Subject: Fwd: Fw: H: Break in case of emergency. my memo on post-midterm. S
From: Cheryl Mills <[email-masked]>
To: Robby Mook <[email-masked]>, John Podesta <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 2 Nov 2014 09:59:22 -0500

confidential fyi - not sure this is beind circulated beyond her office team
at the moment

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: H <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, Nov 2, 2014 at 9:21 AM
Subject: Fw: H: Break in case of emergency. my memo on post-midterm. S
To: "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>, "
[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>, Huma Abedin <
[email-masked]>, "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>, "
[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>

 Worth discussing elements.

 *From*: Sidney Blumenthal [mailto:[email-masked]]
*Sent*: Friday, October 31, 2014 05:23 PM
*To*: H
*Subject*: H: Break in case of emergency. my memo on post-midterm. S

                                                            CONFIDENTIAL

                                                            October 31, 2014

For: HRC

From: SB

Re: Post-midterm

These are quick notes on the post-midterm environment in the event of a
Republican capture of the Senate (an opinion written with the concurrence
of J. Carville, including on counter-intuitive points):

1.     *The coming media punditry*: After savaging Obama the instant
analysis of the media in the event of the Democratic loss of the Senate
will be that HRC and WJC were ineffective campaigners in key states,
especially Arkansas and Kentucky, where they devoted the most attention.
Potential corollaries may be that "Clinton fatigue" persists, Obama
irrevocably taints HRC, and the Clintons are part of the generally
contaminated Democrats. The media analysis will conversely hail the
Republicans for the triumph of their reasonable establishment, suppression
of the Tea Party, control over candidate selection, optimism about the
ability of the Republican leadership to shape a successful agenda, and
extend a new found hopefulness to the next Republican presidential nominee.
Do not be drawn into any of this version of events. As soon as the action
of the Republican Congress begins, the media will adopt a new narrative.

2.     *The next Democratic mood:* After the midterms, Democrats will be
disoriented, demoralized and desperate. Some of them will form the circular
firing squad as they do after every election loss. They will typically
stage a blame game pointing to everyone in and everything about their own
party, especially Obama, who the left will blame as a centrist sellout and
the center as a left-wing sellout. Democratic activists of all varieties,
not just on the left, will be active participants in this self-destructive
exercise. This will be their activism for the next few months. Do not be
part of any of the dumping on Obama (see below).

3.     *Democrats are the salient post-midterm audience*: The next
scheduled election is not the general election of 2016. It is the series of
presidential nomination primaries leading to that election. Above all, for
those elections, the Democratic Party is the principal arena, Democratic
figures are the principal players and Democratic voters are the audience.
Slighting this fundamental political reality and imagining that the general
election campaign must determine the overall message here and now would be
based on a misconception and create undermining distortions, including
short-circuiting communication to Democrats in the immediate aftermath of
the 2014 debacle.

4.     *The message post-midterm to Democrats*: For HRC and WJC, the
message in the days and weeks after heartbreaking defeats and the despair
of losing the Senate should be directed to the Democratic Party--not to the
media narrative. The message aimed at Democrats should have two points:
First, the Clintons demonstrated their undivided loyalty to the Democratic
Party. They campaigned their hearts out for all Democrats. They are always
there for Democrats. They are completely committed to the Democratic Party.
Second, the Clintons believe in the Democratic Party as an inclusive
national party. They campaigned all over the country--north, south, east,
and west. They believe the Democratic Party is and must be a national
party. They campaigned for Southern, Midwestern and western Democrats
because they are true-blue Democrats, and they are dedicated to helping
Democrats everywhere. If there is any argument for Democrats that will
rebuff media accusations of selfishness, egotism and narrow ambition, it is
one on behalf of the Democratic Party. It also happens to be an argument
that will generate support and loyalty in return.

5.     *The Obama factor and why this is the wrong time to criticize Obama*:
The 2014 midterms have been fought on unpromising ground for Democrats, to
say the least. It is the second midterm of a presidency, almost inevitably
when losses are incurred. The Senate seats up this time were mostly in the
South and border-states. That geographic anomaly tilted the election to
those electorates, which are the most hostile to Obama and most difficult
for Democrats in the midterms of Democratic presidents, coloring the
election across the country. Those Democrats up for reelection, after all,
won in the Democratic sweep of 2008 when the tide was rolling in. Now they
have faced the voters when the Democratic tide is out and the turnout
naturally down. No Democrats in the South have wanted to run with Obama's
endorsement or, for some, even to claim they supported him. It has
therefore been impossible to articulate the case for his achievements in
the face of Republican negativity and intractable opposition. But when the
midterms are over, including runoffs and Democratic candidates not at risk,
that would be a propitious time, if there is one, to make the positive case
for Obama at the beginning of his defense of progressive legacies for the
next two years. The notion that Obama is finished is a dangerous illusion.
He has two years more in office with the powers of the presidency.
Defending the progressive legacy will be an essential and significant task
ahead. Nothing would serve the Republicans better than acceding to their
propaganda that Obama is over. No matter the disillusionment with Obama
among Democrats, they will resent attacks against him, especially in the
coming period. Attempting to angle between Obama and the Republican
Congress would raise insinuations of presumption and arrogance. Obama's
vetoes of Republican bills, cynically cast as "reform," will be depicted as
Obama turned wholly negative and evidence of his demise. He will not be
credited with protecting and defending generations of progressive
achievements, including his own, upon which the nation depends for its
general welfare, prosperity and security. To grant him such credit would
take an active position for the media. Instead, the media will goad HRC not
only to separate herself from Obama but also to condemn him. If and when
she does so the media will seek to isolate and diminish her as ungrateful,
churlish, crudely ambitious, grasping, envious, and a backstabber. Having
framed the issue of attacking Obama as necessary for HRC's future well
being, the media will inevitably portray any differences as evidence of her
inherent political weakness and lack of political instinct, a revival of
the 2008 primary clash, alienating Obama's constituencies and proof she is
a bad politician (forgetting the simultaneous accusation of ambition).
Counter-intuitively, his accomplishments should be defended--and his defense
of the progressive legacy back to Theodore Roosevelt should be defended.
Leave the nuanced judgments of the Obama presidency, his mode of
decision-making and style of leadership, to the historians. As a political
matter in the present tense, when he is at his lowest ebb, this is the
opening for defending his accomplishments that must be defended against the
Republican onslaught.

6.     *The Democratic primary campaign will in great part be run against
the Republican Congress: *A Republican Congress will attempt to rollback
healthcare, undermine environmental protections, undo and rewrite
regulations for the benefit of a host of special interests (not least Koch
Industries, i.e, Georgia Pacific, etc.), launch a hundred investigations
into fabricated pseudo-scandals, try to back Obama into agreeing or
half-agreeing to various bargains that would put the Democratic candidate
of 2016 in an awkward position, and of course attack women's rights,
especially reproductive rights, voting rights, immigrant rights, block
nominations, and continue their wholesale assault on science. The Tea Party
caucus in the House will in fact be larger than ever and will define the
limits of moderation. This is the setup for the Democrats, who can set the
test for the Republicans: Will the Republicans reject extremism? On this,
issue after issue, their party can be discredited and split as we
immediately enter the post-midterm presidential campaign.

7.     *The Republican presidential campaign will begin on November 5th and
intersect with the Republican Congress: *The GOP presidential contest will
begin at once. It will loom over the Republican Congress, just as the
Republican Congress will loom over the candidates. Scott Walker has already
lambasted Chris Christie. The right wing is laying in wait to trash Jeb
Bush. If Ted Cruz were to run, he would hurl missiles at the infidel Rand
Paul (the media's most interesting man in the world). Nothing will stop the
Republican candidates from attacking each other. If Jeb Bush doesn't run,
there is no viable establishment candidate. If he does run, he will be
subjected to an unprecedented assault that might culminate in a splintered
party, even a third party. This will not be like the period of 1999-2000,
when the leading GOP candidates were George W. Bush trying to position
himself as a new version of Republican moderation and John McCain, the GOP
party outlier. The rightward tilt of the Republican primary electorate,
more right leaning than every before, will be reflected in the candidates'
jostling, and have a gravitational pull on the internal processes of the
Republican Congress. Unanticipated opportunities will naturally emerge that
will define Republican candidates in terms of the Republican Congress. The
Republican civil wars should be accelerated whenever possible through
tactics to exacerbate their internal frictions. Publicly suggesting how
Obama might make this or that deal with the Republican leadership would
better be left unsaid. Instead, every instance of the Republicans'
incapacity for governance, internal turmoil, subservience to special
interests, and vicious rivalries should be pointed out as a constant
lesson.