Subject: ​Correct The Record Thursday February 5, 2015 Morning Roundup
From: Burns Strider <[email-masked]>
To: CTRFriendsFamily <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2015 10:11:53 -0500
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*​**Correct The Record Thursday February 5, 2015 Morning Roundup:*

*Headlines:*

*Wall Street Journal: “Top White House Official to Leave for Emerging
Hillary Clinton Campaign”
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/top-white-house-official-to-leave-for-emerging-hillary-clinton-campaign-1423091078>*

“Jennifer Palmieri will leave her job as White House communications
director for a comparable role with Mrs. Clinton, these people said.”

*MSNBC: “Busy March for Hillary Clinton could presage campaign launch”
<http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/hillary-clinton-busy-march-could-presage-campaign-launch>*

“After months of relative quiet, Hillary Clinton is pressing ahead with
preparations for a return to the campaign trail, ramping up her public
activity in March ahead of an almost certain campaign launch.”

*MSNBC blog: Chris Matthews: “Let Me Finish: The ‘Grandmother’ Strategy”
<http://www.msnbc.com/hardball/let-me-finish-the-grandmother-strategy>*

“Having paid attention to Secretary Clinton over these recent months,
watched her discipline, seen how she keeps her own counsel on the
preparation that I assume she is making for a presidential run, I don’t
think she made this ‘grandmother’ reference blindly.”

*Boston Globe: “Elizabeth Warren presidential draft supporters organizing
in Iowa, insist it’s not a lost cause”
<http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2015/02/05/elizabeth-warren-presidential-draft-supporters-organizing-iowa-insist-not-lost-cause/bGNeVto9B6Q1fJcPcRs5SM/story.html>*

“This ‘house party’ — one of 11 in Iowa and more than 200 nationwide last
weekend — embodies the effort: scrappy, earnest, ambitious. And, quite
possibly, pointless.”

*Yahoo: “My problem with the Clinton Death Star”
<http://news.yahoo.com/my-problem-with-the-clinton-death-star-220134299.html>*

[Subtitle:] “A generation of Democrats seems to have lost touch with the
anti-establishment impulse that got them into politics in the first place”

*The Hill column: Lanny Davis: “Lanny Davis: An earlier start for the
presidential race? Really?”
<http://thehill.com/opinion/lanny-davis/231816-lanny-davis-an-earlier-start-for-the-presidential-race-really>*

“Hard work, issues, facts, respect for her opponents, respect for those who
disagree, respect for those on both sides of the aisle — this is Hillary
Clinton. This is who she always has been. And, no doubt: this is the kind
of campaign she will run ... if she runs.”

*Articles:*

*Wall Street Journal: “Top White House Official to Leave for Emerging
Hillary Clinton Campaign”
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/top-white-house-official-to-leave-for-emerging-hillary-clinton-campaign-1423091078>*

By Peter Nicholas and Carol E. Lee

February 4, 2015, 6:04 p.m. EST

Another top aide to President Barack Obama will be leaving the White House
to join Hillary Clinton ’s would-be presidential campaign, people familiar
with the matter say, the latest example of the two major camps within the
Democratic Party coalescing behind the former Secretary of State’s likely
candidacy.

Jennifer Palmieri will leave her job as White House communications director
for a comparable role with Mrs. Clinton, these people said.

The move locks in place another top position on Mrs. Clinton’s campaign
team, should she choose to run.

Ms. Palmieri has connections to both the Obama and Clinton worlds, having
worked in Bill Clinton ’s White House in the 1990s. She is also close to
another figure who bridges both the Obama and Clinton worlds: John Podesta.

Mr. Podesta is currently a senior adviser to the president. He is due to
leave the White House this month and to later join the Clinton team,
perhaps in the role of campaign chairman, people familiar with events have
said.

The earliest Ms. Palmieri will leave is March, a White House official said
Wednesday. The White House declined to say what Ms. Palmieri will do next.
Mrs. Clinton’s office didn't respond to a request for comment.

Mrs. Clinton has given no timetable for when she’ll announce her candidacy,
but people familiar with the matter expect her to jump in sometime between
April and July. Before her formal announcement, she might set up a
presidential exploratory committee, which would enable her to raise
campaign funds to help cover travel and other expenses.

Ms. Palmieri has strong relations with the press corps, a potential asset
to a Clinton team whose dealings with the media in the 2008 campaign were
frosty.

Ms. Palmieri didn't serve in Mr. Obama’s 2008 campaign and is one of the
few outsiders to gain influence in a White House that prizes loyalty. She
was tasked, in part, with improving White House relations with the press
and is seen as a fair broker between the administration and the press corps.

Mr. Obama particularly has sought her input on media relations issues that
require knowledge of precedent, given her experience in the Clinton
administration.

The addition of Ms. Palmieri rounds out the top ranks of Mrs. Clinton’s
emerging campaign organization.

Others expected to play key roles are Joel Benenson, who was Mr. Obama’s
campaign pollster; Jim Margolis, a media adviser to Mr. Obama’s campaigns;
Cheryl Mills, who served as a counselor to Mrs. Clinton in the State
Department and worked in her husband’s White House; and Philippe Reines, a
trusted confidante of Mrs. Clinton.

The White House also announced Wednesday that Dan Pfeiffer, one of Mr.
Obama’s top advisers, will depart in early March. Mr. Pfeiffer has been
part of Mr. Obama’s senior team of advisers since the 2008 presidential
campaign.

*MSNBC: “Busy March for Hillary Clinton could presage campaign launch”
<http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/hillary-clinton-busy-march-could-presage-campaign-launch>*

By Alex Seitz-Wald

February 4, 2015, 5:54 p.m. EST

After months of relative quiet, Hillary Clinton is pressing ahead with
preparations for a return to the campaign trail, ramping up her public
activity in March ahead of an almost certain campaign launch.

Clinton has only one public appearance scheduled for February – a paid
speech at a Silicon Valley conference for women – but will significantly
expand her profile in March with at least four appearances. First up,
she’ll receive an award at the 30th anniversary gala of Emily’s List, the
powerful Democratic group that works to get more pro-choice women elected
to office. Emily’s List’s founder Ellen Malcolm co-chaired Clinton’s 2008
presidential campaign and the group has been one the former secretary of
state’s key outside allies. The March 3 event will give her an opportunity
to speak about need to get more more women in elected office – perhaps even
the White House.

Next, Clinton will be inducted into the Irish America Hall of Fame at a
ceremony in New York City on March 16, the day before St. Patrick’s Day.
Clinton is not Irish – her parents are of English, Welsh, Scottish, and
French descent – but as first lady, she played a key role in the peace
process in Northern Ireland. “She galvanized women’s groups on both sides
by meeting with them, shaping their agenda and making sure they always had
a friend in the U.S. administration,” said Irish America co-founder Niall
O’Dowd. Two of her potential Democratic primary opponents, Vice President
Biden and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, along with her husband Bill
Clinton, are previously inductees.

After that, Clinton heads to Atlantic City, New Jersey for a paid speech on
March 19 to the American Camp Association, an industry group of summer camp
professionals. Four days later, she’s back in Washington to present a
journalism award named in honor of Robin Toner, the first woman to be named
national political reporter for The New York Times.

What Clinton does next is the key question for Clinton watchers and
Democrats alike.

People close to Clinton say her plans have not changed since April was
first identified as likely launch window for a campaign, and that her
preparation is pressing ahead full steam.  Some Clinton allies, however,
say the presumed Democratic front-runner might wait until as late as July
to formally announce her campaign. They say she might also opt to form an
exploratory committee or PAC in the spring, and then wait until Summer for
a formal launch.  Clinton’s strength buys her time, but some Democrats fear
she risks appearing like she’s taking the Democratic primary system for
granted if she waits too long.

Meanwhile, outside groups are keeping up enthusiasm for the likely
candidate. The pro-Clinton super PAC Ready for Hillary this week reported
raising more than $740,000 in the last quarter, for a total haul of more
than $12.9 million since it was created two years ago.

Other Democratic 2016 hopefuls are also ramping up activity. Vermont Sen.
Bernie Sanders will make two appearances at a progressive festival in
Pennsylvania this weekend, before speaking on his economic plan at the
Brookings Institution in Washington Monday. Later this month, he’ll make
three-day swing through Iowa.

Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley has a busy March as well, with
appearances at Democratic events in South Carolina, Kansas, New Hampshire,
and Iowa. His O’Say Can You See PAC, which he is using the lay the
groundwork for a presidential run, reported raising more than $191,000 in
the last quarter

*MSNBC blog: Chris Matthews: “Let Me Finish: The ‘Grandmother’ Strategy”
<http://www.msnbc.com/hardball/let-me-finish-the-grandmother-strategy>*

By Chris Matthews

February 4, 2015, 9:28 p.m. EST

Let me finish with Secretary Clinton’s role in life.

Many people pull back from the title of “grandparent.” They come up with
nicknames.  My wife Kathleen likes to be called “Mah-gay.” I’m “Bah-bay.”
Both are Swati names I brought back from my two years in Swaziland.

Hillary Clinton is going with the more traditional.  She’s a “grandmother”
and has no problem with the name, and, I presume, the idea.  It’s where she
is in life and wants the world to know there are certain strengths, and a
serious amount of wisdom that comes with being the parent of a parent.

I think there are good politics in the position she’s proudly claimed, that
of “grandmother.” By my lights, it puts her out there looking over the
horizon to the world her grandchild is going to live in. Rather than make
her someone holding on when another generation is pushing to take over, she
is leapfrogging to the future by talking about the world that’s coming for,
in her case, granddaughter Charlotte.

Look, we never know how much thought goes into a comment from a politician.
Sometimes they speak without deliberation and say something brilliant.
Sometimes they speak without thinking and say something we call a “gaffe.”

Having paid attention to Secretary Clinton over these recent months,
watched her discipline, seen how she keeps her own counsel on the
preparation that I assume she is making for a presidential run, I don’t
think she made this “grandmother” reference blindly.

Someone smart once said that if a politician doesn’t define himself early,
his enemies will.

Secretary Clinton is letting it be known that she is proud of her position
in her family and in her generation and in her country – and she knows its
strengths. I take what she said very seriously.

I mean that in a “political” sense.

*Boston Globe: “Elizabeth Warren presidential draft supporters organizing
in Iowa, insist it’s not a lost cause”
<http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2015/02/05/elizabeth-warren-presidential-draft-supporters-organizing-iowa-insist-not-lost-cause/bGNeVto9B6Q1fJcPcRs5SM/story.html>*

By Jessica Meyers

February 5, 2015

FAIRFIELD, Iowa — Not far from this town’s transcendental meditation
school, on the second floor of the used bookstore, a mostly white-haired
group plotted Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign.

Carole Simmons, a retired researcher who hosted the gathering of Warren
devotees last weekend, read instructions from the state’s new Run Warren
Run headquarters.

“We’re supposed to take pictures and tweet,” she said. “Who’s good at
tweeting?”

Iowa is on the front line of the draft-Warren movement, a $1.25 million
effort funded by the liberal groups MoveOn.org and Democracy for America,
which have chosen the country’s first caucus state as a cornerstone for
their push.

This “house party” — one of 11 in Iowa and more than 200 nationwide last
weekend — embodies the effort: scrappy, earnest, ambitious.

And, quite possibly, pointless.

The shadow campaign’s greatest challenge is Warren herself. She has
repeatedly stated that she will not mount a White House bid, so these
supporters are left to prove they are anything more than a doting fan club
of wishful thinkers — political freelancers who are dedicating numerous
hours to organize ground troops and raise large sums of money in the name
of a noncandidate.

“Elizabeth Warren is a ridiculous long shot, but you can call that a sense
of desperation,” said Patrick Bosold, a 65-year-old software engineer at
the meeting who made a retching sound to explain his distaste for corporate
interests. “We are not being terribly politically realistic, and I don’t
care.”

Warren’s national profile has shot up in recent months, after she knocked
out President Obama’s pick for a key Treasury Department post and nearly
blocked a major spending bill because she objected to a provision that
eased financial regulations. Her laserlike focus on income inequality and
corporate greed have triggered a groundswell of liberal support, and pleas
from some of her biggest backers that she run for president.

It does not seem to matter that Warren has said she will complete her
Senate term, which ends in January 2019. Her refusals have only prompted
more organized draft efforts.

Ready for Warren, a super PAC that can spend unlimited funds, was launched
in July and has raised nearly $99,000. The political action committee for
MoveOn.org, an advocacy group started in 1998 to defend President Bill
Clinton from impeachment, pledged $1 million to a Run Warren Run movement
in December. Democracy for America, a political action committee founded by
former Vermont governor Howard Dean, has vowed to assist with at least
$250,000.

But many Iowa Democrats take her multiple refusals at face value. She
visited the state only once last year, to stump for a Senate candidate,
Bruce Braley. He lost. No prominent Iowa advisers are providing their
services. Party officials have yet to come forward and endorse a potential
Warren candidacy.

“It’s good that people are organizing and taking action, but I can’t
imagine this is fruitful,” said Scott Brennan, a former Iowa Democratic
Party chairman who stepped down in January. “There’s not a point.”

The last effective presidential draft movement took place more than a
decade ago, when “Draft Clark” supporters helped encourage an eager Wesley
Clark to run in the 2004 race. He backed out several months later and
endorsed John F. Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat.

The young faces in the draft movement’s state headquarters in Des Moines
believe Warren will prove the next success.

Iowa’s Run Warren Run headquarters opened in an office warehouse space last
Thursday with a crowd of about 30 people, a potluck that consisted largely
of prepackaged sweets and unwavering assurance that activists could sway
the Massachusetts senator.

One of the five paid staffers recruited his father to help with telephone
calls. They encouraged visitors to fill out postcards for Warren and
promised to run a “100 percent positive campaign,” despite a general
distrust of presumed primary front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton and her
support from Wall Street interests. In the 2008 Iowa caucus, Clinton came
in third.

The embryonic Warren movement, only two months in, has tapped into a deeper
discontent with the Democratic Party’s agenda and given liberals a rare
sounding board.

“What we are trying to do is not just draft Elizabeth Warren, but we are
trying to model what a Democratic campaign should look like,” said Charles
Chamberlain, Democracy for America’s executive director.

The Iowa garage operation represents one piece of a sophisticated national
fund-raising effort that could benefit the groups, even as it helps Warren.

A Run Warren Run website asks donors to click on boxes from $5 to $1,500
and sends the money to MoveOn.org’s coffers.

The group, whose members voted to support the draft, has not created a
separate pot for the funds it gets from the Warren recruitment efforts.
Ilya Sheyman, executive director of MoveOn.org Political Action, declined
to discuss how much the group has raised off the Warren brand but said
those who contribute “can see the resources being invested by grass-roots
donors are going to the service of drafting Elizabeth Warren for president.”

Warren has ignored the latest campaign, though her attorney wrote to the
Federal Election Commission last year, making it clear she did not
“authorize, endorse, or otherwise approve” of Ready for Warren.

A Warren spokeswoman said the senator does not support MoveOn.org’s and
Democracy for America’s fund-raising efforts, either. Ready for Warren,
because it can raise unlimited money, has different legal requirements. But
her office declined to explain why she has not formally distanced herself
from the latest effort.

MoveOn.org has brought on two senior advisers to guide its national
draft-Warren campaign. A New Hampshire office will open in coming days. And
more than 90 artists signed a letter on Tuesday encouraging a Warren bid,
including celebrities Susan Sarandon, Mark Ruffalo, and Ed Norton.

They don’t seem to notice that Warren keeps saying no.

“We will show her so much momentum she will get into the race,” said Blair
Lawton, the campaign’s Iowa field director.

Advocates note it took a similar effort to draw Warren into the 2012 Senate
campaign in Massachusetts.

A Bloomberg Politics/Des Moines Register poll last week showed Clinton
receiving 56 percent of the vote from Iowa Democrats and Warren taking
second place at 16 percent, up from 10 percent in October.

The half-frozen Des Moines River separates the Run Warren Run headquarters
from Ready for Hillary’s Iowa office near the gilded State Capitol. Clinton
supporters, buoyed by Warren’s refusals, don’t consider the draft campaign
much of a threat.

“Someone is spending a lot of money to push a person that doesn’t want to
be pushed, so what is their mission?” said Bonnie Campbell, a former Iowa
attorney general, gubernatorial candidate, and current Clinton backer.

Ready for Hillary, a super PAC with which Campbell volunteers, was launched
two years ago and has raised nearly $13 million, 130 times that of Ready
for Warren.

Two hours away, at the exit with a hand-written “Dump Obama” sign, the
Fairfield group sat above a cafe that offered organic elk burgers and
devised a plan.

They decided on an open house at the public library, considered finding
local leaders to discuss their support, and talked about a weekend
celebration. To celebrate what wasn’t exactly clear — as host Carole
Simmons pointed out.

“We should have a party,” she said, “when she decides to run.”

*Yahoo: “My problem with the Clinton Death Star”
<http://news.yahoo.com/my-problem-with-the-clinton-death-star-220134299.html>*

By Matt Bai

February 5, 2015

[Subtitle:] A generation of Democrats seems to have lost touch with the
anti-establishment impulse that got them into politics in the first place

A year before the Iowa caucuses, Washington’s entrenched Democrats are
already girding for a general election. You could raid the Four Seasons at
the height of breakfast and not turn up a single Democratic lobbyist,
consultant or lawmaker who isn’t already behind Hillary Clinton — and who
doesn’t assume she’s the nominee.

Writing in Politico last week, the ever-prescient Mike Allen reported that
Clinton has already charged John Podesta, recently a senior Obama adviser
and the closest thing the party has to a reigning wise man, with assembling
her rumbling tank of a campaign. The current hope is that Clinton may not
even have to risk debating in the primaries, unless someone really is crazy
enough to run against her. (Um … have you guys actually heard Bernie
Sanders?)

I have to say, there’s something about this latest iteration of Clinton
Industries that I find a little dispiriting, though probably not for the
reasons you might think.

It’s not that I think Hillary Clinton couldn’t be a good president, or even
the right fit for the moment. Going back to her days in the Senate, Clinton
has always been pragmatic and dexterous with the machinery of government.
That might be a welcome contrast with Barack Obama, who after six years in
the job still seems to regard himself as a critic of the system, rather
than as the guy who owns it.

And although you might be tempted to say I’m just a typical journalist
who’s dying to cover a more exciting Democratic primary campaign than the
one taking shape right now, that really isn’t it, either. I’ve seen all the
freezing, late-night rallies and desperate attack ads I need to see for one
lifetime. If Hillary can spare us more of that a year from now, I say go
for it.

Some people around Clinton assume that any skepticism about her candidacy
has to do with latent sexism, but I’m pretty sure that’s not my issue,
either. Last week, my 6-year-old daughter informed me that she couldn’t be
president because she’s a girl. So believe me, if Hillary Clinton takes the
oath of office on the third Friday of 2017, we’ll be watching together.

Nor am I necessarily devastated, as some people are, by the idea of yet
another Clinton campaign (which would be the fourth in seven presidential
elections), or even another Bush-Clinton matchup, should it come to that.
Dynastic politics can’t be good for the democracy, but that’s up to the
voters, and if they want to treat the presidency like it’s a “Rocky”
sequel, so be it.

No, my problem with the Clinton Death Star strategy — and the sense of
entitlement that comes with it — is that a generation of influential
Democrats seems to have lost touch with the anti-establishment impulse that
brought them into politics in the first place.

Although it’s hard for us Gen Xers or you millennials to envision, the
parties didn’t always pick their presidents in these crazy caucuses and
primaries. Until 1968, in fact, the process in the Democratic Party was
mostly controlled by a loose affiliation of elected officials, machine
bosses and union chiefs, each of whom commanded the loyalty of “regulars”
who walked the precincts and manned the phones.

There were primaries in some states, but they mainly existed to demonstrate
the viability of the candidates, which might in turn persuade the insiders
to get behind them.

But then along came the young, liberal reformers of the ’60s generation,
opponents of Vietnam and segregation, who felt shut out by the backroom
process dominated almost exclusively by white men. The modern primary
system, with its reliance (for better or worse) on binding votes in the
states, sprang from a commission chaired by the antiwar senator George
McGovern, who turned around in the very next election and used the new
system to shock the establishment and steal the nomination for himself.
(Republicans almost immediately followed suit.)

For the next several elections, younger Democratic activists worked to
undermine the plans of the aging establishment. A lot of them backed Ted
Kennedy in his bid to unseat an incumbent president, Jimmy Carter, in 1980.
One of Clinton’s most important loyalists and fundraisers, Harold Ickes,
helped lead Jesse Jackson’s surprisingly strong insurgency against Michael
Dukakis and the party establishment in 1988.

By then, though, a lot of the reformers of the ’60s and ’70s were starting
to build a new establishment of their own. Some — Podesta and Ickes among
them — started powerful lobbying and public relations shops. Others became
admen and pollsters, pioneering the new, lucrative campaign-for-hire
industry. Still others, like the Clintons, ran for office themselves.

And now, whether they like to think of it this way or not, a lot of these
onetime reformers make up a powerful machine that’s just as bent on
controlling events as the bosses were back in the day. They’re no longer
interested in having a fight over the direction of the party, in empowering
new voices and letting the voters decide. They’re interested in locking up
the big money, freezing out potential competitors and making sure other
officials get on board early, so as to avoid any intraparty debate.

Witness the procession of Democratic boomers, liberals as unimpeachable as
Howard Dean and Al Franken, who have lined up in recent months to endorse a
candidate who isn’t even running yet and hasn’t offered a single reform one
could endorse.

I’m not saying it’s all the fault of Clinton or her longtime acolytes that
there aren’t other candidates coming forward to challenge her. The party’s
ranks of up-and-coming politicians took a real hit during the wave
elections of 2010 and 2014, and there just aren’t a ton of strong, natural
contenders this time around. It’s not Clinton’s job to invent them.

But there are some potential rivals, including the more than able vice
president of the United States and the well-regarded, former two-term
governor of Maryland, Martin O’Malley. And at some point, if your goal is
to rig this thing for Clinton, you have to look in the mirror and ask
yourself if this is the kind of Democratic politics you really intended to
create — the kind where the establishment decides who the nominee will be
18 months before the convention, without a single idea on the table or a
single choice yet defined.

You have to ask yourself something else, too: Does trying so blatantly to
steamroll the modern nominating process make it more likely that your
candidate will avoid a bunch of bruising primary debates, or less so? If
you got your start in Democratic politics 40-odd years ago, the answer to
that one should be obvious.

*The Hill column: Lanny Davis: “Lanny Davis: An earlier start for the
presidential race? Really?”
<http://thehill.com/opinion/lanny-davis/231816-lanny-davis-an-earlier-start-for-the-presidential-race-really>*

By Lanny Davis

February 4, 2015, 8:07 p.m. EST

Many political pundits and Republicans are hyperventilating about the news
that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton may actually wait a while
longer before making up her mind whether to run for president of the United
States.

How could she delay? How dare she? If you do a Web search on the words
“Hillary Clinton” and “waiting too long” you will get millions of hits
(whatever that means).

For the media, this is a crisis of major proportions. If Clinton continues
to wait for months and months to decide, just imagine all the loss of
expense-account-paid campaign trips, front-page column inches, breathless
“just breaking” cable news 24/7 reports, all the “gotcha” moments. Imagine
the media’s impatience to write the stories with headlines already written,
waiting to be published when and if she announces: “Hillary’s rusty,” “More
Hillary gaffes,” “Boring Hillary front-runner campaign” and — the one we
know is coming, must be coming, not whether but when — “Hillary Clinton
wins by less than expected — campaign in disarray.”

Many writers say she shouldn’t delay, or else Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth
Warren will run. Put aside that Warren has repeatedly stated that she isn’t
going to run — perhaps because she and Clinton agree on virtually every
major progressive issue. Yet The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza and Aaron
Blake insist: “There’s also a big reason she should at least consider
announcing sooner rather than later. And that reason is Elizabeth Warren.
... Warren is the beating heart of the Democratic base.”

Oh really? Beating heart?

In the January 22-25 Public Policy Polling survey, Clinton leads over
Warren among all voters by a wide margin,  60 to 10 percent (Biden is in
second place, at 15 percent).

Among Democrats who describe themselves as “very liberal” (what one could
accurately call the “beating heart of the Democratic base”), Clinton is the
choice of 65 percent, compared to 16 percent for Warren. Clinton is rated
as “favorable” by 88 percent of those who identify themselves as “very
liberal” — that is, nine out of 10 — compared to 61 percent favorable for
Warren.

In January of 2012, the Pew Research Center found that 57 percent of the
national sample — surprise! — found the presidential campaign was “too
long.” But is this campaign fatigue a recent phenomenon? When I did a Web
search on the words “presidential campaigns too long,” I received
10,500,000 hits. The first hit was a Time magazine article with the
headline, “Is the presidential campaign too long? Both allies & candidates
think so.”

The article states: “The long campaign is debilitating, tedious, and
expensive.” One presidential candidate is quoted as saying: “Obviously a
year of perambulating, incessant exposure is exhausting. You grow weary,
frustrated and bored. Any man who has listened to himself several times
daily since February is not likely to inspire his countrymen in October.”

The date of the Time article: June 27, 1960. The quoted candidate: Adlai
Stevenson, who lost the nomination to John F. Kennedy.

So the point is, nothing has really changed. Stevenon’s words still reflect
the sentiment of most people.

Is there any political danger, as some suggest, that if Clinton delays her
announcement, she will coast to the Democratic nomination and run in the
general election as if she has already won? Politico recently reported that
some Iowans fear Clinton will take them for granted and not make an effort
to win the caucuses.

Fear not, Iowans. Not a chance.

Full disclosure: I am a long-time friend and loyal supporter. I don’t know
whether, or when, Hillary Clinton will announce for president. I really
don’t. But this much I do know: When and if she runs, she will work very
hard. She will not act as if she is entitled to a single vote. She will act
and work to earn every vote.

Hard work, issues, facts, respect for her opponents, respect for those who
disagree, respect for those on both sides of the aisle — this is Hillary
Clinton. This is who she always has been. And, no doubt: this is the kind
of campaign she will run ... if she runs.

Of that I am certain.

*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>
)