Subject: Re: Today's Post story on HRC
From: Catherine Hand <[email-masked]>
To: John Podesta <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 2015 16:54:47 -0400

John-
Thank you for your response. I am simply one of the many millions of Americans who want to see her win. Please let me know if I can ever be of help. I continue raise any funds I can, but am not in the position to give like I wish. You have such a tough job ahead of you and I'm very touched that you took the time from what must be a crazy schedule to read my note.
Catherine

Sent from my iPhone

> On Aug 16, 2015, at 3:38 PM, John Podesta <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> Thanks Catherine. Easy to fall into old habits. We'll reflect on this. 
> 
>> On Sunday, August 16, 2015, <[email-masked]> wrote:
>> Dear Jake and John:
>> 
>> I'm sending this to you at the suggestion of my friend Lorraine Hariton.  By way of introduction, back in 1980 I helped Norman Lear create People For the American Way -- even before Tony Podesta came into the picture.  I spent months traveling across the country with Norman meeting with so many people to talk about the rise of something Norman was seeing -- the rise of the Religious Right and its impact on our politics.  You know the rest.
>> 
>> Currently, I am one of the producers of a film adaptation of the award wining children's classic, A Wrinkle in Time, that Jennifer Lee (FROZEN) is scripting for Disney.  I mention this, because this book has meant a great deal to millions of young people over the past 50 years.  Even Sheryl Sandberg was quoted in the New York Times during an interview for her book, Lean In, that A Wrinkle in Time was her favorite childhood book.
>> 
>> Wrinkle was written in 1962 and received the Newberry Award for children's literature in 1963, the year I first read it. As you will read in this note, 1963 was quite a tumultuous year.  The year before, in 1962, the Cuban missile crisis threatened the world with the possibility of nuclear war.  Against a backdrop of uncertainty, death, and fear, A Wrinkle in Time, came along at a time when young people needed a way to understand the changing world around them.  It wasn’t necessarily a conscious need, more a longing or yearning for a way to comprehend the evil that existed, and to feel comforted by a story that helped us see that it could be overcome.  I think the need for a vision of a loving and empathetic universe is as needed today as it was 50 years ago.
>> 
>> I'm writing a book about my 50 year journey to make Wrinkle into a movie and have been doing research on the past 5 decades which moved me to write this note to Lorraine this morning.
>> 
>> 
>> Lorraine- 
>>  
>>             Just wanted to send along a few thoughts re today's Post story on HRC. First, hope you are enjoying your time in NY. The emails and phone calls about the campaign are very helpful.
>>  
>>             Something struck me in reading the Post piece that you may want to consider. When Hillary speaks of the email issue or other issues, her counter is "politics as usual." Those very words are what contribute to the general feeling of her tone deafness. I have no idea what is said in your discussions, but I assume lots of very smart, savvy people are thinking about this problem everyday. Most people do not know what she really means when she says "politics as usual' and it might help her if she were more precise in her reply. What I mean by that is not to use words that mean something to people who follow politics, but use words that mean something to people who don't.   And, “politics as usual’ is immediately heard as “politics as usual in Clinton-world.”
>>  
>>             Take every single opportunity she has to explain in the simplest way over and over again that she represents change to a more conservative way of thinking and rather than talk about the need for inclusivity in all things for all Americans, her opponents only want to instill fear about her as a person and the change she represents. 
>>  
>>             I've been doing a little research on the big historical events over the past 50 years and it is a real awakening to take in how much change this country has been dealing with ever since 1963. 
>>  
>>             Hillary's candidacy is an accumulation of a 50-year shift in attitudes and ever since the early 1970s a backlash to this change has taken shape and strengthened. It's not a vast right wing conspiracy - it is real fear of change. When she uses the words ‘politics as usual’ it only helps to strengthen that backlash.
>>  
>>             She needs to be seen and heard as someone who can lead us to a more empathetic world where we can learn to actually get along with those who are different than us. 
>>  
>>             Take a look at what happened in 1963: 
>>  
>> George Wallace became Governor of Alabama and proclaimed “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever. “ 
>>  
>> Betty Friedan’s  The Feminine Mystique launched the reawakening of the women’s movement in the United States as women’s organizations and consciousness raising groups spread.
>>  
>> 70,000 marchers arrived in London to demonstrate against nuclear weapons. 
>>  
>> Martin Luther King, Jr. issued his  Letter from Birmingham Jail.  
>>  
>> The US Supreme Court ruled that state-mandated Bible reading in public schools was unconstitutional.
>>  
>> Pope Paul VI succeeded Pope John XXIII and continued the Vatican Council II.  Priests were now asked to celebrate Mass in the language of the countries in which they lived, face the congregation, and not only to be heard and seen but also to signal to worshippers that they were being included because they were a vital component of the service. No longer was prayer to be seen as a performance, but active participation.
>>  
>> The United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union signed a nuclear test ban treaty.
>>  
>> Martin Luther King, Jr delivered his I Have A Dream speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to an audience of 250,000 people participating in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedoms.
>>  
>> South Vietnamese President Diem was assassinated following a military coup.  
>>  
>> “ I Want to Hold Your Hand” and “ I Saw Her Standing There” were released in the U.S., marking the beginning of Beatlemania on an international level.
>>  
>> President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
>>  
>>             And the 1970s became fertile ground for even more divisiveness:
>>  
>> As the protests against the Viet Nam war intensified, the backlash began to take shape.  When Richard Nixon won the presidency in 1968 he dismantled programs put in place by President Johnson’s War on Poverty.  The anti-war protests increased in frequency and no longer only w ere students protesting, but professors, scientists, and stay at home mothers.  
>>  
>> In response to protesters, hippies and the new drug culture, President Nixon’s ‘silent majority,’ -- mostly white working and middle class voters, were angry at what they saw as the destruction of a country they had known and loved.
>>  
>> The nation seemed to tear apart at the seams as America watched the live coverage of the Watergate hearings.  When President Nixon finally resigned from office in 1974 the seeds of government mistrust were firmly rooted.
>>  
>> The women’s rights movement took hold when Congress approved the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the Constitution in 1972.  Twenty-two of the necessary 38 states ratified with no difficulty, but the conservative faction in the country saw it as a threat to the traditional role of wife and mother and successfully fought back and defeated it.
>>  
>>             The 1980s were a difficult period for Democrats. I remember helping to mount the Democratic convention in 1984 and standing on the podium that last night looking at a sea of waving American flags, excited that the first woman had been nominated for Vice President, inspired by Mario Cuomo's speech about the "two cities on a hill" and all I could think about was my dog. I didn't believe in any of it anymore. Reagan had done a great job of making the word liberal sound like a dirty word. Few Democrats had passion back then- we were so splintered and couldn't get along which lead to the creation of Democratic Leadership Forum and the eventual rise of Bill Clinton in 1992. 
>>  
>>             Hillary is the embodiment of the changes that have been bubbling up since 1963. She is a woman embracing the need to include everyone at the table. But, she is falling into a trap that started in the 80s -- demonizing her opponent. That happened back in the 80s to raise funds. Direct mail campaigns for Dems, Republicans, and special interests groups had to demonize their opponents to fan the flames of fear to survive. 
>>  
>>             What Bernie Sanders represents is someone who doesn't seem to be caught in that demonizing cycle. There has to be a way for Hillary to rise above it, too, with humor, compassion and empathy.  She needs new tactics, a new strategy and to breakaway fro m how she handled her adversaries in the past.  She most likely first developed her deep distrust of conservative operatives in her formative years working as a lawyer during the Watergate hearings.  That mistrust of Nixon and his associates left a lasting scar on so many of us. But, we need to move passed it.
>>  
>>             Stephen Hawking said something recently that might help ground a new strategy:
>>  
>>             “The human failing I would most like to correct is aggression.  It may have had survival advantage in caveman days, to get more food, territory or a partner with whom to reproduce, but now it threatens to destroy us all. We need to replace aggression with empathy, which “brings us together in a peaceful loving state.” 
>>  
>>             Hillary needs to be President of the United States to act upon Hawking’s insight and her ability to lead must start with a new kind of campaign.   
>>  
>> Catherine