Fwd: John, here's my advice

From:john.podesta@gmail.com To: ha16@hillaryclinton.com Date: 2015-08-26 16:09 Subject: Fwd: John, here's my advice

Brent's opinionated but has been one of our strongest defenders. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- While I have been warning for some time about the dangers facing the Clinton campaign, aggressively in privately, tactfully in columns, during this latest stage I have been publicly defending her with no-holds barred, and here is my advice based on the reaction I have been receiving and the dangers I see coming to fruition. I would recommend you assemble a short reading list of everything surrounding President Kennedy's full acceptance of responsibility after the Bay of Pigs, beginning with the substance and tone of his unequivocal taking of responsibility and ending with his huge rise in the polls, to nearly 90% favorable ratings, after he did this. And then I would suggest she plan the equivalent and take full, absolute and unequivocal responsibility for making a mistake with the private emails and give an honest, direct, explanation of the reasons I believe she used those private emails. And this should not be done in a news conference with shouting reporters in a perp walk atmosphere, but in an indoor speech to her most loyal supporters in a dignified setting or in a thoughtful taped interview with a respected women's advocate that would be shown as an introduction to a speech she would make to a women-heavy group such as a meeting of Planned Parenthood or a less controversial women's organization. There is nothing wrong, and much right, with her saying that in her life experience she has seen the most hostile attacks and partisan investigations of her husband, the most successful and fondly remembered living former president, which included partisan attacks against her up to the level of her being accused of murder. All at an era when American politics has reached a new low that justifiably creates outrage from large segments of the public. She could say that she correctly anticipated that these attacks against her would continue and escalate if she ever ran for the presidency, witness the shameful abuse of congressional power with multiple GOP congressional committees conducting four years of witch hunts to try to exploit the death of brave Americans at Benghazi. She could say she was right anticipating this, but wrong in overreacting by trying to shield her private emails, and she takes full responsibility for this, and apologizes to her supporters and everyone else, and now she has turned over all information, it will ultimately be seen that there no egregious wrongs committed. Now she vows to fight on for the people she cares about and the causes the believes in and for an America that deserves better than a Republican party whose frontrunner repeatedly insults women, defames Hispanics, intimidates other Republicans, and America deserves better than a politics that brings perpetual campaigns of personal destruction funded by the most wealthy special interests taking advantage of some of the worst Supreme Court decisions since slavery that would give the wealthiest the power to buy elections while undermining the right of citizens to vote in them. She needs to stop talking like a lawyer parsing legalistic words and a potential defendant expecting a future indictment, which is how she often looks and sounds to many voters today. Instead, she should take full responsibility for a mistake with no equivocation, and segue into the role of a populist prosecutor against a corrupted politics that Americans already detest.....and make a direct attack against the Donald Trump politics of daily insults and defamations and intolerance against whichever individuals and groups he tries to bully on a given day, and while defending some Republican candidates against his attacks, she should deplore their being intimidated by his insults and offering pastel versions of the intolerance he peddles. In other words, she should stop acting like a front-runner who cautiously tries to exploit the rules of a rigged game to her advantage, and start acting like a fighting underdog who will fight on behalf of Americans who want a higher standard of living for themselves, a higher standard of politics for the nation, and a higher level of economic opportunity and social justice for everyone. Like JFK after the Bay of Pigs, the more responsibility she takes now the more she will succeed going forward. Sent from my iPad