Subject: Correct The Record Friday February 20, 2015 Morning Roundup
From: Burns Strider <[email-masked]>
To: CTRFriendsFamily <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2015 09:25:33 -0500
List-Id: <CTRFriendsFamily.americanbridge.org>

*​**Correct The Record Friday February 20, 2015 Morning Roundup:*

*Headlines:*

*Bloomberg: “Hillary Clinton to Headline United Nations Women's Conference”
<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-02-19/hillary-clinton-to-headline-united-nations-women-s-conference>*

“Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will address a major United
Nations gathering on women’s rights next month, just as the Clinton
Foundation releases a major report on women and girls more than a year in
the making.”

*The Atlantic: “Boomer Grannies: Soccer Moms 2.0”
<http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/02/boomer-grannies-the-new-soccer-moms/385662/>*

“What Clinton’s tweet actually showed was the power of grandmothers as an
American voting bloc—a fact that might not come as a surprise to anyone
who’s taken an Intro to Government class.”

*Bloomberg: “Missouri's Senate Race, and the (Possible) Return of the
Clinton Coattails”
<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-02-19/missouri-s-senate-race-and-the-possible-return-of-the-clinton-coattails>*

“What could make Kander seek higher office in a state that rejected the
Obama-Biden ticket by 9.5 points in 2012? This is easy: the next Democratic
ticket is likely to be led by Hillary Clinton.”

*New York Times blog: The Upshot: “Hillary Clinton and Inevitability: This
Time Is Different”
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/upshot/hillary-clinton-and-inevitability-this-time-is-different.html?abt=0002&abg=0>*

“If a candidate has ever been inevitable — for the nomination — it is Mrs.
Clinton today.”

*Washington Post blog: Erik Wemple: “Hillary Clinton aide Philippe Reines
praises on-the-record communications”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2015/02/19/clinton-aide-philippe-reines-praises-on-the-record-communications/>*

“Below is Reines unabridged, the way he should be. In #1, he answers the
question about alleged inaccuracies in the media about Clintonworld; in #2,
he riffs about his historical relationship with sourcing bases.”

*Washington Post blog: The Fix: “The GOP’s dilemma with Hillary Clinton:
What to attack?”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/02/19/the-gops-dilemma-with-hillary-clinton-what-to-attack/>*

“Their goal is do to something Republicans have never done before: Defeat
the Clintons, once and for all. But that massive opposition file also begs
a question Republicans in all these years haven't been able to answer:
Which Hillary to run against?”

*Boston Herald: “Elizabeth Warren keeps silence on Hill: ‘Way too early’”
<http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2015/02/elizabeth_warren_keeps_silence_on_hill_way_too_early>*

“‘She hasn’t declared!’ Warren said after a series of events in western
Massachusetts. Pressed if she’d support Clinton if and when she does launch
a White House campaign, Warren continued playing hard to get.”

*Fox News: “Clinton-tied firm accused of illegal 'scheme' to boost Dem
groups, candidates”
<http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/02/20/complaint-democrats-skirting-fec-laws-with-private-company/>*

“The charges were detailed in a new complaint filed by the Foundation for
Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT), a conservative watchdog group, on
Wednesday. They implicate Catalist, LLC., a for-profit company that has
provided customized voter data to hundreds of labor unions, Democratic
committees and candidates -- including the Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama
campaigns in 2008.”

*Politico: “DNC members unfazed by Hillary Clinton stories”
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/hillary-clinton-dnc-2016-115342.html>*

[Subtitle:] “Negative headlines for Hillary Clinton have come fast and
furious, but most Democrats are unconcerned.”

*Wall Street Journal: “Hillary Clinton’s Complex Corporate Ties”
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/hillary-clintons-complex-corporate-ties-1424403002>*

"Mrs. Clinton’s spokesman, Nick Merrill, says: 'She did the job that every
secretary of state is supposed to do and what the American people expect of
them—especially during difficult economic times. She proudly and loudly
advocated on behalf of American business and took every opportunity she
could to promote U.S. commercial interests abroad.'"

*New York Times editorial: “Separate Philanthropy From Political Clout”
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/20/opinion/hillary-clinton-should-ban-foreign-donors-to-the-clinton-global-initiative.html>*

[Subtitle:] “Hillary Clinton Should Ban Foreign Donors to the Clinton
Global Initiative”

*Wall Street Journal opinion: Kimberly Strassel, member of the WSJ
editorial board: “The Clinton Foundation Super PAC”
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/kim-strassel-the-clinton-foundation-super-pac-1424391547>*

[Subtitle:] “It’s past time to drop the fiction that the Clinton Foundation
is a charity.”

*Articles:*

*Bloomberg: “Hillary Clinton to Headline United Nations Women's Conference”
<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-02-19/hillary-clinton-to-headline-united-nations-women-s-conference>*

By Jennifer Epstein

February 19, 2015, 4:41 p.m. EST

[Subtitle:] A month of women-centric events begins next week.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will address a major United
Nations gathering on women’s rights next month, just as the Clinton
Foundation releases a major report on women and girls more than a year in
the making.

Clinton is scheduled to be the keynote speaker on March 10 at the Women’s
Empowerment Principles gathering in New York. The gathering will mark the
20th anniversary of the Beijing Platform for Action, which came out of a
major UN conference on women’s issues.

Clinton “will reflect on progress made in implementing the agenda set in
Beijing two decades ago” and share findings from the foundation's "No
Ceilings: The Full Participation Report," WEP said. She will also “outline
an agenda to accelerate the full participation of women and girls around
the world.”

The report’s release, set for March 9, and the speech will come in the
midst of a month of women-centric events for Clinton. On Tuesday, she's
headed to the Lead On Watermark Silicon Valley Conference for Women, where
she will be interviewed by technology journalist Kara Swisher. On March 3,
she will be honored at EMILY’s List’s 30th anniversary gala and given the
We Are EMILY Award, which is given to “extraordinary women who have made a
significant impact on our nation through their consistent leadership and
inspiration” to the group.

Clinton is also set to keynote the March 23 awards ceremony for the Toner
Prize for Excellence in Political Reporting, given in memory of the late
New York Times political reporter Robin Toner.

Neither the Clinton Foundation, which has hosted the "No Ceilings" project,
nor Clinton's spokesman responded to requests for comment.

*The Atlantic: “Boomer Grannies: Soccer Moms 2.0”
<http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/02/boomer-grannies-the-new-soccer-moms/385662/>*

By Tanya Basu

February 19, 2015, 3:13 p.m. EST

[Subtitle:] They were instrumental in determining elections during the
90s—and will play a key role in 2016.

Hillary Clinton simply meant to respond to anti-vaxers when she wrote the
following tweet.

*Sec. Hillary Rodham Clinton* @HillaryClinton: The science is clear: The
earth is round, the sky is blue, and #vaccineswork
<https://twitter.com/hashtag/vaccineswork?src=hash>. Let's protect all our
kids. #GrandmothersKnowBest
<https://twitter.com/hashtag/GrandmothersKnowBest?src=hash> [2/2/15, 10:45
p.m. EST <https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/562456798020386816>]

The reaction was instantaneous. #GrandmothersKnowBest became a trending
hashtag, drawing cheers and sneers, leaving pundits to wonder if it was
indicative of a larger strategy in the much-rumored Clinton campaign to
distract from her age as a potential flaw and, instead, deploy it as a
strength.

What Clinton’s tweet actually showed was the power of grandmothers as an
American voting bloc—a fact that might not come as a surprise to anyone
who’s taken an Intro to Government class. After all, the senior-citizen
segment of the population reliably goes to the polls come rain or shine,
and is heavily invested in the outcome of elections.

But unlike Hillary, the average first-time grandmother isn’t yet a senior
citizen. Clinton, at 67, is far older than most first-time grandmothers in
the United States, whose average age hovers around 50. These grandmothers
aren’t driven by Social Security, Medicare, or other issues of concern to
voters over the age of 65.

Say hello to the Boomer Grannies.

These grandmothers are, as the name suggests, baby boomers, part of a
generation that was born between mid-1946 and mid-1964. The oldest boomers
turn 70 next year, but the majority of boomers aren’t going to be eligible
for retirement benefits until closer to 2030. Within this population of
middle-aged boomers, women outnumber men.

Boomer Grannies transformed gender norms—by being the first in their
families to get bachelor’s degrees, earning the majority of college degrees
in their generation; working outside the home; raising children, often
singlehandedly; and revolutionizing the concepts of modern motherhood and
feminism.

This generation of grandmas is more hip than the crocheting, bingo-playing,
anti-technology stereotype would suggest. They’re too young—and perhaps,
too cynical—to rely on classic social-welfare programs that drive the older
vote, but they are nevertheless invested in issues affecting their children
and grandchildren.

It makes a certain amount of sense that the soccer moms of yore are making
a reappearance as a key voting bloc. Boomer Grannies are more world-weary
than gracious, more educated than docile; their concern for posterity
extends beyond the traditional “maternal” interests of education and
healthcare. Today, these grandmas are just as interested in the
implications of foreign-conflict intervention and tax reform as they are in
paid leave and anti-poverty initiatives.

Clinton’s status as a frontrunner in the potential Democratic Presidential
field has excited this very demographic, to her advantage. After all, these
aging soccer moms are comfortable with a Clinton in the White House. Boomer
Grannies greet the former Secretary of State like a rockstar, and often
convey that somehow, Clinton “gets” them.

Part of this cohort’s grandmotherly concern for posterity may have to do
with its shared experience of parenthood itself, says Laurel Elder, a
professor of political science at Hartwick College who, along with Steven
Greene at North Carolina State University, has published the only study of
how being a mom affects choices at the ballot box.

“We’ve found very consistent motherhood effects,” she told me. “Even when
you’re controlling for other variables, motherhood predicts more liberal
attitudes. Being a mom makes you more supportive on government spending on
education and daycare and on a whole range of social-welfare issues:
spending on the elderly, spending on the poor, overall government services.”

But do these effects continue when the kids those moms raised leave the
house? That’s a complicated and under-explored question. Elder said that
“even mothers of grown children are more liberal.” Members of this younger
generation of grandmothers are still concerned about posterity, but are
also committed to advancing their own interests, prioritizing women’s
workplace issues like equal pay and paid leave.

In general, parents skew conservative on both social and fiscal issues as
they age. But this generation of grandparents has experienced a crushing
recession that has affected both them and their children, and might retain
its liberal tilt longer. That would impact the presidential race.

Surprisingly little attention has been devoted to the political power of
Boomer Grannies, and perhaps it’s because they are often clumped together
with senior citizens. But the age structure of this country is changing
rapidly—the average age of first-time mothers has crept up to about 27.
While women of all ages may provide a huge advantage to Clinton, should she
run for the White House, it's the women sharing Clinton's grandma
experience that offer significant, tantalizing voting power.

Complicating the story of Boomer Grannies is the aftermath of the
recession. Many grown children are returning home and relying on these
grandmothers for financial and emotional support as they navigate a changed
working world. One in 10 American children is living with a grandparent,
with a third of those kids counting their grandparents as their primary
caretakers. Poverty is often an issue in households headed by grandmas.
Young adults living at home for longer are changing not only family
dynamics and household finances, but also the standard model of the nuclear
family.

To be sure, having a grown child doesn’t necessarily mean that a
middle-aged mother is a grandparent. But the liberal tilt of the soccer mom
generation that put Bill Clinton into the White House during the 90s brings
up a pertinent question for Republicans: Does the GOP have any prospect of
capturing this slice of America?

National Journal’s Next America series found that the traditional
Republican strongholds of Nevada, Colorado, and New Mexico are weakening.
Romney gave up on New Mexico in 2012, despite the state having a Republican
governor. Analysts point to the increasing Hispanic populations in this
trio of Southwestern states, contending for power with older, white voters.
Hispanic voters are increasingly vocal in politics, and tend to disagree
with older voters when it comes to immigration policy, welfare programs,
and economics—a phenomenon that has become known as the “brown vs. gray.”

Increasing diversity, however, may not help the Democrats as much as they
hope: A report from the Census Bureau notes that “The race and ethnic
composition of the baby boom population reflects the composition of the
U.S. population during the mid-twentieth century—the years when these
cohorts were born.” American baby boomers are overwhelmingly white, with 72
percent of the population identifying as non-Hispanic White. With baby
boomers becoming a more female dominated group as the years pass by, that
means the exact type of voter that will become crucial come 2016 is a
white, educated, working, middle-aged woman.

That doesn’t mean candidates should simply forget about black, Asian, and
Hispanic middle-aged women—doing so would be a strategic error. But the
more diverse young voters in these states are less likely to turn out for
elections, making it possible that older white voters may still secure
these states for Republicans come 2016.

Boomer Grannies, on the cusp of becoming senior citizens, are confronting a
fragile future with a hazy forecast on Social Security: President Barack
Obama’s administration has taken the stance of many Democrats in shifting
Social Security’s trust funds to avoid slashes in disability payments, but
Republicans have characterized this as “kicking the can down the road,”
urging Democrats to consider a more immediate solution for baby boomers now
verging on retirement.

The recession has significantly altered the working lives of Boomer
Grannies, who have often turned out to be the sole breadwinners for their
families as they struggle to pay bills. Obama’s State of the Union speech
devoted a significant amount of time to the plight of the American working
woman, but the method of doing so by raising taxes irked Republicans, who
saw this as an unnecessary step and potentially harmful to the country’s
cautious economic improvement.

These rifts in policy are promising for a party that has struggled to
capture the votes of older women. Republicans saw a glimmer of hope in the
last presidential election, when Obama did shockingly poorly among
college-educated white women, a surprising fact given that both
college-educated voters and women tend to favor Democrats.

Early polls from a set of Quinnipiac surveys indicate that Clinton enjoys
overwhelming support among college-educated white women. But she cannot
take much comfort in that lead. “In 2012, Obama lost ground with them,
falling back to 46 percent nationally, the weakest performance for any
Democratic nominee since Michael Dukakis in 1988,” wrote Ronald Brownstein
in National Journal.

Even the subset of Boomer Grannies who identify as Democrats may split.
Senator Elizabeth Warren, who most recently denied any interest in running
for President, maintains strong support among this very demographic.
Warren’s experiences as a baby-boomer mother who has fought financial
institutions and Congress in the name of working women means she will have
strong support among Boomer Grannies, no matter how many times she says
she's not running. And to Warren’s advantage? She’s a grandma, too.

So did Hillary Clinton simply stumble on a demographic that she is uniquely
poised to attract? Or does she have a team of strategic consultants who
have taken her time on the campaign trail in 2008 to heart and combined
with the big data-targeted, get-out-the-vote aggression of Barack Obama?
It’s probably a mix of both.

If the Boomer Granny postulate proves anything, it’s this: Whoever runs for
president from either party will need to reach out not just to middle
America and undecided voters, but also to the middle-aged women formerly
known as soccer moms.

*Bloomberg: “Missouri's Senate Race, and the (Possible) Return of the
Clinton Coattails”
<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-02-19/missouri-s-senate-race-and-the-possible-return-of-the-clinton-coattails>*

By David Weigel

February 19, 2015, 2:30 p.m. EST

[Subtitle:] Why Democrats scored a Senate candidate in a red state.

Jason Kander, Missouri's 33-year old secretary of state, has given
Democrats that rarest of post-2014 feelings: Enthusiasm about a red state
race. He's running for U.S. Senate against first-term Senator Roy Blunt, a
Republican who left a safe House seat to win office in the 2010 Tea Party
wave. (He defeated the previous Democratic secretary of state, Robin
Carnahan.) "Barely halfway through his first term as secretary of state and
Democrat Jason Kander is already bored with his job," thundered the
National Republican Senatorial Committee, which in 2012 supported Ohio's
35-year-old Josh Mandel, and in 2014 supported Arkansas's 35-year-old Tom
Cotton.

What could make Kander seek higher office in a state that rejected the
Obama-Biden ticket by 9.5 points in 2012? This is easy: the next Democratic
ticket is likely to be led by Hillary Clinton. Kander's move should be seen
as the latest burst of red state Democratic enthusiasm about the return of
the Clintons. In the large swath of red America where white voters
preferred Clinton to Obama in 2008, many Democrats see the Clinton
restoration as the removal of a heavy anchor. Bill Clinton twice won
Missouri, West Virginia, Arkansas, and Kentucky–all states lost by Obama.
Even if Hillary Clinton can't repeat that, Democrats hope her brand will
alienate fewer voters than the toxic Obama brand.

"It's much easier to convince people to run," said Kentucky Speaker of the
House Greg Stumbo, a Democrat whose colleagues held on to control in the
rough 2014 elections even as Senator Mitch McConnell was winning a
landslide re-election. "Even some of the ones that were talking about
retiring–they're kind of giddy. They were tired of getting beat up in some
of these races."

In 2008, Clinton absolutely pulverized Obama in Kentucky's late primary,
taking 66 percent of the vote even after the Illinois Democrat was clearly
about to secure the nomination. Obama actually defeated Clinton in Missouri
(helped by the early and aggressive support of Senator Claire McCaskill),
but he did so by taking only six of the state's 114 counties. Since then,
Missouri Democrats had two rough midterms and a 2012 saved by the black
swan gaffe-ability of the Republicans' Senate candidate, Todd Akin. Kander,
like Democratic gubernatorial candidate Chris Koster, is looking for a way
for a post-Obama Democratic Party to rebuild as much of the old Clinton
coalition as voters allow.

*New York Times blog: The Upshot: “Hillary Clinton and Inevitability: This
Time Is Different”
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/upshot/hillary-clinton-and-inevitability-this-time-is-different.html?abt=0002&abg=0>*

By Nate Cohn

February 19, 2015

Whenever I mention that Hillary Clinton is an overwhelming favorite for the
Democratic nomination — and would be even if Senator Elizabeth Warren ran —
the conversation usually comes back to 2008. “She was supposed to be
inevitable last time,” the refrain goes, “and she lost.”

I get it. I remember that Mrs. Clinton was “inevitable,” and I see why
today’s discussions of Mrs. Clinton’s strength sound familiar.

But there is no equivalence between Mrs. Clinton’s strength then and now.
She was never inevitable eight years ago. If a candidate has ever been
inevitable — for the nomination — it is Mrs. Clinton today.

She was certainly a strong candidate in 2008. But by this time in that
cycle, it was already clear that she would not cruise to the nomination.
Yes, she held an impressive 40 percent or so of the Democratic vote in
national polls, leading Senator Barack Obama by 15 points. That, however,
is not inevitability.

Candidates with a case for inevitability — the ones who started as big
favorites and won the nomination without a long fight, like Al Gore and
George W. Bush in 2000 and Bob Dole in 1996 — all held at least 50 percent
of the vote in early polls, and led their opposition by enormous margins.
The record of candidates with similar standing to Mrs. Clinton, like Gerald
Ford in 1976 or Ted Kennedy in 1980, is not at all perfect. Kennedy lost,
and Ford faced a protracted contest.

Flash-forward to 2015. No candidate, excluding incumbent presidents, has
ever fared so well in the early primary polls as Mrs. Clinton. She holds
about 60 percent of the vote of Democratic voters, a tally dwarfing the 40
percent she held this time in the last election cycle.

If anything, in the 2008 cycle the national polls overstated Mrs. Clinton’s
strength. She trailed in Iowa polls from the very start. She led in New
Hampshire and South Carolina only by single digits, making it easy to
imagine how the winner of Iowa could gain momentum and go on to defeat her
in following contests.

Her vulnerabilities were obvious. Her vote to authorize the war in Iraq was
a serious liability; so were reservations about another Clinton in the
White House. Unlike Mr. Bush, Mr. Gore or Mr. Dole, Mrs. Clinton faced two
top-tier challengers, the former vice-presidential nominee John Edwards and
Mr. Obama, a rising star thanks in part to his speech at the 2004
Democratic National Convention.

Mr. Obama had already declared his candidacy by this time in 2007. He had
surged to 25 percent in the polls. Enthusiastic crowds showed up to early
rallies in Austin, Tex., and Oakland, Calif. He matched Mrs. Clinton in
fund-raising in the first quarter, demonstrating strong support in the
so-called invisible primary — the behind-the-scenes competition for the
resources and credibility necessary to win the nomination.

She was also running against a bevy of competent, second-tier candidates
like Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, Senator Christopher Dodd of
Connecticut and the current vice president, Joe Biden, then a Delaware
senator. The decision of these candidates to run was a telling indication
that they considered Mrs. Clinton to be far more vulnerable than the
inevitability narrative suggested.

This analysis is not just based on the benefit of hindsight. The betting
markets concurred at the time, with Intrade giving Mrs. Clinton just a 49
percent chance of winning the nomination on Feb. 14, 2007. Mr. Obama had a
20 percent chance of winning the nomination, according to Intrade, or about
the same as Jeb Bush today.

Writing for the Week in Review section of The New York Times in April 2007,
Adam Nagourney argued that “any hope she had of Democrats embracing her
candidacy as inevitable has been dashed” by the strength of Mr. Obama and
Mr. Edwards, and “obvious discomfort in some Democratic quarters of putting
another Clinton in the White House.”

Eight years later, though, it’s clear that it’s still possible for a
candidate to approach inevitability, and it is Mrs. Clinton who, in a
twist, deserves the distinction.

Her nearest historical rival, Al Gore in 2000, was a sitting vice president
serving under a popular incumbent in a booming economy. Mrs. Clinton’s lead
comes despite the fact that the sitting vice president is one of the
potential candidates who is included in the polls.

She leads the person in second place in those polls, Ms. Warren, by more
than 40 points, not 15 points. Just as important, her leads in the early
states, like Iowa, South Carolina and New Hampshire, are similar in size.

Even as Mrs. Clinton enters the season in a far better position than eight
years ago, her potential opposition is weaker as well. So far, it’s
basically nonexistent: Not a single sitting senator, governor or vice
president has decided to run. Mr. Biden has made noises about running, but
he has no obvious base of support among Democratic donors or voters.

The fact that Mrs. Clinton seems poised to clear the field is the surest
evidence that 2016 is not 2008. It means that Ms. Warren is getting a very
different message from the one Mr. Obama received when Senator Harry Reid
reportedly urged him to seek the presidency. Instead, many of the first
people to endorse Mr. Obama in 2008, like Senator Claire McCaskill of
Missouri, have already endorsed Mrs. Clinton.

Even if Ms. Warren did run, it is hard to argue that she is as strong as
Mr. Obama was eight years ago. Not only is it a stretch to compare the
enthusiasm for Ms. Warren to that for Mr. Obama, but the differences
between her and Mrs. Clinton on inequality and finance are also less clear
— and probably less salient — than Mrs. Clinton’s vote to authorize the war
in Iraq. Ms. Warren won’t replicate Mr. Obama’s support among black voters,
either, and it is hard to see how she would make up for it.

Perhaps, then, the easiest way to think about Mrs. Clinton’s strength is
simply to remember just how close she came to victory in 2008. Despite her
vote to authorize the war in Iraq, despite the strength of Mr. Obama’s
candidacy, despite a four-to-one disadvantage among black voters, and
despite all the miscues of her campaign, Mrs. Clinton still won 48 percent
of pledged delegates.

Without these powerful forces working against her, she appears to be far
better positioned than she was eight years ago. If she barely lost then,
why would she lose now?

*Washington Post blog: Erik Wemple: “Hillary Clinton aide Philippe Reines
praises on-the-record communications”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2015/02/19/clinton-aide-philippe-reines-praises-on-the-record-communications/>*

By Erik Wemple

February 19, 2015, 6:58 p.m. EST

Philippe Reines is a long, longtime media aide to Hillary Clinton. He’s
known for a number of things, including some amazing sound bites: “Is it
possible to be quoted yawning?” for instance. And as noted in a Washington
Post profile, he developed an “addiction to background dish,” which is to
say he’d plant nameless quotes with material-hungry reporters, the better
to help his boss and hinder her detractors. In an October 2006 column, the
New York Times’s Maureen Dowd quoted a Clinton “adviser” as saying that
Sen. John McCain looked “similar to the way he did on those captive tapes
from Hanoi where he recited the names of his crew mates.”

It later came out that the “adviser” was Reines.

Many years later, Reines is on the record praising on-the-record
journalism. In a piece written by Emily Schultheis for the National
Journal, Reines laments that anonymous individuals claiming to possess
knowledge about Clinton’s presidential plans and ambitions are sending
incorrect information into the public realm via all-too-willing reporters.
The key passage:

“Asked how the campaign could get a handle on all the anonymous outside
chatter, Reines placed much of the blame on the media for being willing to
grant anonymity to sources who don’t know what they’re talking about.
Unless the unnamed ‘advisers’ stop talking to reporters, or reporters stop
quoting them, Reines added, there’s no way to get the issue under control.

“‘What gets lost is, there are no consequences for [the source or the
media] when they’re wrong—there just aren’t,’ he said. ‘If you were to go
back and look at the last three, four, five, six months of coverage about
Secretary Clinton, you’re going to see certain reporters who cover her
closely whose accuracy rate is less than 50-50.’”

So who are these reporters? Where are the innaccuracies? Reached on that
matter, Reines wrote the Erik Wemple Blog via e-mail: “[Y]ou don’t need me,
you only need The Google to determine what has been introduced into the
public domain that has proven to be on the money and what has been off by a
mile. Because if I do it, it gets dumbed down to ‘Hating the Media’ — as
opposed to hating bogus information.”

Challenge accepted: The Erik Wemple Blog will bang on Google tonight in
search of erroneous Clinton coverage.

Now to the question of Reines passing judgement on anonymous sourcing.
Here, Reines provides a spirited and even logical defense of his position.
There’s a difference, he argues, between anonymous quotes from people who
don’t know what they’re talking about and anonymous quotes from people who
do know what they’re talking about. “[W]hat the National Journal story was
specifically looking at was sources, identified in a manner implying they
know their a%@ from their elbow, spewing nonsense — all in between
quotation marks. That practice lends a great deal of legitimacy to the
information and sentiment presented.”

That circumstance, argues Reines, differs from past situations in which he
himself just might have issued comments on background or off-record: “And
when I spoke to you or anyone else — on any basis — I’m guessing you didn’t
question or doubt that I was in fact a duly authorized spokesman paid to
speak to the media. That’s the fundamental difference. You wanted me on the
record because it’s always better and sexier for a reporter to have a name
attached to something — especially if the name is legit. But that’s a
different animal and not what the story was addressing.”

Reines seemed quite pleased with the National Journal piece.

As for Reines’s own leanings these days, they tend toward transparency.
When asked whether he’d moved to a more consistent on-the-record platform,
Reines replied, “[Y]es, while I am no longer in daily contact with
reporters — for their well being as much as mine since from everything I
read I am an unhelpful & profane meanie — when I rarely do I try to be on
the record as much as possible. Mostly because it’s a forcing mechanism to
abide by the rule that if you don’t have anything nice to say about
someone, don’t say anything. But it’s an easy goal to adhere to when you
barely take press calls.” Schultheis declined to comment on whether Reines
went off-record in their conversations.

The glory of Reines’s comments in National Journal is seeing an operative
going on the record to criticize allies who feel close to his boss in all
likelihood because of the political acumen of his boss: That is, some of
the Clinton “allies” quoted in stories these days ID themselves as such
because the Clintons make them feel that way. Reines, again, has quite a
response:

“There are a dozen reasons to explain the problem that don’t equate to the
source or the reporter being bad actors. But in the case you’re describing
below, the implication is that they are in regular contact as a basis for
their knowledge. So why would you identify someone as an advisor or
something equivalent that implies regular and direct contact and
participation when that’s not the truth? People aren’t identified as ‘Spoke
recently to X after seeing them for the first time in a year at a book
party they both attended.’ They are identified as friends or insiders.
‘Friend’ ‘supporter’ ‘close to’ and ‘ally’ are especially silly. By
implication they are NOT an advisor or in the know, or you’d call them an
advisor! Yet their information is presented as gospel.”

Below is Reines unabridged, the way he should be. In #1, he answers the
question about alleged inaccuracies in the media about Clintonworld; in #2,
he riffs about his historical relationship with sourcing bases:

“On #1, you don’t need me, you only need The Google to determine what has
been introduced into the public domain that has proven to be on the money
and what has been off by a mile. Because if I do it, it gets dumbed down to
‘Hating the Media’ — as opposed to hating bogus information. Two very
different things. It should be ok to not be a fan of bad and misleading
information. And reporters (and their editors and publishers) should hate
inaccuracy as much as we do. But somehow hating inaccuracy has become
synonymous with hating the media.

“On #2, the story wasn’t about the general propriety or usefulness of OTR
or background conversations. It was about sources being portrayed as being
something they are not, and the resulting inaccuracy of their information.
And not the moments of being off the record since strictly speaking, if a
source wants to be completely off the record, that’s between them the
reporter and the almighty since by the book what’s said can’t used. So what
the National Journal story was specifically looking at was sources,
identified in a manner implying they know their a%@ from their elbow,
spewing nonsense — all in between quotation marks. That practice lends a
great deal of legitimacy to the information and sentiment presented. In
those cases — where a source’s standing is in question but they won’t allow
their name to be attached to their comments — it’s the reporter who is
being put at risk, not the source. And to be more cynical, I bet there are
instances where the reporter knows full well that using the name wouldn’t
exactly wow anyone or convey credibility and is more than happy sticking
with anonymity. For as long as there are no consequences to either source
or reporter, this will continue. Why there are no consequences to the
reporter is hard to understand. If a reporter had a two-a-day correction
rate, they’d probably get a talking to. But relying on bad sourcing
five-times-a-week that is immediately or quickly exposed as clearly being
bad? You’re the media expert, you tell me how often people have been
admonished as a result. To the reader, there’s zero evidence that happens.
And if it happens, doesn’t the reader deserve to know the same way they do
if a noun was misspelled? Arguably nitpicky mistakes are far less
reflective of someone’s overall credibility and more a reflection of
spellcheck

“And when I spoke to you or anyone else — on any basis — I’m guessing you
didn’t question or doubt that I was in fact a duly authorized spokesman
paid to speak to the media. That’s the fundamental difference. You wanted
me on the record because it’s always better and sexier for a reporter to
have a name attached to something — especially if the name is legit. But
that’s a different animal and not what the story was addressing. Besides,
at the end of most interactions with you, you had something on the record
from me encapsulating our larger conversation. Obviously you agree there
are times it is acceptable practice to speak on a basis other than on the
record or you wouldn’t agree to doing so what I’m guessing is five times a
day. People also need to remember that a reason for not being 100% on the
record is because the reporter is only going use 1% due to space
constraints. Which puts a lot of pressure on the speaker to make sure the
point they are trying to make gets across, rather than some errant clause
or snarky comment – which by the way reporters make too but don’t have to
read in print. It’s only human. If reporters offered to use 100% of our
comments on the record and include a transcript of the conversation — both
sides, I bet spokespeople would take that offer more often than not.
Definitely more often than you think. And I bet far more often than
reporters would want to see their half of the conversation transcribed and
in print. But that’s not the case. A conversation that is 100% on the
record means you at most see 50% of the exchange. You don’t know what
triggered the 1%, there might not be adequate context. So it’s not like a
subject being 100% on the record provides 100% context and transparency to
the reader.

“So you shouldn’t conflate your wanting to have a conversation that’s 100%
on the record with everyone you speak to with this National Journal story.
It’s authorized apples vs misleading oranges.

“And yes, while I am no longer in daily contact with reporters — for their
well being as much as mine since from everything I read I am an unhelpful &
profane meanie— when I rarely do I try to be on the record as much as
possible. Mostly because it’s a forcing mechanism to abide by the rule that
if you don’t have anything nice to say about someone, don’t say anything.
But it’s an easy goal to adhere to when you barely take press calls.

“With that I am going to conclude my Norma Rae like call to action on the
factory floor and return to quarantine.”

*Washington Post blog: The Fix: “The GOP’s dilemma with Hillary Clinton:
What to attack?”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/02/19/the-gops-dilemma-with-hillary-clinton-what-to-attack/>*

By Nia-Malika Henderson

February 19, 2015, 4:15 p.m. EST

Hillary Rodham Clinton's nearly quarter-century span on the national
political scene is an opposition researcher's dream. And the "Hillary
Haters," as Hanna Rosin calls them in her Atlantic piece, are already busy
and are more well-funded than ever.

Their goal is do to something Republicans have never done before: Defeat
the Clintons, once and for all.

But that massive opposition file also begs a question Republicans in all
these years haven't been able to answer: Which Hillary to run against?
There are so many to choose from, with gender roles and expectations
undergirding each one.

There is first lady Clinton, with a scandal always around the corner (Vince
Foster, Whitewater, Monica Lewinsky and more). How about carpet-bagging
Senator Clinton? Also, presidential candidate Clinton, the one that
"misspoke" about arriving under sniper fire in Bosnia and lost the primary?
And/or Secretary of State Clinton -- as in Benghazi, Benghazi and more
Benghazi? There's also Alinsky Clinton and Arkansas Clinton. Oh, and
scorned-but-scheming wife Clinton.

There are so many versions that it's hard to keep track. But the damning
through-line is missing -- or, at least, not yet evident. There's no Swift
Boat or "47 percent" hook just yet, despite all that material.

The most recent attempt is to make Clinton into some version of Romney --
an opportunistic plutocrat scoring huge sums of money for just standing up
and saying words to the ultimate benefit of the morass that is the Clinton
Foundation and her own political career.

But even that has problems.

Rosin writes:

“That said, if clumsily executed, the Hillary-as-plutocrat offense could
easily summon a different set of stereotypes about how unseemly money and
power look on a woman. The stories on America Rising’s Web site may stick
to the facts, but much of the accompanying art is in the realm of tabloid
cheap shot. When photos of Clinton appear on the group’s home page, she is
almost always wearing one of a few unflattering expressions: chin up
haughtily, angry and finger-pointing, bored and contemptuous, or laughing
with her mouth wide open. In one photo, accompanying the aggregated story
about billing taxpayers for her book tour, she seems to be rubbing her
hands together as she leaves the stage.”

Running successfully against Clinton means taking her strength and turning
it into a weakness. In 2008, she ran as the most experienced candidate,
betting that the Clinton brand was a good one. The Obama campaign punctured
the experience argument and made the Clinton brand seem stale using the
Iraq war. And they both canceled out the historic-first-xxxxxx president
argument.

And it's this argument that could be one of Clinton's strengths this time.
The woman factor even blunts the age factor; a CNN poll this week showed a
surprising number of people think Clinton embodies the future -- more so
than any of the other candidates, at least.

Which is what makes finding that silver-bullet, focus-messaging campaign so
hard for Republicans. As Rosin reports, consultants are busy at work trying
to find the right mix, which might be somewhere between "too political" and
"plutocrat." Yet being a too-political plutocrat could also be read by some
as Clinton beating the boys at their own game.

Strategists and consultants in the Clinton branding sweepstakes are
particularly focused on white-collar white women, the very voters who would
likely identify with Clinton in some ways and could turn out in higher
numbers. Getting those women to see less of themselves in Clinton's run --
in one way or another -- will likely be key whatever they the opposition
chooses to focus on.

*Boston Herald: “Elizabeth Warren keeps silence on Hill: ‘Way too early’”
<http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2015/02/elizabeth_warren_keeps_silence_on_hill_way_too_early>*

By Matt Stout

February 20, 2015

GREENFIELD — Massachusetts U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who huddled with
former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton just weeks ago, repeatedly ducked
questions about whether she’ll back the likely 2016 Democratic presidential
nominee, telling a Herald reporter it’s “way too early.”

“She hasn’t declared!” Warren said after a series of events in western
Massachusetts. Pressed if she’d support Clinton if and when she does launch
a White House campaign, Warren continued playing hard to get.

“You’re way too early,” she said. “You’re way too early.”

Warren, the de facto leader of the party’s liberal wing, has  repeatedly
ignored calls to launch her own campaign, and again yesterday twice
repeated, “I’m not running for president.” She has instead continued
slamming Wall Street and touting a populist message that has helped
catapult her into the Democrats’ leadership team.

“I want to make sure the progressive point of view is heard and fully
understood and that people are ready to act on it,” Warren said at a
Northampton fire house. “That’s my job.”

Warren also discussed her private meeting in December with Clinton in
Washington, D.C., characterizing it as a “policy discussion.”

“And I’m never shy about my point of view on working families. Never,”
Warren said of their talk.

Clinton and Warren crossed paths at a Boston fundraiser for Democrat Martha
Coakley last fall, where the former first lady had high praise for the Bay
State senator, and even tried to out-populist her, saying, “Corporations
don’t create jobs.” That comment, which echoed a similar one by Warren in
2011, drew immediate fire and Clinton  ended up walking it back.

Ready for Warren campaign manager Erica Sagrans kept up the drumbeat last
night, issuing a statement saying: “Our message to Senator Warren is this:
‘When you’re ready to run, we’ll be ready to help you fight back. This
movement is about more than getting others to believe in you. It’s about
getting you to believe in us. Our future is too important to miss this
moment — Senator Warren, this is your time.’”

Democratic consultant Peter Fenn said Warren is wise to “keep her powder
dry” and withhold her endorsement.

“I don’t think she is playing it cute. I think she is playing smart,” Fenn
said. “I think the more that she feels that she is having influence on the
Clinton candidacy, the better it will be for the country. That is clearly
her view.”

Warren was greeted like a rock star during yesterday’s three-city swing.
Roughly 150 people packed a Greenfield Community College library to hear
her talk student loans, education and even fracking. Warren also told
reporters she agrees “with the Anti-Defamation League” that Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s March address to Congress should be
postponed, though she didn’t say whether she would attend.

“What Speaker (John) Boehner did by trying to politicize (this) ... he has
tried to turn our relationship with Israel into  Republicans vs.
Democrats,” Warren said, “and I don’t think that’s good for the United
States, and certainly not good for Israel.”

*Fox News: “Clinton-tied firm accused of illegal 'scheme' to boost Dem
groups, candidates”
<http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/02/20/complaint-democrats-skirting-fec-laws-with-private-company/>*

By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos

February 20, 2015

A Democrat-aligned business founded by a longtime Clinton confidant is
being accused of giving valuable voter lists to party committees and
candidates, as part of a "scheme" that allegedly runs afoul of campaign
finance law.

The charges were detailed in a new complaint filed by the Foundation for
Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT), a conservative watchdog group, on
Wednesday. They implicate Catalist, LLC., a for-profit company that has
provided customized voter data to hundreds of labor unions, Democratic
committees and candidates -- including the Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama
campaigns in 2008.

The complaint, filed to the Federal Election Commission, accused the group
of effectively masquerading as a corporation while acting like a political
action committee -- in turn, skirting campaign finance laws that normally
apply to PACs.

“Fundamentally, I would call [Catalist] a scheme to avoid campaign finance
law,” FACT director Matthew Whitaker, a former U.S. attorney, told
FoxNews.com.

The complaint accuses the group, whose investors include George Soros, of
skirting laws that cover so-called “soft money” -- donations from
corporations, unions, and individuals used to influence elections -- and
coordination between independent groups like PACs and the parties and
candidates they support.

The complaint says “the commission should examine whether Catalist was
established, and/or is financed, maintained or controlled, by the
[Democratic National Committee], and is therefore” subject to campaign
finance laws.

Sitting atop Catalist is founder and president Harold Ickes, a stalwart
aide and adviser to both former President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton
-- who is preparing for a likely presidential run in 2016. A member of the
Democratic National Committee (DNC) rules and bylaws committee, Ickes “has
played an ongoing and significant role in the DNC and in Clinton
presidential campaigns,” according to the complaint.

Whitaker, in making the case that Catalist is not a corporation but in fact
a political group subject to campaign finance law, said the organization is
funded by and caters to donors and groups responsible for over $100 million
in outside spending to elect Democrats. He said this makes the group an arm
of the Democratic Party.

Federal parties were completely banned from raising and spending "soft
money" in 2004. PACs and other groups like 527s can still raise unlimited
amounts of soft money, but they cannot coordinate directly with campaigns
or political parties. Whitaker says as a “corporation,” Catalist investors
and clients can engage in “seamless coordination” and other activities that
PACs, 527s and parties cannot. In addition, wealthy donors like Soros, who
has invested millions in Catalist since 2006, are not subject to FEC
disclosure laws.

The complaint also says the group sold voter lists at a discount, which
would count as an in-kind contribution for a PAC.

Requests to Catalist  for comment were not returned.

Groups like Catalist -- including from the conservative end of the spectrum
-- have raised eyebrows before. Last fall, the American Democracy Legal
Fund, a Democratic watchdog, filed a similar complaint against Data Trust,
a private company launched to provide voter information between the
Republican National Committee and outside groups.

*Politico: “DNC members unfazed by Hillary Clinton stories”
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/hillary-clinton-dnc-2016-115342.html>*

By Ben Schrecklinger

February 20, 2015, 5:38 a.m. EST

[Subtitle:] Negative headlines for Hillary Clinton have come fast and
furious, but most Democrats are unconcerned.

The negative headlines for Hillary Clinton have come fast and furious in
recent weeks: Public in-fighting at her affiliated PACs. Trouble with
fundraising targets. Donations from foreign governments.

But count the most committed Democratic party officials as unperturbed by —
and in many cases unaware of – the fallout.

At the Democratic National Committee’s winter meeting on Thursday,
attendees unanimously expressed indifference to the spate of bad news.
Instead, the only point of disagreement was whether a competitive
presidential primary was desirable for the party, though attendees
expressed confidence that Clinton would be prepared regardless, drawing on
circus metaphors to describe the boisterous Republican field vying to take
on the former secretary of state.

Earlier this month, the New York Times reported on a fundraiser for
pro-Clinton organizations that charges a commission, a controversial
practice in politics. Last week, Clinton loyalist David Brock resigned from
the board of Priorities USA, a pro-Clinton super PAC, saying its leaders
had planted the Times story to undermine his pro-Clinton groups. Then,
POLITICO reported that Priorities was having trouble meeting fundraising
goals, in part because other Clinton groups were tapping out donors.
Finally, this week, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Clinton
Foundation had ended its policy of declining to accept gifts from foreign
governments, raising questions about the appearance of undue influence on
Clinton.

But the stories have apparently done little to penetrate Democratic
leaders’ confidence. “Even among the group of people who are prone to
anxiety attacks, I have not been getting phone calls,” said Roy Temple,
chairman of the Missouri Democratic Party. “I pay a lot more attention to
the fundamentals than I do to day-to-day dramas.”

“Things that are happening today are going to have no impact in November
2016,” said Alan Clendenin, vice chair of the Florida Democratic Party, who
sported a Clinton pin on his lapel.

“We listen to that chatter, but we don’t necessarily let it drive the
long-term decision-making,” said Jaxon Ravens, chair of the Washington
Democratic Party.

Raymond Buckley, chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party and vice
chair of the DNC, said recent headlines are small potatoes compared to the
controversies Clinton has ridden out in the past. “They’ve thrown
everything and the kitchen sink at her in the last 20 years, and she has
survived and thrived,” he said.

Several attendees said any controversy about funding for the Clinton
Foundation would be outweighed by the worked it conducted around the world.
“It’s beloved,” Jaime Harrison, chair of the South Carolina Democratic
Party, said of the foundation.

But if Democrats are in agreement that Clinton hasn’t been dinged by the
recent news stories, there isn’t consensus about how much the likely
nominee should be tested by her own party between now and next July’s
convention in Philadelphia.

Many attendees painted the relative quiet on the Democratic side as a good
thing, saying the crowded Republican field would draw the eventual GOP
nominee far to the right and create an embarrassing sideshow. DNC
Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz told assembled Democrats that she
planned to watch the Republican debates while chowing down on popcorn. New
Hampshire’s Buckley said he’d been enjoying enjoying the “epic clown car”
of the GOP primary. Others spoke of a GOP “three-ring circus.”

But some in the party want other Democrats to throw their hats in the ring
— believing a competitive primary will better prepare Clinton for the
general election.

“I want an all-out battle all the way to June,” said Bob Mullholland, a
Democratic committeeman from California with a “Ready for Hillary” pin on
his lapel.

Mullholland said that though he has already committed to Clinton, a
competitive primary would energize the base, pull new voters into the
Democratic fold, and give the party a chance to hone its message ahead of
the general election. (California’s primary is currently set for June 7,
2016.)

“I wish we would have some other candidates running,” said Cordelia Burks,
vice chair of the Indiana Democratic Party, who said she plans to support
Clinton when she runs. “I think it would give the nation the opportunity to
have a debate.”

Pennsylvania Democratic Party chairman Jim Burns, on the other hand, was
less concerned about the opportunity for a debate. Though Burn conceded
that “a competitive primary is a good thing,” he added that Clinton “does
not need a primary.”

“If Hillary chooses to do this, there would be little to no pushback,” he
said. “She’s so far ahead of any possible challenger.”

Stanley Grossman, a Democrats Abroad leader who lives in London, also
dismissed the benefits of competition.

“I think what we need is absolute unity,” he said.

*Wall Street Journal: “Hillary Clinton’s Complex Corporate Ties”
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/hillary-clintons-complex-corporate-ties-1424403002>*

By James V. Grimaldi and Rebecca Ballhaus

February 19, 2015, 10:30 p.m. EST

[Subtitle:] Family charities collected donations from companies she
promoted as secretary of state

Among recent secretaries of state, Hillary Clinton was one of the most
aggressive global cheerleaders for American companies, pushing governments
to sign deals and change policies to the advantage of corporate giants such
as General Electric Co. , Exxon Mobil Corp. , Microsoft Corp. and Boeing Co.

At the same time, those companies were among the many that gave to the
Clinton family’s global foundation set up by her husband, former President
Bill Clinton. At least 60 companies that lobbied the State Department
during her tenure donated a total of more than $26 million to the Clinton
Foundation, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of public and
foundation disclosures.

As Mrs. Clinton prepares to embark on a race for the presidency, she has a
web of connections to big corporations unique in American politics—ties
forged both as secretary of state and by her family’s charitable interests.
Those relationships are emerging as an issue for Mrs. Clinton’s expected
presidential campaign as income disparity and other populist themes gain
early attention.

Indeed, Clinton Foundation money-raising already is drawing attention. “To
a lot of progressive Democrats, Clinton’s ties to corporate America are
disturbing,” says Jack Pitney, a politics professor at Claremont McKenna
College who once worked for congressional Republicans. Mrs. Clinton’s
connections to companies, he says, “are a bonanza for opposition
researchers because they enable her critics to suggest the appearance of a
conflict of interest.”

The Wall Street Journal identified the companies involved with both
Clinton-family charitable endeavors and with Mrs. Clinton’s State
Department by examining large corporate donations to the Clinton
Foundation, then reviewing lobbying-disclosure reports filed by those
companies. At least 44 of those 60 companies also participated in
philanthropic projects valued at $3.2 billion that were set up though a
wing of the foundation called the Clinton Global Initiative, which
coordinates the projects but receives no cash for them.

Mrs. Clinton’s connections to the companies don’t end there. As secretary
of state, she created 15 public-private partnerships coordinated by the
State Department, and at least 25 companies contributed to those
partnerships. She also sought corporate donations for another charity she
co-founded, a nonprofit women’s group called Vital Voices.

Mrs. Clinton’s spokesman, Nick Merrill, says: “She did the job that every
secretary of state is supposed to do and what the American people expect of
them—especially during difficult economic times. She proudly and loudly
advocated on behalf of American business and took every opportunity she
could to promote U.S. commercial interests abroad.”

Corporate donations to politically connected charities aren’t illegal so
long as they aren’t in exchange for favors. There is no evidence of that
with the Clinton Foundation.

In some cases, donations came after Mrs. Clinton took action that helped a
company. In other cases, the donation came first. In some instances,
donations came both before and after. All of the companies mentioned in
this article said their charitable donations had nothing to do with their
lobbying agendas with Mrs. Clinton’s State Department.

President Barack Obama ’s transition team worried enough about potential
problems stemming from Clinton-organization fundraising while Mrs. Clinton
was secretary of state that it asked Mr. Clinton to quit raising money from
foreign governments for the Clinton Global Initiative and to seek approval
for paid speaking engagements, which he did. The transition team didn’t put
limits on corporate fundraising.

The foundation resumed soliciting foreign governments after Mrs. Clinton
left the State Department. The official name of the foundation was changed
to the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation. Mrs. Clinton became a
director. All told, the Clinton Foundation and its affiliates have
collected donations and pledges from all sources of more than $1.6 billion,
according to their tax returns. On Thursday, the foundation said that if
Mrs. Clinton runs for president, it would consider whether to continue
accepting foreign-government contributions as part of an internal policy
review.

“The Clinton Foundation has raised hundreds of millions that it claims is
for charitable causes, but clearly overlaps with Hillary Clinton’s
political ambitions,” said Tim Miller, director of America Rising PAC, a
conservative group that has targeted Mrs. Clinton.

Foundation spokesman Craig Minassian says the group’s work helps millions
around the world and its donors have a history of supporting such work. “So
when companies get involved with the Clinton Foundation it’s for only one
reason, because they know our work matters,” he says.

In her book, “Hard Choices,” Mrs. Clinton said one of her goals at the
State Department was “placing economics at the heart of our foreign
policy.” She wrote: “It was clearer than ever that America’s economic
strength and our global leadership were a package deal.”

Matthew Goodman, a former Clinton State Department official who is now at
the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think
tank, says Mrs. Clinton is the first secretary of state to make economics
such a focus since George C. Marshall, who helped rebuild postwar Europe.

*Economic Statecraft*

That approach, which Mrs. Clinton called “economic statecraft,” emerged in
discussions with Robert Hormats, a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
investment banker who has worked in Democratic and Republican
administrations and became an undersecretary of state. “One of the very
first items was, how do we strengthen the role of the State Department in
economic policy?” he says.

The focus positioned Mrs. Clinton to pursue not just foreign-policy
results, but domestic economic ones.

Early in Mrs. Clinton’s tenure, according to Mr. Hormats, Microsoft’s then
Chief Research Officer Craig Mundie asked the State Department to send a
ranking official to a fourth annual meeting of U.S. software executives and
Chinese government officials about piracy and Internet freedom. Mr. Hormats
joined the December 2009 meeting in Beijing.

Since 2005, Microsoft has given the Clinton Global Initiative $1.3 million,
in addition to free software, according to the foundation.

In 2011, Microsoft launched a three-year initiative coordinated by the
Clinton Global Initiative to provide free or discounted software and other
resources to students and teachers—a commitment Microsoft estimated to be
worth $130 million.

Mr. Hormats says there was no relation between Microsoft’s donations and
the State Department’s participation in the China conference.

In 2012, the Clinton Foundation approached GE about working together to
expand a health-access initiative the company had launched four years
earlier, says a GE spokeswoman.

That same year, Mrs. Clinton lobbied for GE to be selected by the Algerian
government to build power plants in that country. She went to Algiers that
October and met with President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. “I saw an opportunity
for advancing prosperity in Algeria and seizing an opportunity for American
business,” she explained in her book.

A month after Mrs. Clinton’s trip, the Clinton Foundation announced the
health-initiative partnership with GE, the company’s first involvement with
the foundation. GE eventually contributed between $500,000 and $1 million
to the partnership.

The following September, GE won the contracts with the Algerian government,
saying they marked “some of its largest power agreements in company
history.”

Mrs. Clinton championed U.S. energy companies and launched an office to
promote overseas projects. Many of those efforts were focused in Eastern
and Central Europe, where she saw energy development as a hedge against
Russia’s dominance in oil and gas. Companies that had interests in those
areas included Exxon Mobil and Chevron Corp.

One effort, the Global Shale Gas Initiative, promoted hydraulic fracturing,
or fracking, a technique perfected by U.S. companies. In 2010, Mrs. Clinton
flew to Krakow to announce a Polish-American cooperation on a global
shale-gas initiative, according to her book. At the time, the U.S. Energy
Information Administration predicted abundant deposits of shale gas in
Poland.

After pursuing shale-gas projects in Poland, Exxon Mobil gave up a few
years later, and Chevron said late last month it would abandon its Poland
project.

In 2012, Mrs. Clinton flew to Sofia, Bulgaria, and urged the Bulgarian
Parliament to reconsider its moratorium on fracking and its withdrawal of
Chevron’s five-year exploration license. A few months later, the government
allowed conventional gas exploration, but not fracking. Chevron left
Bulgaria in 2012.

Ben Schreiber of the environmental group Friends of the Earth says: “We’ve
long been concerned about the ties that Hillary Clinton has to the
oil-and-gas industry.”

Both Exxon and Chevron are supporters of the Clinton Foundation. Chevron
donated $250,000 in 2013. A Chevron spokesman said the Clinton charity “is
one of many programs and partnerships that the company has had or maintains
across a number of issue areas and topics pertinent to our business.”

Exxon Mobil has given about $2 million to the Clinton Global Initiative,
starting in 2009. Since 2007, Exxon Mobil also has given $16.8 million to
Vital Voices, the nonprofit women’s group co-founded by Mrs. Clinton,
according to the group’s spokeswoman.

An Exxon Mobil spokesman said the donations were made to support work on
issues Exxon Mobil has long championed, such as programs to fight malaria
and empower women. “That is the sole motivation for our support of
charitable programs associated with the Clintons,” he said. “We did not
seek or receive any special consideration on the Shale Gas Initiative.”

In October 2009, Mrs. Clinton went to bat for aerospace giant Boeing, which
was seeking to sell jets to Russia, by flying to Moscow to visit the Boeing
Design Center. “I made the case that Boeing’s jets set the global gold
standard, and, after I left, our embassy kept at it,” she wrote in her book.

About seven months later, in June 2010, Russia agreed to purchase 50 Boeing
737s for $3.7 billion, choosing Boeing over Europe’s Airbus Group NV.

Two months later, Boeing made its first donation to the Clinton
Foundation—$900,000 to help rebuild Haiti’s public-education system.
Overall, Boeing has contributed around $1.1 million to the Clinton
Foundation since 2010.

A Boeing spokeswoman said it is routine for U.S. officials to advocate on
behalf of businesses such as Boeing. “U.S. businesses face fierce global
competition, and oftentimes an unlevel playing field in the global
marketplace,” she said in a written statement. “Secretary Clinton did
nothing for Boeing that former U.S. presidents and cabinet secretaries
haven’t done for decades, or that their foreign counterparts haven’t done
on behalf of companies like Airbus.”

Before every overseas trip, says Mr. Hormats, the former undersecretary of
state, he helped prepare a list of U.S. corporate interests for Mrs.
Clinton to advocate while abroad.

During Mrs. Clinton’s three trips to India, she urged the government to
kill a ban on stores that sell multiple brands, a law aimed at department
stores or big-box retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

“It wasn’t just Wal-Mart,” Mr. Hormats says. “It was the whole point of
multibrand retail. Wal-Mart was, of course, the biggest.”

Mrs. Clinton served on the board of the Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer
between 1986 and 1992, when her husband was governor of that state, and the
law firm she worked for at the time represented the company. Wal-Mart has
donated nearly $1.2 million to the Clinton Foundation for a program that
issues grants to student-run charitable projects. The company also has paid
more than $370,000 in membership fees to the foundation since 2008,
according to a Wal-Mart spokesman.

*Trip to India*

Before Mrs. Clinton’s official trip to India in 2012, Wal-Mart Chief
Executive Mike Duke joined her at the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena,
Colombia, to pledge $12 million to help women in Latin America. The
donation included $1.5 million in grants to 55,000 women entrepreneurs
through the International Fund for Women and Girls, one of the 15
public-private partnerships Mrs. Clinton created at the State Department,
and $500,000 for Vital Voices, the charity she co-founded.

“We committed to helping women around the world live better,” Mr. Duke said
at the time. “By working with leaders like Secretary Clinton, we’re
bringing that mission to life.”

One month later, Mrs. Clinton traveled to India to make the case against
the ban on retail stores such as Wal-Mart. Then-Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh had proposed allowing companies such as Wal-Mart to invest up to 51%
directly in local multibrand retailers, but one of his allies, Mamata
Banerjee, a regional governor, opposed the idea. Ms. Banerjee’s support was
key to Mr. Singh’s majority in Parliament.

Mrs. Clinton met with Ms. Banerjee to press the matter. She also said in a
speech in West Bengal that U.S. retailers could bring an “enormous amount
of expertise” to India in areas ranging from supply-chain management to
working with small producers and farmers. Her lobbying was unsuccessful.

A Wal-Mart spokesman said the retailer had lobbied the State Department on
the issue, which he said was one of dozens of topics important to the
business.

After Mrs. Clinton’s India trip, her husband asked Mr. Duke, Walmart’s CEO,
to change his schedule to appear at the opening panel of the Clinton Global
Initiative. Mr. Duke agreed.

*New York Times editorial: “Separate Philanthropy From Political Clout”
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/20/opinion/hillary-clinton-should-ban-foreign-donors-to-the-clinton-global-initiative.html>*

By The Editorial Board

February 20, 2015

[Subtitle:] Hillary Clinton Should Ban Foreign Donors to the Clinton Global
Initiative

The Clinton Foundation has become one of the world’s major generators of
charity, mobilizing global efforts to confront issues like health, climate
change, economic development and equality for women and girls.

Since its inception in 2001, it has raised nearly $2 billion in cash and
pledges with millions more flowing in from an impressive array of donors,
including foreign governments, financial chieftains and domestic donors,
many of the latter political heavyweights.

All of which underlines the need for Hillary Rodham Clinton, in her all but
certified role as a Democratic presidential candidate, to reinstate the
foundation’s ban against foreign contributors, who might have matters of
concern to bring before a future Clinton administration. This was a
restriction Mrs. Clinton worked out with the Obama administration to allay
concerns of potential conflict of interest when she became secretary of
state in 2009.

According to a report this week in The Wall Street Journal, the ban was
dropped after Mrs. Clinton left the administration in 2013, leading to a
resumption of donations from foreign governments and agencies to the
foundation’s Clinton Global Initiative, which sponsors conferences of world
leaders from government, industry and philanthropy. Donors have included
the United Arab Emirates, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Oman and a
Canadian government agency reported to be involved in promoting the
Keystone XL pipeline.

Foreign nationals are banned by law from contributing to American
politicians’ campaign coffers. This ban does not apply to private
foundations, but the idea behind it — that influence should not be bought —
is relevant to a political campaign, where appearances can count for much.

The foundation, which has drawn bipartisan praise in the past, emphasizes
that it is solely a philanthropy, not a political machine, declaring, “The
bottom line: These contributions are helping improve the lives of millions
of people across the world, for which we are grateful.”

No critic has alleged a specific conflict of interest. The foundation, in
fact, went beyond normal philanthropic bounds for transparency six years
ago in instituting voluntary disclosure of donors within broad dollar
ranges on its website. But this very information can feed criticism.

Donations from foreign governments and nationals, for example, were found
to make up more than half of the category of $5-million-plus contributions,
according to The Washington Post. A third of donations in the
$1-million-plus bracket came from foreign governments and other overseas
entities.

Substantial overlap was found between foundation contributors and familiar
Clinton campaign donors and money bundlers. Considering the Clintons’
popularity and influence in their party, this is no surprise. But it does
make it important that Mrs. Clinton, in defending the family’s efforts on
behalf of the world’s needy, reassure the public that the foundation will
not become a vehicle for insiders’ favoritism, should she run for and win
the White House.

Restoring the restrictions on foreign donors would be a good way to make
this point as Mrs. Clinton’s widely expected campaign moves forward.

*Wall Street Journal opinion: Kimberly Strassel, member of the WSJ
editorial board: “The Clinton Foundation Super PAC”
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/kim-strassel-the-clinton-foundation-super-pac-1424391547>*

By Kimberly A. Strassel

February 19, 2015, 7:19 p.m. EST

[Subtitle:] It’s past time to drop the fiction that the Clinton Foundation
is a charity.

Republican presidential aspirants are already launching political-action
committees, gearing up for the expensive elections to come. They’ll be
hard-pressed to compete with the campaign vehicle Hillary Clinton has been
erecting these past 14 years. You know, the Clinton Foundation.

With the news this week that Mrs. Clinton—the would-be occupant of the
White House—is landing tens of millions from foreign governments for her
shop, it’s long past time to drop the fiction that the Clinton Foundation
has ever been a charity. It’s a political shop. Bill and Hillary have
simply done with the foundation what they did with cattle futures and
Whitewater and the Lincoln Bedroom and Johnny Chung—they’ve exploited the
system.

Most family charities exist to allow self-made Americans to disperse their
good fortune to philanthropic causes. The Clinton Foundation exists to
allow the nation’s most powerful couple to use their not-so-subtle
persuasion to exact global tribute for a fund that promotes the Clintons.

Oh sure, the foundation doles out grants for this and that cause. But they
don’t rank next to the annual Bill Clinton show—the Clinton Global
Initiative event—to which he summons heads of state and basks for a media
week as post-presidential statesman. This is an organization that in 2013
spent $8.5 million in travel expenses alone, ferrying the Clintons to
headliner events. Those keep Mrs. Clinton in the news, which helps when you
want to be president.

It’s a body that exists to keep the Clinton political team intact in
between elections, working for the Clintons’ political benefit. Only last
week it came out that Dennis Cheng, who raised money for Mrs. Clinton’s
2008 bid, and then transitioned to the Clinton Foundation’s chief
development officer, is now transitioning back to head up Mrs. Clinton’s
2016 fundraising operation. Mr. Cheng has scored $248 million for the
foundation, and his Rolodex comes with him. The Washington Post reported
this week that already half the major donors backing Ready for Hillary, a
group supporting her 2016 bid, are also foundation givers.

How much of these employees’ salaries, how much of Mrs. Clinton’s travel,
was funded by the Saudis? Or the United Arab Emirates, or Oman, or any of
the other foreign nations that The Wall Street Journal Tuesday reported
have given millions to the foundation this past year? How many voters has
Mrs. Clinton wooed, how many potential donors has she primed, how many
influential people has she recruited for her campaign via the Clinton
Foundation?

The foundation claims none, but that’s the other Clinton stroke of
brilliance in using a charity as a campaign vehicle—we can’t know. Poor Jeb
Bush has to abide by all those pesky campaign-finance laws that require him
to disclose exact donor names, and dates and amounts. And that also bar
contributions from foreign entities.

Not a problem for Team Clinton. The foundation does divulge
contributors—after a fashion—but doesn’t give exact amounts or dates. Did
Mrs. Clinton ever take any oddly timed actions as secretary of state? Who
knows? Not the Federal Election Commission.

The foundation likes to note that it adopted self-imposed limits on foreign
contributions during the period when Mrs. Clinton was at the State
Department. Which is nice. Then again, that ban wasn’t absolute, and it
isn’t clear it encompassed nonprofits funded by foreign governments, or
covered wealthy foreigners, or foreign corporations. Nothing is clear. This
is the Clintons. That’s how they like it.

This is the baseline scandal of the Clinton Foundation—it’s a political
group that gets to operate outside the rules imposed on every other
political player. Then comes the ethical morass. Republican National
Committee spokesman Michael Short summed it up perfectly in a Wednesday WSJ
story: “When that 3 a.m. phone call comes, do voters really want to have a
president on the line who took truckloads of cash from other countries?”

The nation’s ethics guardians have gently declared the Clintons might clear
this up with more disclosure, or by again limiting the foundation’s
acceptance of foreign money. What about the amounts already banked? The
damage is done. If this were Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a likely GOP
candidate, he’d be declared disqualified for office. The benefit of being a
Clinton is that the nation expects this, and the bar for disqualification
now sits in the exosphere.

Democrats might nonetheless consider how big a liability this is for their
potential nominee. It’s hard to label your GOP opponent anti-woman when the
Clinton Foundation is funded by countries that bar women from voting and
driving like Saudi Arabia. It’s hard to call your GOP opponent a heartless
capitalist—out of tune with middle-class anxieties—when you owe your
foundation’s soul to Canadian mining magnates and Ethiopian construction
billionaires. And it’s hard to claim you will fix a burning world when you
owe foundation gratitude to countries holding the fossil-fuel blowtorches.

Mrs. Clinton won’t let that stop her. So Democrats have to decide if they
want to once again put their ethics in the blind Clinton trust.

*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 10 – New York, NY: Sec. Clinton addresses United Nations Women’s
Conference (Bloomberg
<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-02-19/hillary-clinton-to-headline-united-nations-women-s-conference>)

·  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>
)