Subject: Correct The Record Tuesday February 17, 2015 Afternoon Roundup
From: Burns Strider <[email-masked]>
To: CTRFriendsFamily <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2015 13:52:06 -0500
List-Id: <CTRFriendsFamily.americanbridge.org>

*​**Correct The Record Tuesday February 17, 2015 Afternoon Roundup:*

*Tweets:*

*Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: .@HillaryClinton
<https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton> co-sponsored a bill to shelter
homeless veterans #HRC365 <https://twitter.com/hashtag/HRC365?src=hash>
https://www.congress.gov/bill/109th-congress/senate-bill/1180/cosponsors …
<https://t.co/go3uU50kY8> [2/17/15, 11:42 a.m. EST
<https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/567725723587067906>]

*Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: .@RepMurphyFL
<https://twitter.com/RepMurphyFL> says @HillaryClinton
<https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton> will "deliver tangible results for the
middle class and our nation's economy"
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/opinion/os-ed-hillary-clinton-my-word-20150213-story.html
…
<http://t.co/WEeVnHMZwv> [2/17/15, 11:21 a.m. EST
<https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/567720419180814340>]

*Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: .@HillaryClinton
<https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton> is known as "someone who can work
across the aisle," @RepMurphyFL <https://twitter.com/RepMurphyFL> writes
for @orlandosentinel <https://twitter.com/orlandosentinel>
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/opinion/os-ed-hillary-clinton-my-word-20150213-story.html
…
<http://t.co/WEeVnI4AV5> [2/17/15, 10:52 a.m. EST
<https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/567713238130102273>]

*Headlines:*

*New York Times: First Draft: “Hillary Clinton Met With Elizabeth Warren in
December”
<http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/02/17/hillary-clinton-met-with-elizabeth-warren-in-december/?smid=nytpolitics&_r=1>*

“Hillary Rodham Clinton held a private, one-on-one meeting with Senator
Elizabeth Warren in December at Mrs. Clinton’s Washington home, a move by
the Democrats’ leading contender in 2016 to cultivate the increasingly
influential senator and leader of the party’s economic populist movement.”

*Politico: “Hillary Clinton trounces Chris Christie in New Jersey poll”
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/poll-chris-christie-hillary-clinton-115246.html>*

“The poll, conducted by Rutgers University’s Eagleton Institute of
Politics, shows Clinton garnering 58 percent of the vote in such a contest,
compared to 35 percent for Christie.”

*New York Times blog: The Upshot: “Hillary Clinton and the 2016 Democrats:
Mostly Liberal, Together”
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/18/upshot/hillary-clinton-and-the-2016-democrats-mostly-liberal-together.html?_r=0&abt=0002&abg=1>*

“The field of potential Democratic presidential candidates is ideologically
cohesive. While there is room to the left of Mrs. Clinton’s Crowdpac score
of -6.4, there is not a lot.”

*Time: “The Risk of Rand Paul’s Trolling Strategy”
<http://time.com/3711939/rand-paul-trolling-twitter/>*

“In recent months, the Kentucky Republican has used social media to post
snarky, provocative comments aimed at his likely opponents in the 2016
Republican presidential primary as well as Democratic frontrunner Hillary
Clinton.”

*National Law Journal: “Hillary Clinton Cleared of Campaign Finance
Allegations”
<http://www.nationallawjournal.com/legaltimes/home/id=1202718068845/Hillary-Clinton-Cleared-of-Campaign-Finance-Allegations-?mcode=1202617074964&curindex=3&back=NLJ&slreturn=20150117130534>*

“The FEC said in a Feb. 12 letter that the commission ‘found that there is
no reason to believe’ that Clinton violated campaign finance laws by not
registering as a presidential candidate to date or that the Ready for
Hillary political action committee violated laws by failing to register as
an authorized committee.”

*Vox: “Hillary Clinton's uncontested nomination is dangerous for her and
her party” <http://www.vox.com/2015/2/17/8047957/hillary-clinton-opponents>*

“The most proximate way in which Clinton's lack of opposition hurts her is
in allowing her to maintain her current state of un-candidacy. This means
she continues to give high-dollar buckraking speeches with no clear
end-date on the calendar.”

*Articles:*

*New York Times: First Draft: “Hillary Clinton Met With Elizabeth Warren in
December”
<http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/02/17/hillary-clinton-met-with-elizabeth-warren-in-december/?smid=nytpolitics&_r=1>*

By Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Martin

February 17, 2015, 10:30 a.m. EST

Hillary Rodham Clinton held a private, one-on-one meeting with Senator
Elizabeth Warren in December at Mrs. Clinton’s Washington home, a move by
the Democrats’ leading contender in 2016 to cultivate the increasingly
influential senator and leader of the party’s economic populist movement.

The two met at Whitehaven, the Clintons’ Northwest Washington home, without
aides and at Mrs. Clinton’s invitation.

Mrs. Clinton solicited policy ideas and suggestions from Ms. Warren,
according to a Democrat briefed on the meeting, who called it “cordial and
productive.” The former secretary of state, who has been seeking advice
from a range of scholars, advocates and officials, did not ask for Mrs.
Warren to consider endorsing her likely presidential candidacy.

The conversation occurred at a moment when Ms. Warren’s clout has become
increasingly evident. Since last November’s election, Senator Harry Reid,
the Democratic leader, appointed the Massachusetts freshman to a leadership
role in the Senate; Ms Warren led a high-profile effort to strip a spending
bill of rules sought by large banks; and a patchwork of liberal groups
began movement to draft her into the presidential race.

Ms. Warren has repeatedly said she is not running for president, and she
has taken no steps that would indicate otherwise. Still, she is intent on
pushing a robust populist agenda, and her confidantes have suggested that
she would use her Senate perch during the 2016 campaign to nudge Mrs.
Clinton to embrace her major causes: addressing income inequality and
curtailing the power of large financial institutions.

The get-together represented a step toward relationship-building for two
women who do not know each other well. And for Mrs. Clinton, it was a
signal that she would prefer Ms. Warren’s counsel delivered in person, as a
friendly insider, rather than on national television or in opinion
articles. And for Ms. Warren, the meeting offered the opportunity to make
clear what she believes are the most pressing national issues.

That Mrs. Clinton — who is currently developing her economic platform —
reached out to Ms. Warren suggests the former first lady is aware of how
much the debate over economic issues has shifted even during the relatively
short time she was away from domestic politics while serving as the
country’s chief diplomat.

Mrs. Clinton was often criticized by the right as a doctrinaire liberal
during her husband’s presidency and, as a presidential candidate,
ultimately ran as more of an economic populist than Mr. Obama. But she is
now seen by some on the left as insufficiently tough on Wall Street. That
perception, denounced by allies as an unfair criticism, has stuck in part
because of her husband’s policies, and because of the lucrative speaking
fees she has collected from financial firms and private equity groups since
she left the State Department in early 2013.

The meeting in December fell two months after a more awkward encounter:
Mrs. Clinton and Ms. Warren crossed paths at a Massachusetts rally for the
Democratic nominee for governor there last year, Martha Coakley. At that
event, Mrs. Clinton repeatedly described Ms. Warren as a champion against
special interests and big banks; Ms. Warren, in turn, barely acknowledged
Mrs. Clinton, who was the featured guest, in her remarks.

Both Mrs. Clinton and her husband appear anxious to keep a close eye on the
former Harvard law professor; the former president in the past has appeared
sensitive about Ms. Warren’s oblique criticism of his deregulation of
financial institutions. Beyond policy differences, the Clintons are eager
to demonstrate that they, like Ms. Warren, appreciate the economic
difficulties many Americans are facing.

The December meeting recalled another private session between Mrs. Clinton
and a Democratic upstart: In 2005, shortly after he was sworn into the
Senate, Barack Obama paid a visit to Mrs. Clinton in her Senate office. In
that instance, though, it was Mr. Obama who was seeking counsel.

*Politico: “Hillary Clinton trounces Chris Christie in New Jersey poll”
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/poll-chris-christie-hillary-clinton-115246.html>*

By Adam B. Lerner

February 17, 2015, 9:35 a.m. EST

Chris Christie may be the Garden State’s blunt-talking favorite son, but if
a presidential contest were held today in New Jersey between the governor
and Democrat Hillary Clinton, she would trounce him, a new poll finds.

The poll, conducted by Rutgers University’s Eagleton Institute of Politics,
shows Clinton garnering 58 percent of the vote in such a contest, compared
to 35 percent for Christie.

Perhaps most surprising is the finding that only 8 percent of Democratic
voters in the Garden State would support their Republican governor in a
presidential contest. In his 2013 reelection campaign against Democrat
Barbara Buono, Christie managed 32 percent of Democratic votes, according
to exit polls compiled by The New York Times.

Clinton also holds commanding leads in the Garden State when pitted against
former Florida Republican Gov. Jeb Bush — 58 percent to Bush’s 32 percent —
or Wisconsin’s Republican Gov. Scott Walker — whom she bests 60 percent to
29 percent in a hypothetical matchup.

The poll also asked New Jersey voters whether or not the current Democratic
front-runner has the “right look,” “right demeanor” and “right experience”
to occupy the Oval Office. Voters overwhelmingly decided that these three
labels do apply to Clinton: Forty-seven percent more voters said she has
the “right look” than not, 50 percent more voters agreed she has the “right
demeanor” and 68 percent more voters said that she has the “right
experience” to be elected president.

The poll, released Tuesday, was conducted among 694 registered New Jersey
voters using live callers between Feb. 3 and Feb. 10. The samples were
weighted to reflect New Jersey’s demographics, with an adjusted margin of
error of plus-or-minus 4.1 percentage points.

*New York Times blog: The Upshot: “Hillary Clinton and the 2016 Democrats:
Mostly Liberal, Together”
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/18/upshot/hillary-clinton-and-the-2016-democrats-mostly-liberal-together.html?_r=0&abt=0002&abg=1>*

By Derek Willis

February 17, 2015

Among seven potential Democratic presidential contenders, Hillary Clinton
is the overwhelming favorite — and the third-most liberal candidate. How
the other candidates are arrayed on an ideological spectrum could make her
run for the White House easier than the last time out.

In some ways, the cast of candidates for 2016 resembles the group from the
2008 race, with a field ofstalwartly liberal politicians. Mrs. Clinton was
slightly more liberal in 2008 than now, according to Crowdpac, which scores
politicians on a left-right scale of -10 to 10. (Crowdpac bases this mainly
on campaign contributions, but also on votes and speeches.) Her problem was
that Barack Obama, who was further to the left of her — at -7.8 to her -6.9
— also had the donors who were to the left of her. He ran a better
campaign, particularly in Iowa, and benefited from a surge in money from
small-dollar donors.

This time, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts (-8.2) and Bernie
Sanders (-8.3), Vermont’s independent senator, are to her left. Ms. Warren
has the higher fund-raising profile of the two, with a leadership PAC that
raised more than $2 million during the 2014 election cycle. But she and
Mrs. Clinton (and to a lesser extent Mr. Sanders) would be competing for a
similar pool of donors. During her 2012 Senate race, Ms. Warren raised more
than $3.4 million from individuals who also gave to Mrs. Clinton's
presidential campaign, Federal Election Commission data shows.

The field of potential Democratic presidential candidates is ideologically
cohesive. While there is room to the left of Mrs. Clinton’s Crowdpac score
of -6.4, there is not a lot.

The lack of distance between the Democratic hopefuls suggests that creating
a wedge between someone like Ms. Warren and Mrs. Clinton would be harder
among Democratic donors, and perhaps among the broader primary electorate.

There are few issues where the gap between those two is significant. Gun
control policy and immigration are possible points of contention, according
to Crowdpac, which also generates scores for issues. On both issues, Ms.
Warren is scored as much more liberal than Mrs. Clinton.

The situation is different for Republicans, with considerable space
available to the right of Jeb Bush (4.2) — and a lot of candidates to vie
for it.

There is more room to the right of Mrs. Clinton. Most of the other
potential candidates fit there, including Vice President Joe Biden, who has
a -4.4 score, and Jim Webb, the former Virginia senator, who is at -5.3.
Those two resemble the more centrist Democratic candidates that won the
nomination in previous elections. Al Gore, for instance, had a Crowdpac
score of -5.1 in 2000. Bill Clinton rated a -4.45 in 1996.

Mr. Obama is the most liberal Democrat elected to the presidency in the
period Crowdpac has analyzed, which began in 1980.

Mr. Obama was able to broaden his pool of donors beyond what earlier
Democratic primary candidates managed. Donors likely to support Democratic
candidates will include moderates and some conservatives, but as the party
has shifted left, its donors have gone with it. Mrs. Clinton benefits from
that shift even as she stands quite a distance from her husband on the
ideological spectrum.

*Time: “The Risk of Rand Paul’s Trolling Strategy”
<http://time.com/3711939/rand-paul-trolling-twitter/>*

By Tessa Berenson

February 17, 2015, 12:42 p.m. EST

[Subtitle:] What happens when you troll in real life?

Trolling has always been a part of presidential politics, but few
candidates have taken to it quite as aggressively as Sen. Rand Paul.

In recent months, the Kentucky Republican has used social media to post
snarky, provocative comments aimed at his likely opponents in the 2016
Republican presidential primary as well as Democratic frontrunner Hillary
Clinton.

In December, he took to Twitter to repeatedly criticize Florida Sen. Marco
Rubio’s opposition to opening relations with Cuba in what many observers
argued was straight-up trolling. In January, he posted a jokey “secret
tape” of Clinton and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush talking about the White
House on SoundCloud. And on Valentine’s Day, he posted a mock Pinterest
page for Clinton that showed her ideas to remodel the White House
(including a heart-shaped hot tub and a girly Oval Office).

In many ways, Paul’s trolling is the obvious next step in presidential
politics. President Obama has already adopted a lighter tone online,
starring in BuzzFeed videos, submitting to YouTube stars’ goofy questions
and capitalizing on memes, while Speaker John Boehner has gone ahead and
used Taylor Swift GIFs to troll the White House’s plan to make community
college free, among other things. It was only a matter of time before a
presidential candidate started speaking in the Internet’s native language
of snark.

Vincent Harris, Paul’s chief digital strategist behind the trolling, told
Yahoo! News that the edgy tone is necessary to cut through the clutter:

“The strategy and the number one problem that people have in politics is
just getting their information across to somebody — how do you reach
somebody at all,” he said. “News and information has to be entertaining,
it’s got to be interesting and it’s got to be different than how everyone
else is communicating.”

Already, some Beltway insiders have pushed back against Paul’s strategy.

“I don’t think you want to be troller-in-chief,” an unnamed Republican
digital strategist told Politico. “This might be how they think they
separate from the pack, reach out to younger people. … I just think it’s
pretty close to trolling, which we think is weird for a regular person,
much less someone who wants to be leader of the free world.”

But the real test will come when the rest of the public takes notice. For
now, Paul’s trolling is being read by young people who spend all day on the
Internet, jaded political professionals and the fairly troll-ish Beltway
press corps, so there isn’t a real downside to it. But as the general
public starts to tune in over the coming months, there’s a risk that a
snarky tweet meant to get attention will succeed in breaking out of the
Internet and into the regular offline world.

Only then will we know whether voters are ready for a troller-in-chief.

*National Law Journal: “Hillary Clinton Cleared of Campaign Finance
Allegations”
<http://www.nationallawjournal.com/legaltimes/home/id=1202718068845/Hillary-Clinton-Cleared-of-Campaign-Finance-Allegations-?mcode=1202617074964&curindex=3&back=NLJ&slreturn=20150117130534>*

By Zoe Tillman

February 17, 2015, 12:06 p.m. EST

The Federal Election Commission has cleared Hillary Clinton and supporters
of her would-be presidential run of allegations of campaign finance
violations.

The FEC said in a Feb. 12 letter that the commission “found that there is
no reason to believe” that Clinton violated campaign finance laws by not
registering as a presidential candidate to date or that the Ready for
Hillary political action committee violated laws by failing to register as
an authorized committee.

The commission sent the letter to Stop Hillary, a political action
committee that filed a complaint with the FEC against Clinton and her
supporters more than a year ago. The group sued the agency in Washington
federal district court in December, accusing officials of delaying action
on its allegations. On Tuesday, Stop Hillary notified the court that it was
dropping the case now that the FEC had acted.

An attorney for Stop Hillary, Dan Backer of DB Capitol Strategies in
Alexandria, Va., told the NLJ on Tuesday that the group would consider
whether to go back to court to challenge the FEC’s decision once they
reviewed documents from the agency proceedings. Assistant General Counsel
William Powers of the FEC said in the Feb. 12 letter that documents related
to the case would become part of the public record within 30 days.

“For now we don’t know and we don’t want to waste the court’s time or the
FEC’s time,” Backer said. “We can’t know until we review the respondent’s
communications to the FEC.”

A spokeswoman for the FEC declined to comment. A representative of Ready
for Hillary was not immediately reached for comment.

Stop Hillary claimed in its FEC complaint that Ready for Hillary used an
email list belonging to the authorized campaign committee for Clinton’s
previous U.S. Senate run, called Friends of Hillary.

“This email was sent or ‘deployed’ by Hillary Clinton or a vendor employed
by the authorized committee to do so,” Stop Hillary wrote in the December
lawsuit. “Such a deployment would, as is industry standard practice,
require approval by the list owner, in this case Hillary Clinton, of the
specific content being deployed.”

Stop Hillary claimed that Clinton authorized Ready for Hillary to act on
her behalf, and that meant Clinton was a presidential candidate who needed
to register as such with the FEC. Stop Hillary also said that Ready for
Hillary should have registered as an authorized committee and been subject
to certain campaign finance regulations.

The commission found that the facts presented by Stop Hillary about the
email list “do not suggest that Clinton became a candidate” under federal
election law, according to a legal analysis included with Powers’ letter.
Ready for Hillary told the FEC that it paid Friends of Hillary $136,841 to
use the email list and that Friends of Hillary was not involved in the
email that Ready for Hillary sent out.

Even if Clinton had authorized Ready for Hillary to act on her behalf, the
commission said, “she would not become a candidate as a result of those
activities so long as they were related only to testing the waters. And the
available record here reflects that Clinton and Ready for Hillary PAC have
confined their activities solely to evaluating a potential candidacy.”

Powers wrote in the FEC's letter that “there were an insufficient number of
votes” to find that Ready for Hillary violated campaign finance laws by
failing to report the money it spent on its rental of the email list from
Friends for Hillary.

*Vox: “Hillary Clinton's uncontested nomination is dangerous for her and
her party” <http://www.vox.com/2015/2/17/8047957/hillary-clinton-opponents>*

By Matthew Yglesias

February 17, 2015, 8:30 a.m. EST

Hillary Clinton is essentially running unopposed for the Democratic Party
nomination in 2016. Yes, Bernie Sanders is in the race. But he has so
little support that his natural core constituency is pouring all its time
and energy into trying to nudge Elizabeth Warren into the race. But she's
not running.

It's a problem. A problem for the Democratic Party, a problem for the
United States of America, and ultimately a problem for Hillary Clinton
herself.

Not because there's anything wrong with Clinton as a nominee per se. But
because there's a lot wrong with a non-existent primary campaign and an
untested candidate. Everyone — in many ways including Clinton herself —
would be better off if a serious candidate such as Warren, Joe Biden, or
someone else managed to enter the race with enough backing and plausibility
to force Clinton into a real campaign. That would mean real debates, real
media strategy, real policy rollouts, and all the other accompaniments of a
presidential nominating congress.

Anything less leaves her dangerously unprepared as she heads into the
ultimate contest with a Republican who will have emerged battle-tested from
an unusually deep field of plausible contenders.

*The un-candidate*

The most proximate way in which Clinton's lack of opposition hurts her is
in allowing her to maintain her current state of un-candidacy. This means
she continues to give high-dollar buckraking speeches with no clear
end-date on the calendar. For Clinton personally, this is a balancing act.
On the one hand, buckraking has some downsides in terms of public
perception. On the other hand, she gets money. For the broader Democratic
Party, though, it's all downside. An actual primary campaign would shift
Clinton's balance of considerations — focusing the mind on doing what has
to be done to win the presidency.

But the bigger problem is simply that running for president is hard.

A vigorous primary campaign is a means through which, among other things,
the key potential vulnerabilities in a candidate's biography get aired. Was
Clinton lying about her opposition to gay marriage the way David Axelrod
says Obama was? Have too many years at the pinnacle of American politics
left her out of touch with middle class struggles? Can she distance herself
from Obama administration foreign policy initiatives that didn't work out
(settlement freeze? Russia reset?) without sounding disloyal or
ineffectual? Can she answer questions about the complicated finances
underlying her husband's foundation?

As long as she's "not running" we just don't know. And the closer she gets
to obtaining the nomination without answering the questions, the more
vulnerable the position she leaves herself in for the general election.

*Unprecedented dominance*

Clinton's problem isn't that these are devastating weaknesses. It's simply
that like all candidates she has some weaknesses. And normally one function
of the primary campaign is to give everyone an opportunity to make sure
that the eventual nominee is someone who is able to parry these questions
in a reasonable way. In 2012 both Rick Perry and Tim Pawlenty looked like
strong candidates on paper, but their inability to deliver competent debate
performances gave party leaders a chance to ditch them rather than deal
with an embarrassing meltdown in the middle of a general election campaign.

But Clinton's odds of securing the Democratic nomination are so
overwhelming that it seems doubtful she'll be tested in any but the most
cursory of ways.

She's not by any means the first overwhelming favorite to win a nomination.
But even presidential primary juggernauts like Al Gore and George W. Bush
in 2000 faced more-than-token opposition from Bill Bradley and John McCain.
The underdogs in both cases had at least some endorsements from elected
officials and couldn't be simply ignored. Bradley's challenge, in
particular, proved rather easy to brush back. But Gore still had to show
up, campaign in key states, mobilize volunteers, and debate the issues. The
likes of Jim Webb and Bernie Sanders aren't even remotely in that class.

To be clear, I like Sanders, but the fact that his natural constituency is
spending all their time on a doomed effort to get Elizabeth Warren into the
race tells you what you need to know. Webb's idea of running on an agenda
of making Democrats friendly to white men is, merits aside, a
mathematically impossible way of securing the Democratic nomination even if
he had endorsements or money (which he doesn't).

This isn't opposition Clinton needs to deal with in any way — not with
debates, policy initiatives, or anything else. She'll just ignore them, hit
the GOP field, and coast to the nomination without the party ever getting a
real chance to kick the tires.

*A thin electoral resume*

Given the extraordinarily long period of time during which Clinton has been
in the public eye, this may not seem so bad. But despite being perhaps the
single most-covered person in politics over the past quarter century, her
record as an actual candidate for office is a bit thin. She ran about five
points behind Al Gore in New York in 2000, vanquished nominal opposition in
the Democratic landslide year of 2006, and then botched a 2008 primary
campaign in which she held formidable advantages.

There is much more to political than electioneering, and Clinton's
considerable political skills shouldn't be discounted.

Her ability to secure the Senate nomination in a state where she'd never
lived, her 2008 reconstitution of her husband's political operation, and
her dominating position in 2016 are all testament to those skills. But in
terms of dealing with the media, speaking extemporaneously, and wooing the
voters she's had at best a mixed record of success. When she popped her
head up for a quasi-campaign book tour, she immediately fumbled and
interview claiming to have been "dead broke" when she left office. At the
end of the day, presidential campaign gaffes rarely seem to matter much.
But they surely don't help. And one reason they don't matter is that nobody
makes it through the nominating process without showing they can take the
heat.

In 2016, Clinton isn't going to have to show that. And it might cost her —
and her party — dearly down the road.