Subject: ​Correct The Record Wednesday February 4, 2015 Morning Roundup
From: Burns Strider <[email-masked]>
To: CTRFriendsFamily <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2015 09:17:17 -0500
List-Id: <CTRFriendsFamily.americanbridge.org>

*​**Correct The Record** Wednesday February 4, 2015 Morning Roundup:*

*Headlines:*

*Politico: “Hillary Clinton, grandma-in-chief”
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/hillary-clinton-grandma-in-chief-114886.html>*

“While Clinton allies and detractors uniformly cautioned that too much of
her strategy should not be inferred from a single late-night tweet, her
backers also said the post demonstrated her intention to use her family —
specifically, her 4-month-old granddaughter, Charlotte — as an important
strand of her campaign message.”

*Washington Post: “Vaccine debate presents a political minefield — as
Hillary Clinton can attest”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/vaccine-debate-presents-a-political-minefield--as-hillary-clinton-can-attest/2015/02/03/1fa7fc4c-abc7-11e4-ad71-7b9eba0f87d6_story.html>*

“On the issue of vaccination over the past two decades, Clinton has
repeatedly found herself on the front lines of advocacy and criticism.”

*Time: “New York Suburb Seeks to Host Hillary Clinton 2016 Campaign”
<http://time.com/3694148/hillary-clinton-campaign-headquarters-white-plains/>*

“At least one Congresswoman and a major real-estate developer are lobbying
Clinton to place her headquarters in Westchester if she runs for president,
aiming for the prestige and economic benefits of a large operation. ‘A
Clinton campaign would be good for Westchester, and a Clinton Presidency
would be great for America,’ said Congresswoman Nita Lowey, the Democratic
representative for much of the county. Lowey has encouraged Clinton
directly to place her headquarters in the county if she runs.”

*The New Yorker: “Chris Christie’s Rich Friendships”
<http://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/jersey-jordan-chris-christies-friendships>*

"There are so many people who consider Chris Christie a true friend,
according to Chris Christie. This isn’t just a matter of love but of
legality, because New Jersey’s ethics rules stipulate that the state’s
governor has more leeway in accepting gifts from his personal friends than
from, say, businessmen with an interest in the Port Authority, or from the
king of a Middle Eastern country."

*Wall Street Journal blog: Washington Wire: “Pro-Elizabeth Warren Group
Opens New Hampshire Office”
<http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/02/04/pro-elizabeth-warren-group-opens-new-hampshire-office/>*

“Democracy for America, a liberal political action committee, is stepping
up its efforts to draft Ms. Warren, announcing Wednesday that it is
creating a pro-Warren campaign apparatus in the state that holds the first
primary of the presidential campaign season.”

*Mediaite: “Michael Moore, Susan Sarandon, and Dozens of Celebs Are Ready
for Warren 2016”
<http://www.mediaite.com/online/michael-moore-susan-sarandon-and-dozens-of-celebs-are-ready-for-warren-2016/>*

“More than 90 celebrities, including filmmaker Michael Moore, actress Susan
Sarandon, actor Ed Norton and many other notable names, have come together
to co-sign an open letter urging Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) to enter the
2016 presidential race.”

*Articles:*

*Politico: “Hillary Clinton, grandma-in-chief”
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/hillary-clinton-grandma-in-chief-114886.html>*

By Gabriel Debenedetti

February 3, 2015, 7:09 p.m. EST

[Subtitle:] She played it on vaccines -- will she play it in 2016?

Hillary Clinton is embracing her inner grandma.

After Republican 2016 hopefuls spent a day struggling to finesse the
vaccination debate, the 67-year-old Clinton weighed in roughly an hour
before midnight: “The science is clear,” she tweeted late Monday. “The
earth is round, the sky is blue, and #vaccineswork. Let’s protect all our
kids. #GrandmothersKnowBest.”

It was just 127 characters, but it struck a chord — especially her new
hashtag. By Tuesday evening the tweet had garnered roughly 24,000 retweets
— reaching millions of Twitter followers and making it her most-shared
tweet since she jabbed Fox during February 2014’s Super Bowl.

The Monday night tweet was just her sixth in 2015, but some of her backers
felt it might shed new light on her candidacy.

The message offered a look at how Clinton might approach her likely 2016
campaign for the White House — and how she might combat Republican attacks
on her age.

While Clinton allies and detractors uniformly cautioned that too much of
her strategy should not be inferred from a single late-night tweet, her
backers also said the post demonstrated her intention to use her family —
specifically, her 4-month-old granddaughter, Charlotte — as an important
strand of her campaign message. It also hinted at how she intends to try to
garner positive press — and present herself as the adult in the room — as
the crowded Republican field dukes it out.

“It does tap into something that is potentially really powerful for her in
terms of how she connects, and how she communicates,” said Chris Lehane, a
Democratic strategist and alum of President Bill Clinton’s White House.
“When she offers a theory of government and connects it to her biography,
in particular being a mom and a grandma, and talking about
intergenerational equity issues and the possibility to do right by your
kids — the combination there is a really, really powerful way to
communicate.”

Clinton first trotted out her granddaughter as a character in her 2014
stump speech while campaigning for Democrats across the country, using the
infant Charlotte as a justification for her continued investment in the
country’s future. The 4-month-old Charlotte has been featured in more than
a dozen of Clinton’s public appearances, making her a staple.

“When you have this little baby, you spend a lot of time just staring at
her. You really resolve, as her parents and grandparents … [to] do whatever
we can to make sure she has the opportunities she deserves to have,”
Clinton said in New Hampshire in November.

“You should not have to be the grandchild of a president to get a good
education, to get good health care,” she said a month earlier in
Philadelphia.

Democrats see this rhetoric as a way to spin Clinton’s age to her
advantage, and as a chance to show off Clinton’s family life to female
voters and her personal warmth to young voters.

Clinton is also expected to rely more on her prospective status as the
first female president during her campaign, and allies expect her to focus
on her daughter and granddaughter when making her case.

“Who doesn’t like grandmothers? What generation doesn’t like grandmothers?
Young people like grandmothers, historically, more than mothers and
fathers,” said Jerry Crawford, the Des Moines attorney who served as the
Midwest co-chairman of Clinton’s 2008 campaign. “It really, really is very
authentic. Anybody that’s been a grandparent knows that once you are, you
have it on your mind at every moment.”

Terry Shumaker, a former ambassador and New Hampshire-based co-chairman of
Bill Clinton’s campaigns, added that Hillary Clinton had been working on
children’s issues since the 1980s, including during her tenure at the State
Department, so it made sense for her to weigh in like this on a topic “near
and dear to her heart.”

Still, Clinton is older than each of the major likely Republican
candidates, and conservative reactions to her Monday night message
previewed the difficulties she might run into explicitly campaigning as a
grandmother and as a candidate somehow separated from the bickering of the
Republican hopefuls.

“Am I the only one who finds Hillary’s #GrandmothersKnowBest hashtag not
just cloying but creepy? Welcome to the grand-nanny state,” tweeted Bill
Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard.

Such objections also reflect Republican resistance to letting Clinton float
above the mud of the nominating season in the event that she does not get a
viable challenger. Democratic allies said occasional targeted tweets like
Monday’s could let Clinton seem like the adult in a room of fighting
Republicans who will most likely get much more national attention with
their squabbles. This tactic would let her stay engaged with the daily
conversation without dragging herself into unproductively prolonged debates
with Republicans, backers argue.

But Republican critics peg messages like Clinton’s tweet as overthought and
artificial, a vulnerability they see in many of her communications.

Clinton’s team has been tight-lipped while preparing for the likely
campaign, releasing few public statements while the former secretary of
state meets with advisers and largely stays out of the public eye. As a
result, her occasional tweets are pored over by her backers and opponents
as rare, if safe, insights into her thinking.

“She’s demonstrating extreme caution both in how she is engaging on issues
and in the way she frames them. An 11 p.m. tweet that reverses her previous
position on the issue and reads like it was crafted by committee doesn’t
exactly scream ‘authenticity,’” said Tim Miller of Republican opposition
research firm America Rising, referring to Clinton’s 2008 statement that
she was committed to finding the causes of autism, including looking at
vaccines.

Absent a Democratic challenger specifically criticizing Clinton and going
after her presumed voters, however, many of her supporters see little
downside to her only occasionally wading into the issue of the moment with
a strategically placed policy-based barb against Republicans.

“This mom for one would love to see #GrandmothersKnowBest make an
appearance in future tweets,” said Democratic strategist Lynda Tran, an
adviser to Ready For Hillary.

*Washington Post: “Vaccine debate presents a political minefield — as
Hillary Clinton can attest”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/vaccine-debate-presents-a-political-minefield--as-hillary-clinton-can-attest/2015/02/03/1fa7fc4c-abc7-11e4-ad71-7b9eba0f87d6_story.html>*

By Karen Tumulty

February 4, 2015, 6:35 a.m. EST

The latest tweet from Hillary Rodham Clinton sounded straightforward
enough: “The science is clear: The earth is round, the sky is blue, and
#vaccineswork.”

But the issue of vaccinations has long been politically and emotionally
fraught — involving not just public health but also the proper role of
government, the prerogatives of parents and medical riddles that have yet
to be solved.

Probably no one in public life today has felt those crosscurrents more
strongly than the presumed front-runner for the 2016 Democratic nomination.
On the issue of vaccination over the past two decades, Clinton has
repeatedly found herself on the front lines of advocacy and criticism.

Other politicians — including two potential GOP presidential hopefuls, New
Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) — have been learning
those political lessons the hard way in recent days. Both made statements
questioning whether childhood vaccinations should be mandatory, bringing a
torrent of criticism, including from medical professionals who are alarmed
over a recent rise in measles cases.

As a new first lady in 1993, Clinton championed what became the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention’s Vaccines for Children program, designed to
provide free inoculations against nine diseases to children who otherwise
might not get them. It now covers 14 diseases.

Clinton’s role in that endeavor landed her in the crossfire. Conservatives
blamed her when shortfalls of some vaccines developed in subsequent years,
arguing that the private market was better at allocating resources. “One of
her pet projects is a bust,” the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial
board wrote in a 2003 piece headlined “Hillary’s Vaccine Shortage.”

Meanwhile, Clinton also found herself the target of a burgeoning movement
that linked the rising rate of autism to thimerosal, a mercury-containing
preservative that has since been removed from childhood vaccines. Some
advocates of this theory went so far as to dub her “Thimerosal Hillary.”

For reasons that scientists cannot explain, the incidence of autism is up
markedly. Last year, the CDC estimated that 1 in 68 children age 8 had been
identified with the range of conditions known as autism spectrum disorder.
That was about 30 percent higher than previous estimates, reported in 2012,
of 1 in 88 children.

Clinton, as a presidential candidate in 2008, wrote in response to a
candidate questionnaire: “I am committed to make investments to find the
causes of autism, including possible environmental causes like vaccines. .
. . We don’t know what, if any, kind of link there is between vaccines and
autism — but we should find out.”

Her then-rival, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), also called for more research
into whether there was some correlation. And 2008 GOP presidential
contender John McCain (R-Ariz.) went so far as to say there was “strong
evidence” of a connection between vaccines and autism. But even in 2008,
the weight of medical evidence was against such a link and the candidates
who indulged such speculation were accused of pandering.

In 2010, the argument against vaccination received a devastating blow from
the Lancet, a medical journal that 12 years before had published a study
alleging that inoculations for measles, mumps and rubella were a cause of
autism. The journal retracted the study, saying the supposed research had
been falsified.

Another iteration of the vaccination issue flared in the 2012 Republican
primary campaign, when then-Gov. Rick Perry of Texas found himself under
fire for a mandate requiring most girls in his state to get inoculated
against the human papillomavirus, a sexual infection that can lead to
cervical cancer. Some social conservatives argued that it would encourage
girls to have sex.

Republican leaders have not welcomed the rekindling of the vaccine debate
sparked by Christie’s comment Monday that parents should have “some measure
of choice” in deciding whether to vaccinate their children. Paul — a
physician with a libertarian philosophy — joined the argument with an
unfounded claim that there are “many tragic cases of walking, talking,
normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines.”

Paul took to Twitter on Tuesday to defend himself, saying he supports
vaccinations and posing for photographs as he received a booster shot.

“I did not say vaccines caused disorders, just that they were temporally
related — I did not allege causation,” he wrote in one tweet.

House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) sought to tamp the furor down by
saying Tuesday, “I don’t know that we need another law, but I do believe
that all children ought to be vaccinated.”

Meanwhile, several other potential 2016 contenders distanced themselves
from Christie and Paul.

“Absolutely, all children in America should be vaccinated,” Sen. Marco
Rubio (R-Fla.) said Tuesday. “Unless their immune [system is] suppressed,
obviously, for medical exceptions, but I believe that all children, as is
the law in most states in this country, before they can even attend school,
have to be vaccinated for a certain panel.”

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) also released a statement criticizing “fear
mongering” and added: “Personally, I would not send my kids to a school
that did not require vaccinations.”

*Time: “New York Suburb Seeks to Host Hillary Clinton 2016 Campaign”
<http://time.com/3694148/hillary-clinton-campaign-headquarters-white-plains/>*

By Sam Frizell

February 3, 2015, 4:53 p.m. EST

[Subtitle:] Westchester notables are lobbying Clinton for a suburban
headquarters if she runs for president

Local luminaries in a suburb of New York City are calling on Hillary
Clinton to place her campaign headquarters in White Plains—a small city
close to Clinton’s home in Westchester County—despite the draw of the
nearby metropolis.

At least one Congresswoman and a major real-estate developer are lobbying
Clinton to place her headquarters in Westchester if she runs for president,
aiming for the prestige and economic benefits of a large operation. “A
Clinton campaign would be good for Westchester, and a Clinton Presidency
would be great for America,” said Congresswoman Nita Lowey, the Democratic
representative for much of the county. Lowey has encouraged Clinton
directly to place her headquarters in the county if she runs.

Half an hour from Manhattan by train, prosaic White Plains is as functional
a campaign headquarters as a pair of Crocs and about as chic. A suburb with
plentiful office parks, PepsiCo’s headquarters and 50,000 residents, the
Democratic-leaning New York satellite is also squarely in Hillary
heartland. The Clintons have had a home in Chappaqua, a hamlet 15 minutes
away, since 1999, and White Plains is within striking distance of the
presumptive candidate’s power base in New York City. Clinton aides hinted
last year White Plains is a strong option for a possible headquarters.

But recent lobbying efforts by businesses and local politicians may not be
enough to keep Clinton close to home, as the presumptive 2016 candidate
reportedly weighs a New York City campaign headquarters. New York is home
to a large cadre of Clinton allies and devoted young Democrats that could
make up her staff.

Where a candidate decides to locate their headquarters can have an outsized
influence on the tenor of a campaign. Obama’s decision in 2007 to base his
campaign headquarters in Chicago made him a more credible Beltway outsider
and may have kept his campaign grounded by keeping it far from the New York
and D.C. media bubbles. Clinton and John McCain, on the other hand, both
had headquarters in the D.C. suburbs during the 2008 campaign.

Robert Weisz, the CEO of the largest privately-held property owner in
Westchester, said he has reached out to Clinton’s staff, aiming to lease
his properties to potential campaign. A Democrat and past Clinton donor,
Weisz owns 2.5 million square feet of real estate in the county and plenty
of contiguous office space large enough to host a presidential campaign.

During Clinton’s 2008 bid for president, Weisz hosted an 800-person Clinton
event on his property on 1133 Westchester Avenue, a commercial space in
White Plains. Now he’s among the local real estate firms that are keen on
bringing a Clinton campaign to the New York suburb. “We reached out to her
staff for several reasons: one to rent space, and one to be helpful to her
possible campaign,” Weisz said.

Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, the Republican nominee in New
York’s gubernatorial election last year, said he hasn’t reached out to
Clinton directly to ask her to move her headquarters to the county, but
that he likely will. “I would love for her to set up shop here,” Astorino
said.

White Plains has the advantage of relatively cheap office space, compared
to New York City. The current average annual rent price per square foot of
office space in White Plains is around $25, compared with around $60 in
Manhattan and $30-$35 in Brooklyn, according to a 2013 report. That can add
up. President Obama’s 2012 headquarters occupied 50,000 square feet in
Chicago’s Prudential building, where rents averaged $22-$25 per square foot
annually.

A White Plains headquarters could also attract a more dedicated staff that
is willing to regularly commute or live at a distance from the city.

It remains unclear whether local excitement and cheap rent is enough to
keep Clinton away from New York City, which has all the pomp, panache and
power brokers that White Plains lacks.

The Big Apple’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, ran her first senatorial campaign,
and Clinton has connections in Manhattan’s financial industry. According to
reports, potential bivouacs for a 2016 campaign include Brooklyn or Queens,
where the former Secretary of State would be close to a large base of young
Democrats who would form the spine of her campaign staff.

A spokesperson for Clinton didn’t respond to a request for comment.

If the Clinton campaign decides to decamp from Westchester and heads to New
York’s outer boroughs, she would likely be courted by a wide array of
friendly real estate developers interested in leasing her space.

Bruce Ratner, a prominent Democrat and real estate developer, has extensive
Brooklyn properties including the Barclay’s Center, a potential site for
the 2016 Democratic National Convention. Stephen L. Green, who is one of
New York’s largest office landlords, was a member the so-called
Hillraisers, an elite coterie of donors that bundled over $100,000 each for
Clinton during her 2008 run.

Last August, Clinton signed a two-year lease for a personal office in a
Midtown Manhattan skyscraper owned by Green. Green’s firm also owns office
space in downtown Brooklyn.

White Plains notables also arguethat accessibility to Westchester County
Airport—mere minutes from the suburb— make the suburb a better option than
New York.

“White Plains would be a terrific location for her campaign headquarters,”
White Plains Mayor Tom Roach said. “Of course, we would love to have her
headquarters here if she decides to run.”

*The New Yorker: “Chris Christie’s Rich Friendships”
<http://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/jersey-jordan-chris-christies-friendships>*

By Amy Davidson

February 3, 2015

There are so many people who consider Chris Christie a true friend,
according to Chris Christie. This isn’t just a matter of love but of
legality, because New Jersey’s ethics rules stipulate that the state’s
governor has more leeway in accepting gifts from his personal friends than
from, say, businessmen with an interest in the Port Authority, or from the
king of a Middle Eastern country. Unless, that is, the governor is a guy
like Christie, whom no mogul or monarch could resist. According to a report
in the Times, when Christie was asked why King Abdullah of Jordan “picked
up the tab” for a weekend getaway for the governor—and three of his
children, his wife, her mother, his mother, and his stepfather—his office
cited the true-friend rule. “King Abdullah invited the governor and his
family to Jordan as his personal guest so the two families could spend time
together,” a spokeswoman told the paper. They’d met at a dinner given by
Mike Bloomberg, a detail that was somehow offered as proof that the
relationship was real. The family time included a thirty-thousand-dollar
bill at a Kempinski hotel and “a Champagne reception in the desert.”

True friendship was also the reason Christie didn’t worry about going to
football games with Jerry Jones, the owner of the Dallas Cowboys. As I’ve
written before, one of the puzzles in that story, as in this one, is
whether Christie believes his own excuse—that his wealthy hosts take
disinterested pleasure in his company—or is offering it cynically. The
first suggests a delusional faith in his own charm (and that of his
stepfather, mother-in-law, etc.), the other an openness to trading on his
office. Neither is good, and both make him vulnerable.

He acts as though that hadn’t occurred to him. “I relish these experiences
and exposures, especially for my kids,” the Times quoted him as saying. “I
try to squeeze all the juice out of the orange that I can.” He seemed to
assume that he’d be regarded—even praised—as a doting father, rather than
as a dubious politician.

Friendship isn’t everything. Christie also signed an executive order that
made it possible for interest groups and foreign governments to pay for him
to go around the world, as a travelling advertisement for New Jersey. The
vacation in Jordan came at the end of a junket to Israel—a trade
mission—for which the many Christies flew on a plane owned by Sheldon
Adelson, the gambling magnate who has spent millions on Republican
candidates and is likely to do so again in 2016. (See Ryan Lizza for more
on the Christie-Adelson relationship.) Part of that trip was paid for by a
group called Choose NJ, which, the Times noted, “is financed by companies
that are forbidden by pay-to-play laws to donate to the governor.” Its
president is a neighbor of Christie’s. Choose NJ paid for a Christie trip
this week, which is why his measles-abetting remarks about parental choice
and vaccines were issued from the United Kingdom. Some of the reports on
the measles story included a photo of Christie and his wife, Mary Pat,
visiting a British company, in a lab coat and goggles.

All this is emerging during the rush for potential candidates to get
commitments from big Republican donors, which turned into a free-for-all
after Mitt Romney announced on Friday that he wouldn’t run. Earlier that
day, Mark Halperin, of Bloomberg, reported that one factor Romney and his
circle had considered was what they saw as Christie’s unsustainability:
“Thanks to the 2012 veep vetting process, Romney became intimately familiar
with some of the less publicized controversies from the New Jersey
governor’s past, and believes that several of those flaps would mushroom so
broadly that Christie soon would be eliminated from consideration by voters
and donors.” There was a similar message in “Double Down,” the book that
Halperin wrote with John Heilemann. Still, Romney and Christie had dinner
Friday night. Whatever doubts Romney may have about Christie, he apparently
doesn’t want to help Jeb Bush. And someone has to win the Republican
nomination.

That person will probably face Hillary Clinton. One defense Christie has,
which Joe Scarborough, of MSNBC, quickly offered Tuesday morning, is that
Clinton has a wealthy-host problem, too. Hers might be bigger, if one
factors in Bill Clinton’s travels and the stray oligarch in their circle.
That suggests some dispiriting prospects for 2016. If it’s Clinton vs.
Christie, there will be private planes spotted in all directions. If it’s
Clinton vs. Bush, there will be no dodging of dynasts. We may be looking
forward to a campaign defined by operatives leaking duelling flight
manifestos, questionable consulting agreements, and intemperate statements
by former Presidents turned campaign surrogates. But maybe we’d have that
no matter who the candidates are. It’s better than letting the money change
hands in silence.

*Wall Street Journal blog: Washington Wire: “Pro-Elizabeth Warren Group
Opens New Hampshire Office”
<http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/02/04/pro-elizabeth-warren-group-opens-new-hampshire-office/>*

By Peter Nicholas

February 4, 2015, 12:00 a.m. EST

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) has been sounding more definitive of late
in saying she won’t run for president.

Undeterred, a group of her most ardent supporters have hired four campaign
staffers in New Hampshire and opened an office in Manchester in hopes of
luring her into the race as a liberal challenger to Hillary Clinton.

Democracy for America, a liberal political action committee, is stepping up
its efforts to draft Ms. Warren, announcing Wednesday that it is creating a
pro-Warren campaign apparatus in the state that holds the first primary of
the presidential campaign season.

The group has hired Kurt Ehrenberg, a former political director for the New
Hampshire AFL-CIO, as state director of what it calls the “Run Warren Run”
campaign.

Joining Mr. Ehrenberg are three field organizers: Jake Belanger, Diego
Hernandez, and Jennica Simms – all of whom have worked on Democratic
congressional  campaigns.

“I’m excited to join activists all across the Granite State to ensure we
live up to our proud tradition of defying expectations, upsetting
conventional wisdom, and picking presidents by working to bring Sen.
Elizabeth Warren and her populist progressive vision for our country into
2016’s first-in-the-nation primary,” Mr. Ehrenberg said in a prepared
statement.

Democracy for America said it also plans to open an office in Portsmouth,
N.H., and will hold events later this month.

Whether any of this will make a difference is far from certain For months
Ms. Warren used language that didn’t entirely seem to rule out a
presidential bid.

“I am not running for president,” she would say. And say and say again. But
in a recent interview she dropped the present tense construction that
seemed to leave her room to change her mind.

Speaking to Fortune magazine she employed the future tense.

“Are you going to run for president?” she was asked.

“No,” she replied.

Mr. Ehrenberg’s task is to get Ms. Warren to reconsider. The idea is to
demonstrate she enjoys an impassioned following in a state that has made or
broken many a presidential candidate in modern American political history.

It won’t be easy.

Mrs. Clinton, who is expected to announce her candidacy some time in the
next two-to-five months (sorry, that’s as specific an answer as anyone will
give right now), would be the overwhelming front-runner in New Hampshire.
She won the state in 2008, injecting new life in her campaign after she
finished third in the Iowa caucuses that year.

Currently, RealClearPolitics shows Mrs. Clinton leading all candidates in
New Hampshire, running more than 40 points ahead of Ms. Warren.

*Mediaite: “Michael Moore, Susan Sarandon, and Dozens of Celebs Are Ready
for Warren 2016”
<http://www.mediaite.com/online/michael-moore-susan-sarandon-and-dozens-of-celebs-are-ready-for-warren-2016/>*

By Matt Wilstein

February 3, 2015, 5:46 p.m. EST

More than 90 celebrities, including filmmaker Michael Moore, actress Susan
Sarandon, actor Ed Norton and many other notable names, have come together
to co-sign an open letter urging Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) to enter the
2016 presidential race.

Dated Monday, Feb. 2, and addressed directly to Sen. Warren, the letter
states that the groups, calling itself “Artists for Warren” is “joining
hundreds of thousands of Americans who want to passionately urge you to run
for President.” It goes on to cite Warren’s willingness to challenge Wall
Street banks and champion income inequality as reasons why she would make
an effective leader.

In an obvious reference to Hillary Clinton, the letter includes this bolded
sentence: “There’s too much at stake to have anything other than our best
candidates taking part in the debate; everyone is better off with a
contested primary.”

Last month, Vanity Fair reported that the group met in the Chinatown loft
of filmmakers Julie Pacino (daughter of Al) and Jennifer DeLia, describing
it as an “off-shoot” of MoveOn.org’s Run Warren Run campaign. In attendance
were fellow-letter signers Chloë Sevigny, the Beastie Boys’ Adam “Ad-Rock”
Horovitz and more than 150 other guests.

In an iPhone video taped from London, actor Mark Ruffalo spoke to the group
about his passion for Warren as a potential presidential candidate. “If she
primaries and doesn’t win the primary, she will at least push the
conversation more toward the progressive values that we all share,” he
said. “As my brother and sister artists, I’m asking that you join me in
getting on board with asking Elizabeth Warren to run.”

Watch video below, via Vimeo:

[VIDEO]

Read the full letter below:

Artists for Warren Letter; Feb. 2, 2015 by MoveOn_org

[LETTER]

*Calendar:*

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

·  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 3 – Washington, DC: Sec. Clinton honored by EMILY’s List (AP
<http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_268798/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=SUjRlg8K>)

·  March 4 – New York, NY: Sec. Clinton to fundraise for the Clinton
Foundation (WSJ
<http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/01/15/carole-king-hillary-clinton-live-top-tickets-100000/>
)

·  March 16 – New York, NY: Sec. Clinton to keynote Irish American Hall of
Fame (NYT <https://twitter.com/amychozick/status/562349766731108352>)

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

·  March 23 – Washington, DC: Sec. Clinton to keynote award ceremony for
the Toner Prize for Excellence in Political Reporting (Syracuse
<http://newhouse.syr.edu/news-events/news/former-secretary-state-hillary-rodham-clinton-deliver-keynote-newhouse-school-s>
)