Subject: Fwd: THANK YOU
From: Cheryl Mills <[email-masked]>
To: Robby Mook <[email-masked]>, John Podesta <[email-masked]>
Cc: Jake Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 25 May 2014 05:20:04 -0400

FYI - beginning with AMS original email on the traffic 

cdm

Begin forwarded message:

> From: [email-masked]
> Date: May 25, 2014 at 5:14:12 AM EDT
> To: "Anne-Marie Slaughter" <[email-masked]>, "HRC"
> Cc: "Huma Abedin" <[email-masked]>,"Cheryl Mills" <[email-masked]>
> Subject: Re: THANK YOU
> Reply-To: [email-masked]
> 
> Anne-Marie;
> 
> Appreciated all your comments but particularly struck by your frame "responsive government.". We have to remind people, the next generation, in particular, that government can be forward thinking, activist, compassionate, responsible and yes, responsive. Think that Hillary as public servant/private citizen has a great opportunity to redeem and reposition the "government" brand. Would love to see your Foundation and other thinkers focus on exactly what a "responsive government" looks like or does in the 21st century and how alike and/or different it is from the 20th century or for that matter, even the last decade. M
> Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
> From: Anne-Marie Slaughter <[email-masked]>
> Date: Sat, 24 May 2014 22:12:17 +0000
> To: HRC
> Cc: Huma Abedin<[email-masked]>; Margaret Williams<[email-masked]>; Cheryl Mills<[email-masked]>
> Subject: THANK YOU
> 
> Dear Hillary,
> I wanted to wait to write until I could thank you properly and pass on some ideas following your wonderful speech. I raced off after the conference to give the commencement address at Tufts, which I am attaching — I think you will get a kick out of it — and then got on a plane to Singapore, where I have been for a week.
> 
> First off, many many thanks for making my first New America conference a smash hit, both with my board and more broadly through the coverage of your speech. This was very important to me, as you know, and you knocked it out of the part.
> 
> Second, on a much more personal level, as I was listening to your speech I suddenly got chills running down my spine, and what was going through my mind was: "this is not about being the first woman president, this is about being a great president — the kind of president the country desperately needs, who can actually  turn us around and get us back to where we need to be." That is how we want voters to see you, as someone who has the roots, life-experience, values, wisdom, grit, determination and conviction to reach out to all different segments of our population and across the aisle to make things happen, and who yourself embodies a vision of what is best about America — through your mother to your husband to your daughter and grand-child — an extraordinary American story. Also, of course, should Jeb Bush run, the contrasting American stories are striking. I know that is what your speech was signaling in many ways, but as I said, suddenly I simply saw you in a new and even more powerful light. Your surrogates should be taking that view: "this is not about being the first woman president, it's about being a great president for this country in these times, both at home and abroad."
> 
> Third, as I told you after the speech, your theme of "healthy families, inclusive communities" was absolutely terrific. I heard many other people respond similarly to that part of the speech over the course of the day. It is so important as a way of saying we need to rebuild the country from the ground up — recovering our "habits of the heart" (a phrase I use in many of my speeches as well), reweaving the fabric of our families and communities in ways that make us all stronger and healthier. Someone was telling me that when he was growing up in upstate New York there was much less income inequality in his town and when the parents gathered and talked about "our kids," they meant "all the kids of the town," not "our kids" as in 
> my kids." That is what we need to get to get back to."
> 
> I think you might build on the frame,  adding: "healthy families, inclusive communities, responsive governments and competitive businesses." Steve Rattner thought you needed to say more about government as an essential part of the equation in making things right; I agree. And when you elaborate  what "responsive governments" mean, you will be able to bring in lots of ways that new technologies are making governments more responsive, tapping into younger voters.
> 
> Fourth, on competitive businesses, New America has all sorts of ideas about how to lift up small and medium enterprises. The panel after you on the future of American manufacturing featured Suzanne Berger, a fabulous political science professor from MIT who has long studied industrial organization and just published Making in America: From Innovation to Market. She argues, as my New America folks do as well, that production and services are not two different sectors but increasingly merged. But she identifies key holes in the industrial ecosystem that government can fill, particularly re SMEs, pointing out that we are moving toward a decentralized customized, bundled economy away from a centralized, standardized, integrated economy but government needs to make sure that the innovative SMEs have access to the new technologies and are connected to each other  in ways that let them scale through networks and learn from each other. She actually talked about "government as platform," which you have talked about before and I have written about, but in this case a platform for convening and connecting SMEs (just as we talked about US leadership in the world), also ensuring they can get access to the technology they need. Tim Wu, who is one of the smartest young thinkers out their in the digital space, followed her with some great ideas about how government can operate simply by providing valuable information on stagnant industries that will make clear where there are market openings for innovators. GOVERNMENT AS A PLATFORM CONVENING, CONNECTING, DISPENSING INFORMATION AND PROVIDING THE CONDITIONS NECESSARY FOR BUSINESSES TO FIND EACH OTHER, NICHES TO COMPETE, AND THE TECHNOLOGY THEY NEED TO COMPETE IS A GREAT VISION OF GOVERNMENT IN THE DIGITAL AGE. One last point on this subject, given your focus on youth unemployment, Suzanne Berger talked about how the old centralized industries did provide apprenticeships but no longer can; SMEs are too small individually to replace that role but a networks of SMEs could, again if connected and coordinated by government. 
> 
> Fifth, and finally, as I know this email is too long! I'm attaching the 10 Big Ideas that New America will be rolling out over the next 6 months with CNN. They were in the conference program, but I didn't manage to hand you the program before you left; this is the electronic version of the program that describes each big idea in one page after the conference agenda. New America wants to be a source of big ideas for candidates on both sides of the aisle for 2016, particularly those ideas that marry policy and technology, as all of our best solutions must going forward. And we want to be about beyond the beltway politics, creating new coalitions. I will make sure that I send you and your team as it gears up all our best stuff. And I will turn myself inside out to get to any small group gatherings you convene. But I also urge you to appear with Republicans as much as you can. Seeing you banter with John McCain was good for the country's soul. You are old enough to dismiss or even laugh at a lot of the extreme partisanship, and to find people you can and have worked with. Many of those people may be Republican women, underlining what happens when we bring pragmatic women to the table. But also with the guys. The more you can seek out places that insist on having people from both parties at their events, preferably together! And the more you can highlight the issues you are working on through the Foundation by personally reaching out to Republicans you know who care about those issue, the more you can send a different and very positive message. 
> 
> All best, and with many thanks again!
> AM