supporting in
2016," asked in the service of speculative, pre-announcement stories like
this one, are premature.

There's also Andrew Cuomo to think of.

"I certainly think that our incumbent governor would be a strong
presidential candidate, though there is no real indication that he is
preparing to run, even in the absence of a Hillary Clinton candidacy," said
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, who was one of the few established New York Democrats
to back Barack Obama against Clinton in 2008, when he was an assemblyman.

Jeffries said it was too soon to comment on what is still a "hypothetical"
primary field.

"I don't want to comment on who I may or may not support in the absence of
any real understanding as to whether she is going to run or not," he said.

(Related, possibly: Jeffries links on his House website to a New York Times
article, in which he is quoted, headlined, "Eye on 2016, Clintons Rebuild
Bonds With Blacks.")

Another progressive councilmember, who would only speak on background,
said, "Look, this is very challenging for me."

The councilmember described having “mixed feelings” about Clinton’s
"cautious" approach to immigration, climate change and economic justice.

“I feel that she is incredibly calculating in her ideology and everything
is perfectly modulated according to the calculus of the moment,” the member
said. “And that for much of her career she’s calculated that a more
moderate stance is to her advantage. And to that point, I don’t know what’s
in her heart.”

That council member is already dreading the coming "institutional pressure"
to support Clinton from on high: “There will be very senior officials in
New York who will commit to her, and they will take it upon themselves to
round up local electeds and people who resist that will come under
pressure, no doubt.”

Karim Camara, an assemblyman from Brooklyn who, like Jeffries, supported
Barack Obama in 2008, knows something about that.

“There was a lot of ‘You’re a dead man walking’ after [we] supported
President Obama,” he said. “A lot of people thought because this was our
home state that we would never be in office again because of that decision.”

He has yet to decide where he stands in the coming election.

Nor has Councilman Dan Garodnick, a moderate-for-New York councilman who
supported Clinton in 2008.

“I’m waiting for the first candidate to jump into the fray,” he said.

And then what will happen?

“I don’t know," he said. "I’m waiting to see who the candidates are.”

So is Donovan Richards, a councilman from Queens whose former boss, James
Sanders, supported Obama in 2008.

“I’m watching to see who is going to stand on the side of history that will
ensure we have more economic equality in the U.S.,” he said.

A progressive caucus member, Richards’ district in Far Rockaway has a huge
concentration of public housing, and issues involving poverty are,
therefore, important to him.

“You know what, I’m listening to her,” he said, about Clinton. “I think
that she started to take a better tone in particular in this area [of
income inequality] and I’m just looking to hear more of it.”

The highest-profile New York advocate on that issue, Mayor Bill de Blasio,
will almost certainly back Clinton if and when the time comes.

When asked for comment, a de Blasio spokesman referred Capital to the
mayor's November conversation with Politico, during which he expressed
confidence in Clinton's ability to confront growing concerns about economic
inequality. He'll almost certainly back Clinton if she runs, having managed
her Senate campaign in 2000, back when he was still a professional
political operative.

“If she runs, I think New York will definitely support her,” said Mark
Weprin, a councilman from Queens who is backing Clinton if she runs. “I
think all the major elected officials will get behind her. I think New York
is a foregone conclusion.”

*Time: “Bernie Sanders: Class Warrior for President”
<http://time.com/3660515/bernie-sanders-presidential-campaign/>*

By Michael Scherer

January 9, 2015, 5:00 a.m. EST

The political philosophy of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is not wanting for
boogeymen. He sees them everywhere, overrunning Washington, distorting
democracy, beating down the working family. It’s hard to go more than a few
minutes into conversation before he begins to list them off. “People with
incredible wealth and power,” he says. “The pharmaceutical industry, the
insurance industry, Wall Street, the military industrial complex.”

His great regret of Barack Obama is that the President never stood up like
Franklin Delano Roosevelt did in 1936 to denounce the “economic royalists”
of finance and industry, to “welcome their hatred.” “Point the finger at
the billionaire class to say, ‘You know what, they hate my guts, the Koch
brothers hate me, it’s all right. But I’m with you, and this is what we’re
going to do,’ ” Sanders says.

In that shift from Roosevelt’s “economic royalists” to Sanders’
“billionaire class” lie the seeds of a nascent “class-based” presidential
campaign that Sanders says he may unfurl as early as March. He has been
traveling to New Hampshire and Iowa—”a beautiful state,” he says of the
latter—while making the rounds on television news. He has drawn up a
12-step “Economic Agenda for America”—No. 9, not surprisingly, is “Taking
on Wall Street”—and deliberating upon the best way to highlight the
inequities that threaten the American experiment, so as to spark a
grassroots brushfire.

During an hour-long visit to TIME’s Washington Bureau on Thursday, the
junior Senator from Vermont, self-described “Democratic socialist” and
incoming ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee laid out his vision
for a presidential campaign, with all the requisite qualifications since he
has yet to make a final decision on running.

If he takes the dive, the political independent who caucuses with Democrats
will not spare his adopted party, a fact that is sure to cause headaches
for the current heir to the liberal crown, Hillary Clinton. “People see the
Democratic Party, which really once was the party of the American working
class, really isn’t anymore,” he says. “They have over the years supported
trade agreements from corporate America. They have not been vigorous in
standing up for the kind of tax system that we need. They have not been
vigorous enough in fighting for the kind of jobs programs that we need.”
There is more: The deregulation of Wall Street under President Clinton’s
Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin—”not a Republican,” notes Sanders. The
too-small 2009 stimulus of Obama after the great recession. The hesitancy
of so many in the party to declare healthcare a basic American right.

That said, he claims no interest in running a campaign that does not yield
a large number of votes. He has run and lost protest campaigns before, but
to do so now would risk marginalizing his own views. “If we don’t have a
good campaign … it’s not just my ego that is hurt,” he says.

He has also not yet decided whether to mount a frontal assault on Hillary
Clinton’s likely quest for the Democratic nomination, the most likely route
to a consequential campaign. “I have not yet made the decision of whether
to run as an independent or within the Democratic primary system,” he
cautions, before noting that it is almost impossible for an independent to
get on the ballot in states such as North Carolina. “But what I will not do
is to create a situation where we elect a right-wing Republican as
president.”

And how will he deal with campaign-finance system that increasing favors
the candidate with the richest friends? He also says he sees no need to
disarm by demanding his supporters eschew unlimited checks to SuperPACs,
the big-spending political vehicles of the billionaires he decries. “When I
am walking into a campaign where I will be outspent 50 to one, should the
first thing that I do be to say I should be outspent 100-to-one?” he asks,
rhetorically.

Asked about the familiar last names of the likely frontrunners, he agrees
that the Bush and Clinton dynasties raise important issues for the country.
“It’s an issue. How dynamic and vital is our American democracy? ” he asks.
” If your dad, or your husband in Hillary’s case, or your father in Jeb
Bush’s case, or his brother, has a name that is nationally famous, you
start off with a certain name advantage.”

Sanders’ dad sold paint in Brooklyn, and in Sanders’ last statewide
campaign he raised only $7 million, about what the 2012 Obama campaign
spent in a week during the 2012 election. But a true populist does not let
odds get in his way. To quote FDR again, “The resolute enemy within our
gates is ever ready to beat down our words unless in greater courage we
will fight for them.” So Sanders, his hair always mussed, his Brooklyn
accent unfaded, faces a choice, to fight on with his hat in the ring or
from the safety of the Senate floor.

*The Hill: “O'Malley to decide on 2016 run by spring”
<http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/228991-omalley-to-decide-on-2016-run-by-spring>*

By Rachel Huggins

January 8, 2015, 10:04 p.m. EST

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley on Thursday said he will decide in the spring
whether to run for president in 2016, possibly becoming a rival to likely
Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton.

Speaking at the University of Chicago's Institute of Politics, the outgoing
governor told the crowd he's "very seriously considering running in 2016,"
but first he needs to get his family settled in their hometown of Baltimore.

He went on to say he's not waiting for Clinton to announce whether she'll
run, as the former secretary of State is expected to make a formal
announcement in the first few months of 2015. Clinton is considered the
leading contender for the Democratic nomination.

Stoking presidential speculation, O'Malley has traveled to the key states
of Iowa and New Hampshire, but remains far behind in polls of Democratic
voters.

*BuzzFeed: “Martin O’Malley Knocks Brown Campaign For Not Defending His
Record”
<http://www.buzzfeed.com/rubycramer/martin-omalley-knocks-brown-campaign-for-not-defending-his-r#.fvP2498VvQ>*

By Ruby Cramer

January 8, 2015, 11:24 p.m. EST

[Subtitle:] “I can tell you my feelings were hurt,” says the Maryland
governor. A Brown campaign consultant responds: “It’s disappointing that as
his career is winding down so is his loyalty to a man who stood by his side
for eight years.”

In two weeks, Martin O’Malley will complete his last term as governor of
Maryland, move his family from the official residence in Annapolis back
home to Baltimore, and map out the presidential campaign he’s been
considering for months.

But as he considers a bid for the Democratic nomination, another race still
casts a shadow over O’Malley’s next move: the loss last fall of Anthony
Brown, his lieutenant governor and hand-picked successor, to Larry Hogan,
the Republican businessman few thought could win in a state considered
left-leaning.

Hogan, who won by four points, campaigned more against the eight-year
O’Malley administration than Brown, focusing on the string of tax hikes
that voters, polls showed, considered the dominant motivating issue in the
race.

On Thursday night, O’Malley suggested the Brown campaign strategy, not his
policies, were to blame for the November loss. His comments, made at the
University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics, were his most pointed on the
subject yet.

“I’ll let others determine whether the prospects were hurt. I can tell you
my feelings were hurt,” said O’Malley, asked about the race. “We had done a
lot of really good things in Maryland, and yet you did not hear much of
that during the campaign.”

“I was not on the ballot in Maryland,” he said.

The outgoing governor suggested that had Brown more forcefully defended his
economic record, and the programs and improvements the tax revenues funded,
the outcome would have been different. He cited his own reelection race in
2010, when his opponent, former governor Robert Ehrlich, also ran against
tax hikes.

“When I was on the ballot — when we were criticized and our opponents hit
us for many of those same votes they hit our lieutenant governor for —
unemployment was twice as high and most of those votes were six years
fresher,” said O’Malley. “And we prevailed by 14 points by always coming
back to the purpose of those tough choices — which is more jobs and better
opportunities for our kids.”

“So you rarely heard that affirmative story,” he said of the 2014 race.
(Brown targeted social issues, like Hogan’s position on gun control and
abortion.)

Asked about O’Malley’s comments, a Brown campaign consultant, who asked to
speak without attribution, said on Thursday, “It’s disappointing that as
his career is winding down so is his loyalty to a man who stood by his side
for eight years.”

O’Malley’s camp has addressed the Brown race few times since the election.

The day after the election, a person close to the governor was quoted in
Politico saying that Brown’s campaign had been “poorly

executed.” O’Malley had even sounded “alarm bells” about the strategy, the
source said. Later that month, the governor shrugged off the loss in an
interview with the New Yorker.

Toward the end of the race, O’Malley appeared at more events for Brown and
helped with get-out-the-vote efforts, calling himself the campaign’s
“deputy field director.” But for much of last year, O’Malley spent his
weekends away, stumping for Democrats in early-voting states like Iowa and
New Hampshire.

Recent polls show that the majority of Maryland residents do not want the
governor to run for president. He is expected to make his decision sometime
this spring.

“I’m very seriously considering running in 2016,” he said on Thursday.

On Jan. 21, at the inauguration in Annapolis, Hogan will take over as
governor.

*Calendar:*

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

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

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

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

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