HRC Clips | 2.10.15

From:nmerrill@hrcoffice.com To: nmerrill@hrcoffice.com Date: 2015-02-10 12:23 Subject: HRC Clips | 2.10.15

HRC Clips February 10, 2015 HRC Top aide leaving foundation to build Clinton’s 2016 fundraising team (CNN) 2 Why liberal Democrats might regret standing in Summers’s way (WAPO) 3 The Unbearable Glamour of Hillary Clinton (Daily Beast) 6 David Brock resigns from Hillary Clinton PAC (Politico) 8 David Brock Resignation Exposes Trouble in Hillaryland (Bloomberg) 11 Activist David Brock considers rejoining pro-Clinton super PAC Priorities USA (WAPO) 13 Hillary Clinton Supporters Fight for 2016 Position (Time) 15 The Democrats’ Secret Staffing Advantage in 2016 (National Journal) 17 Democrats suffering from Clinton fatigue say they’re ready for Warren (WAPO) 20 The Parent Agenda, the Democrats’ New Focus (NYT) 22 Democratic wise man splits loyalties between Obama, Clinton (AP) 25 Progressives’ non-Hillary hope: a socialist non-Democrat? (Toronto Star) 28 Sanders: I would ‘run to win’ in 2016 (Hill) 30 How Bernie Sanders Would Run Against Hillary Clinton (National Journal) 31 Is Bernie Sanders The 2016 Progressive Candidate? He’s Considering A “Not Hillary” Presidential Campaign (Bustle) 33 Hillary Clinton Gets Ready with A Big Team-in-Waiting for Presidential Race Campaign (International Business Times) 34 White House candidates are in no hurry this time (McClatchy) 36 RNC launching ‘Hillary’s hiding’ campaign (Politico) 38 Advice to Hillary: Run like insurgent (USAT) 40 With Elizabeth Warren saying no to 2016, Bernie Sanders eyes populist mantle (CS Monitor) 44 In Clinton’s absence, competitor plans to call on Iowa (Des Moines Register) 46 Jim Webb, Martin O’Malley headed to Iowa in April for local Democratic dinner (Washington Times) 47 Top aide leaving foundation to build Clinton’s 2016 fundraising team (CNN) By Dan Merica February 9, 2015 CNN WASHINGTON (CNN) - Dennis Cheng, the Clinton Foundation’s chief development officer, is leaving the philanthropic organization this week to join Hillary Clinton’s nascent pre-campaign. Cheng, who is expected to serve as Clinton’s financedirector once the campaign officially kicks off, is currently pulling double duty for the Clintons by finishing his role at the foundation and starting to build a 2016 campaign fundraising team, according to a source. The news was first reported by the New York Times. Since joining in 2011, Cheng has raised $248 million for the foundation endowment and worked diversify the group’s priorities. Foundation Spokesman Craig Minassian said “Dennis... expanded our ability to support programs that are strengthening health systems and improving access to lifesaving medicines in the developing world, helping communities confront the effects of climate change, creating economic opportunity, empowering women and girls and reducing childhood obesity and other preventable diseases in the United States.” A foundation source also noted that while Cheng is leaving this week, he will continue to work as a volunteer through the foundation’s March 4 annual gala. Cheng served as deputy chief of protocol in the Clinton State Department and was Clinton’s New York State finance director on her 2008 campaign. Why liberal Democrats might regret standing in Summers’s way (WAPO) By Max Ehrenfreund February 9, 2015 The Washington Post Larry Summers might have been the chairman of the Federal Reserve, and now all he can do is offer unsolicited advice on interest rates in newspaper columns. The question is whether the people who kept him out of the central bank are having second thoughts. Under Janet Yellen, who got the job instead, the Fed now thinks that the economy is strong, and it is planning to raise interest rates relatively soon. This could be a bad idea, Summers writes in The Washington Post. Yes, low rates could lead to higher prices, but the whole economy is in danger if the Fed takes its foot off the pedal and lets rates come up: A plane that accelerates too rapidly as it takes off may cause its passengers some discomfort, while a plane that accelerates too slowly may crash at the end of the runway. Historical experience is that inflation accelerates only slowly, so the costs of an overshoot are small and reversible with standard tightening policies. In contrast, aborting recovery and risking a further slowing of inflation is potentially catastrophic — as Japan’s experience over the past quarter-century demonstrates. Summers calls on the Fed to wait for “clear evidence” on increasing inflation. Doing so would help ordinary Americans, he writes, suggesting that unemployment could fall much further before prices begin to rise again. His column puts workers first, and it should please liberals in Congress like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). Yet when she and many of her colleagues gave Summers the cold shoulder, Obama nominated Yellen instead. At the time, Yellen’s supporters believed that she and Summers had similar views about interest rates, but that she would do a better job of regulating the financial sector. Perhaps Yellen would agree with everything in Summers column, but isn’t able to get the other members of the Fed to go along with her. Maybe Summers wouldn’t be able to do things differently if he were in Yellen’s seat right now. Yet there are major differences between the two economists. While Yellen has argued that the United States is mostly safe from economic instability overseas, Summers writes that “the United States has never been more intertwined with the global economy.” Welcome to Wonkbook. To subscribe by e-mail, click here . Send comments, criticism or ideas to Wonkbook at Washpost dot com. Follow Wonkblog on Twitter and Facebook. What’s in Wonkbook: 1) Clinton prepares campaign 2) Opinions, including Ponnuru on inequality 3) Baseball’s weird exemption from monopoly laws, and more Number of the day: 268,000. That’s the average number of jobs the economy has added monthly over the past 12 months, the most in the past 15 years. Matt O’Brien in The Washington Post. Clinton is drawing up an economic platform for a possible presidential campaign. “With advice from more than 200 policy experts, Hillary Rodham Clinton is trying to answer what has emerged as a central question of her early presidential campaign strategy: how to address the anger about income inequality without overly vilifying the wealthy. ... Although people close to Mrs. Clinton say she has not yet settled on a specific platform, she is expected to embrace several principles. They include standard Democratic initiatives like raising the minimum wage, investing in infrastructure, closing corporate tax loopholes and cutting taxes for the middle class. Other ideas are newer, such as providing incentives to corporations to increase profit-sharing with employees and changing labor laws to give workers more collective bargaining power.” Amy Chozick in The New York Times. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) promises “a clash of ideas” if he and Clinton both decide to run. “‘I happen to like and respect Hillary Clinton, but I suspect on issues like massive investments in infrastructure, on real tax reform, on the need to deal in a very bold way with the planetary crisis of climate change, with the transpacific partnership, I suspect we will have some real differences’ ... His wish-list includes robust infrastructure spending, raising the minimum wage and a ‘national health care program that guarantees health care’ to all.” Ben Kamisar in The Hill. BALZ: What kind of candidate will Hillary Clinton be? “She is determined to put together a campaign organization that is markedly different from the one she had in 2008, designed to avoid both the tactical and strategic mistakes that contributed to her undoing against Barack Obama and the debilitating infighting that plagued the inner circle of what became for a time a dysfunctional campaign. ... Enough questions remain from her last campaign that she cannot long afford to take for granted her position atop the Democratic field. How, for example, does Clinton demonstrate to voters in Iowa, where she stumbled in 2008 and where activists expect serious courtship, that she will be a better and more accessible candidate this time? She is reluctant to begin too early, but is she prepared eventually to travel more extensively there than before?” The Washington Post. PONNURU: Republicans shouldn’t talk about inequality. “Inequality does not appear to be an issue that moves voters, and even if it did, Republicans would not be able to come up with an agenda that does much to reduce it.”The New York Times. HANAUER: Stock buybacks are destroying the U.S. economy. “Last year alone, U.S. corporations spent about $700 billion, or roughly 4 percent of GDP, to prop up their share prices by repurchasing their own stock. ... So what’s changed? Before 1982, when John Shad, a former Wall Street CEO in charge of the Securities and Exchange Commission, loosened regulations that define stock manipulation, corporate managers avoided stock buybacks out of fear of prosecution. ... It is mathematically impossible to make the public- and private-sector investments necessary to sustain America’s global economic competitiveness while flushing away 4 percent of GDP year after year.”The Atlantic. COATES: Obama is right about religion and violence. “People who wonder why the president does not talk more about race would do well to examine the recent blow-up over his speech at the National Prayer Breakfast. Inveighing against the barbarism of ISIS, the president pointed out that it would be foolish to blame Islam, at large, for its atrocities. ... There were a fair number of pretexts given for slavery and Jim Crow, but Christianity provided the moral justification.”The Atlantic. VINIK: Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has dangerously bad economic views. “Of course, the Republican Party itself has an incredibly misguided position on monetary policy. In 2012, its platform included returning to the gold standard. That’s a good reason why just about any Republican nominee would be a dangerous president. But Paul is far more open about his disdain for the Fed, and given his ideological bent, he’s far less likely to listen to conservative economists who reject his monetary policy views. At least on the economy, that makes Rand Paul by far the most dangerous candidate in the 2016 field.” The New Republic. SILBERMAN: Bush didn’t lie about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. He believed what he said, and so did everyone else. “As I recall, no one in Washington political circles offered significant disagreement with the intelligence community before the invasion. The National Intelligence Estimate was persuasive—to the president, to Congress and to the media.” The Wall Street Journal. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will write rules for payday lenders. “They are chameleons: payday lenders that alter their practices and shift their products ever so slightly to work around state laws aimed at stamping out short-term loans that can come with interest rates exceeding 300 percent. Such maneuvers by the roughly $46 billion payday loan industry, state regulators say, have frustrated their efforts to protect consumers. Now, for the first time, a federal regulator is entering the fray, drafting regulations that could sharply reduce the number of unaffordable loans that lenders can make.” Jessica Silver-Greenberg in The New York Times. Flexibility for student borrowers is proving more expensive than the government anticipated. “There’s a big caution sign appearing in front of the government’s generous program to let borrowers cap their monthly student loan payments to a percentage of their earnings. Use of so-called income-driven plans could cost $22 billion more than the government expected, raising concerns about the sustainability of a cornerstone of the Obama administration’s education policy.” Danielle-Douglas Gabriel in The Washington Post. The city of San Jose is appealing to the Supreme Court to overturn baseball’s monopoly. “It is impossible to write about efforts to reverse one of the Supreme Court’s most famous rulings — some would say most famously misguided — without resorting to sportswriter prose, as a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit recently showed. ‘The city of San Jose steps up to the plate to challenge the baseball industry’s 92-year-old exemption from the antitrust laws,’ Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski began. ... But it would be wrong to hold out the promise of a 9th inning rally or walk-off home run for San Jose, which wants the Oakland Athletics to play in a new downtown stadium but cannot get Major League Baseball to approve the move.” Robert Barnes in The Washington Post. Upcoming event: Washington Post Live presents “Innovation Through Collaboration,” February 12th. Maria Contreras-Sweet, Administrator of the Small Business Administration, members of Congress and thought leaders will discuss the most successful public private partnership models and why this is the way of the future. Learn more about the event and register to attend . The Unbearable Glamour of Hillary Clinton (Daily Beast) By Kristen Soltis Anderson February 10, 2015 Daily Beast It was the photo that launched a thousand memes: then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, sitting aboard a military aircraft, casually reading her phone from behind dark sunglasses. The picture, taken as Clinton flew to Libya in 2012 just a few short months before the horrific Benghazi attacks, undoubtedly exudes cool. I admit that though I’m no fan of Clinton, even I found the photo to be glamorous at the time. In Virginia Postrel’s phenomenal book The Power of Glamour, she notes that glamour has the power to persuade us to make purchases -- and cast votes -- by tapping into our longings for something better and the hope we can reach there. President Obama ran his campaign fueled by the three elements she identifies as the pillars of glamour: a bit of mystery, a sense of ease, and the promise of escape to an aspirational future. We weren’t 100 percent sure where he stood, but he made running for president look easy and promised us hope and change. Not all campaigns try to use glamour to their advantage, of course; Postrel notes that Bill Clinton’s campaigns in the 1990s were rooted in charisma rather than glamour, and she defines the concepts quite differently. Charisma is captured by “he feels my pain.” Glamour, instead, asks “isn’t he incredible?” But to put it mildly, charisma has never been Hillary’s strong suit. Even if her campaign pushes the “Grandmother-in-Chief” narrative full strength, there’s the inevitable reality that Hillary Clinton exists in a point-oh-one percent bubble and has for decades. Last year, she said she hadn’t even driven a car since 1996. Being genuinely folksy and relatable will not be easy; being glamorous and aspirational may be her best or only path. So then: can Hillary pull off glamour for the long haul? Consider Postrel’s three elements: mystery, ease, and the promise of a better future. First, there’s mystery. You can see her team already struggling with this, openly debating when she should get into the race and if she should even bother putting herself out there for debates against D-list contenders for the Democratic nomination. She’s tried hard to avoid weighing in on controversies. Clearly, she’d like to use mystery to her advantage. A look at her favorability ratings in polls over the decades shows that the more she’s visible in the political fight, the lower her numbers go. Once Hillary announces, she won’t have that luxury. The Elizabeth Warren wing of her party will demand that she detail an economic agenda they can get behind; the Republicans will have warehouses of opposition research about her past statements at their disposal to weaponize in campaign ads. She may try to preserve mystery, but it is unlikely she will succeed. Then, there’s the element of ease. It’s never been said that Hillary makes campaigning look easy. I don’t just mean her personal style, though the hard-to-watch book tour of last summer is a perfect example of her shortcomings there. Unlike “No Drama Obama,” Clintonworld has always been known for infighting, back-biting, and commotion. Of course, Hillary has been snapping up talented former Obama staff and consultants, and her camp has been telling reporters this time will be different. But has Old Clintonworld truly been quietly, peacefully sidelined? As Monday’s David Brock drama illustrated, every prominent Democratic consultant gets a plum seat at the table in a Hillary campaign, the odds that they will all agree (and play nice together) must be next to zero. A candidate never wants their campaign team to be the story, but too many cooks in the kitchen will likely whip up plenty of fodder for drama-hungry reporters. On both mystery and ease, Hillary will have a challenge. But the area where the race will truly be won and lost is the final piece: the promise of escape to aspirational future. (This is the element of glamour that makes sleek auto advertisements compel us to look up the prices on luxury cars, because we badly want to be zipping down that coastal highway, too.) So what, exactly, is Hillary Clinton selling? Can someone who has been at the center of American politics since before “pogs” were popular credibly offer to provide an “escape,” a turning of the page to a bright new future? Despite economic improvement, middle and working-class voters are still struggling, particularly white working class men who have abandoned the Democratic Party in droves in recent years. It’s certain that Republicans will talk directly to these voters, aiming to persuade them that we need to move on from an era that saw the middle class hollowed out while nearly eight trillion dollars has been added to the national debt. Whether Republicans are successful will depend on if they can credibly propose policies that people think will lead them to greener pastures. But with a GOP field largely full of fresh faces, almost none of whom have ever run for president before, the race will be on to claim the mantle of being the candidate of innovative ideas and the future. Clinton, by virtue of how long she’s been immersed in the swamp of politics, will struggle to credibly say she’s what’s “fresh and new.” In order for Hillary to win, she’ll need to use glamour to her advantage. She’ll need to tell people just enough about the Clinton history without poisoning the story. She’ll need to make it look easy. And she’ll need create in people a sense of longing for the kind of America she would lead. She has an enormous challenge ahead. David Brock resigns from Hillary Clinton PAC (Politico) By Kenneth P. Vogel February 9, 2015 Politico David Brock on Monday abruptly resigned from the board of the super PAC Priorities USA Action, revealing rifts that threaten the big-money juggernaut being built to support Hillary Clinton’s expected presidential campaign. In a resignation letter obtained by POLITICO, Brock, a close Clinton ally, accused Priorities officials of planting “an orchestrated political hit job” against his own pro-Clinton groups, American Bridge and Media Matters. Those groups — along with another pro-Clinton group, the super PAC Ready for Hillary — had their fundraising practices called into question last week by a New York Times report. It pointed out that veteran Democratic fundraiser Mary Pat Bonner got a 12.5 percent commission on funds she raised for Brock’s groups and a smaller percentage commission on cash she raised for Ready for Hillary. In his letter to the co-chairs of Priorities’ board — former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm and former Obama campaign manager Jim Messina — Brock alleged that “current and former Priorities officials were behind this specious and malicious attack on the integrity of these critical organizations.” The letter — and Brock’s resignation — offer a rare glimpse into a network of groups upon which Democrats are relying to keep the White House and stave off increasingly robust big-money efforts on the right. The public airing of dirty laundry comes as sources say Priorities is struggling to live up to the hopes of some Clinton allies, who had argued it should aim to raise as much as $500 million to eviscerate prospective Clinton rivals in the primary and general elections. Brock, who spent his early career in Washington as a self-described “right-wing hit man” before experiencing a political awakening and emerging as the leader of an empire of hard-hitting liberal attack groups, contends in his letter that Priorities is trying to damage his groups’ fundraising efforts, “while presumably enhancing Priorities’ own. Frankly, this is the kind of dirty trick I’ve witnessed in the right-wing and would not tolerate then. Our Democratic Presidential nominee deserves better than people who would risk the next election — and our country’s future — for their own personal agendas.” Brock did not respond to requests for comment about the letter, his group’s relationship with Bonner or with the other big-money groups boosting Clinton. Craig Smith, a senior adviser to Ready for Hillary, said his group is still working with Bonner, as well as with Priorities and Brock’s groups. “We have worked with them for almost two years. We continue to work with them. We all do very different things, so there’s not a lot of overlap.” Asked whether he thought rivals on the left were circulating negative information on Bonner, he said, “I would hope not. Not that I’m aware of.” Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush talks to supporters after speaking at the U.S. Cuba Democracy PAC’s 11th Annual Luncheon in Coral Gables, Fla., Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2014. As governor of Florida, Bush oversaw a diverse state that is home to three-quarters of the nation’s estimated 2 million Cuban-Americans. His longstanding support for the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba would provide a marked contrast with Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016, if both decide to run for president. Priorities spokesman Peter Kauffmann denied that Priorities had anything to do with the Times story, which also noted that his group paid fundraising commissions on at least $2 million worth of checks, including contributions from California tech billionaire Irwin Jacobs. Sources say Jacobs was upset by the revelations. Kauffmann said Priorities no longer pays fundraising commissions and that it maintains close working relationships with the other groups boosting Clinton. “Priorities USA Action and allied organizations demonstrated a clear ability to work together effectively in 2012 and we look to replicate that success again in 2016,” he said. By early evening — hours after POLITICO broke the news of Brock’s resignation — Priorities USA Action issued a conciliatory statement from Granholm saying that the group was “working to address” Brock’s concerns, while Brock issued one saying he was “open to returning to the board.” Brock in his statement said he’d talked “to several leaders of Priorities USA Action” and was “confident they want to address the situation.” The parties planned to meet “to work on establishing that path and strengthening our relationship and getting back to the important work we need to do in this election cycle,” he said. Sources familiar with the events say the statement came after discussions between Brock, Granholm, Priorities board member Charlie Baker and Paul Begala, a Democratic strategist with deep ties to Bill and Hillary Clinton. Still, the groups — as well as Ready for Hillary — do to some extent compete with one another for big checks from wealthy Clinton backers. At one point, Priorities’ allies tried to force Ready for Hillary to shut down. But the groups — along with Brock’s — eventually entered into a sometimes uneasy alliance to lay the groundwork for the former secretary of state to run for president in 2016. Together, the groups formed an unprecedented shadow campaign that combined to raise millions in 2014. American Bridge’s Correct the Record Project defends Clinton against political attacks, while Ready for Hillary builds files of voters and small donors, and Priorities cultivates relationships with major donors. The idea was to build an infrastructure that would allow Clinton to hit the ground running if and when she declared her candidacy for the Democratic nomination and to project a financial show of force that would overwhelm any prospective rival in the primary or general elections. The in-fighting is an ominous sign. It calls to mind the squabbles that helped sink Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign. It, too, was regarded as an unrivaled cash juggernaut, but feuding among cliques of supporters stymied efforts to launch a planned big-money outside effort in time to neutralize a surprisingly robust insurgent primary challenge from Barack Obama. This time around, her allies tried to pre-empt the sectarianism by cross-pollinating the various groups to keep everyone on the same page and minimize competition. Granholm is on the boards of both Priorities and Ready for Hillary, while Brock joined the board of Priorities, and longtime Clintonite James Carville has been paid by American Bridge for assistance with fundraising and strategic advice. But there also are more groups competing for big checks from rich Clinton backers than there were in 2008. In his resignation letter, Brock asserted a “serious breach of trust between organizations that are supposed to work together toward common ends has created an untenable situation that leaves me no choice but to resign my position.” David Brock Resignation Exposes Trouble in Hillaryland (Bloomberg) By David Knowles February 9, 2015 Bloomberg There’s trouble brewing in Hillaryland. David Brock, a political operative who helps marshall fundraising efforts on behalf of Hillary Clinton, resigned from the board of the super PAC Priorities USA Action on Monday, Politico reported, in a further sign of a widening rift between the groups hoping to steer the former secretary of state to victory in the 2016 presidential election. In a resignation letter sent to former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm and former Obama campaign manager Jim Messina, who are co-chairs of Priorities’ board, Brock said that a “serious breach of trust between organizations that are supposed to work together toward common ends has created an untenable situation that leaves me no choice but to resign my position.” Brock’s resignation comes on the heels of a New York Times report on the competition for donations—and the hefty commissions that consulting firms receive for procuring them—among groups like Priorities USA Action and Ready for Hillary. Brock, who also helps lead the rapid response groups American Bridge and Correct the Record, accused Priorities USA Action of being behind the Times’ story, and accused it of launching “an orchestrated political hit job” on pro-Clinton American Bridge and Media Matters. Priorities spokesman Peter Kauffmann denied that the super PAC had anything to do with the article in the Times, Politico reported. Brock is a veteran of the sharp-elbowed world of campaign fundraising and opposition research. In the early 90’s, he helped lead the conservative “dirt-digging operation into the Clintons’ past,” as Brock told the Times. A few years later, Brock changed his mind about the Clintons, and, in 2002, published a memoir titled, “Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative.” For Brock, the Times article had an all-too-familiar ring to it. “Frankly, this is the kind of dirty trick I’ve witnessed in the right wing and would not tolerate then,” Brock said in the resignation letter obtained by Politico. “Our Democratic Presidential nominee deserves better than people who would risk the next election—and our country’s future—for their own personal agendas.” At a time when Clinton is striving to stay below the radar before she officially jumps into the presidential campaign, the discord among those tasked with promoting her brand is, to say the least, unwelcome. UPDATE: Late Monday it appeared that Brock and Priorities USA Action were working to patch things up, with each party releasing statements. “We take the concerns board member David Brock raises seriously and are working to address them,” Granholm, Priorities USA Action co-chair, said. “We’ve worked seamlessly with American Bridge and Correct the Record and we will continue that strong collaborative relationship—because we all have the same shared goals. David Brock and his team are talented, effective and dedicated professionals.” For his part, Brock also sounded a conciliatory note. “After talking to several leaders of Priorities USA Action, I am confident they want to address the situation. I’m open to returning to the board and I share their desire to find a way to move forward. We will be meeting to work on establishing that path and strengthening our relationship and getting back to the important work we need to do,” Brock said. Activist David Brock considers rejoining pro-Clinton super PAC Priorities USA (WAPO) By Matea Gold February 10, 2015 The Washington Post A clash that threatened to fracture a network of independent groups mobilizing to back a Hillary Rodham Clinton presidential run was partially defused late Monday when liberal activist David Brock agreed to consider rejoining the board of a pro-Clinton super PAC. The conciliatory gesture came hours after Brock fired off an e-mail angrily resigning from the board of Priorities USA Action, accusing officials with the super PAC of providing material for a damaging New York Times story about his groups’ fundraising practices. That prompted a flurry of outreach to him by several members of the Priorities board, including former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm, longtime Clinton adviser Harold Ickes, and veteran Democratic strategists Charlie Baker and Paul Begala. Late Monday evening, Brock said in a statement that “after talking to several leaders of Priorities USA Action, I am confident they want to address the situation.” “I’m open to returning to the board and I share their desire to find a way to move forward,” he added. “We will be meeting to work on establishing that path and strengthening our relationship and getting back to the important work we need to do in this election cycle.” Granholm, who co-chairs the super PAC with strategist Jim Messina, said in a statement released jointly with Brock’s that the group takes his concerns seriously and is “working to address them.” “We all have the same shared goals,” Granholm said. “David Brock and his team are talented, effective and dedicated professionals.” But even with the hasty rapprochement, the episode raised questions about whether Clinton’s outside support network will be plagued by the kind of infighting that undermined her 2008 presidential campaign. In his resignation letter, Brock accused current and former Priorities officials of launching a “dirty trick” against his groups by providing information for the Times piece, which he called “an orchestrated political hit job,” according to a copy obtained by The Washington Post. Brock’s resignation was first reported by Politico. Republicans seized on the incident with glee, while exasperated Democrats close to Clinton cringed. The fight was the first major public break among the coterie of Democratic strategists jockeying for influence in an alliance of super PACs and other independent groups positioning to back a Clinton campaign. Brock is a conservative-turned-liberal whose expanding empire includes the group Media Matters for America and the research operation American Bridge. His suite of groups is already churning out research to boost Clinton and attack potential GOP rivals, digging up material that Priorities USA can use in ad campaigns. He was among the dozen Democratic power brokers who joined the Priorities board last year, a carefully curated collection of operatives that included union officials, interest-group leaders and seasoned political strategists such as Messina, who was President Obama’s 2012 campaign manager. At its heart, the conflict centers on access to big donors on the left, whose financial resources are intensely sought by Democrats working to build an independent firewall for the 2016 election. That pressure is particularly acute for Priorities, which is aiming to collect tens of millions of dollars this year to finance heavy air artillery to boost Clinton. “There are a lot of deep relationships here and issues as to how donors are approached,” said one person familiar with the dynamics, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private discussions. Tensions between the organizations escalated last weekend after the Times published a story describing the lucrative commissions earned by Mary Pat Bonner, a donor adviser who works closely with Brock’s organizations, as well as another group, Ready for Hillary. In 2014, Bonner’s firm earned $3.5 million for the $28 million it brought in for Brock’s groups, according to the Times — equivalent to a 12.5 percent commission. In his resignation letter Monday, Brock said he was told by multiple people that Priorities officials fed information to the Times for its article. “This disheartening conduct and serious breach of trust between organizations that are supposed to work together toward common ends has created an untenable situation that leaves me no choice but to resign my position,” Brock wrote. “The apparent purpose was damaging our fundraising efforts, while presumably enhancing Priorities’ own.” Hillary Clinton Supporters Fight for 2016 Position (Time) By Haley Sweetland Edwards February 9, 2015 Time Magazine Until now, Hillary Clinton’s proto-presidential campaign was allowed to be all things to all people. Anyone with a bit of cash, an organizational streak, and a lion’s share of enthusiasm could start his own pro-Clinton group—and, in doing so, make a claim to the presumed frontrunner’s coattails. That began to change this week, after two of the three main pro-Clinton groups publicly split ways. David Brock—a longtime Clinton ally who has launched an archipelago of pro-Clinton organizations, including Correct the Record, Media Matters for America, and American Bridge 21st Century—announced his resignation Monday from the main Democratic super PAC supporting her, Priorities USA Action, Politico reports. The split comes just after Clinton hired a handful of high-profile advisers, including top brass from President Barack Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns. Joel Benenson, Jim Margolis, John Podesta and Robby Mook are expected to hold senior positions in the as-yet-undeclared Clinton campaign. Brock’s sudden resignation, combined with those recent hires, has had the effect of drawing some hard lines—who’s “in” and who’s “out”—down the center of the Clinton Universe, an enormous and amorphous collection of aides, advisers, confidantes and hangers-on that has has, until now, evinced a unified, big-tent, everyone-is-welcome vibe. In November, leaders from Brock’s empire, Priorities USA and the quirky, grassroots super PAC, Ready for Hillary, all gathered amicably at Ready for Hillary’s financial meeting in New York City. At that event, officials from all three groups, as well as long-time Clinton insiders, gave speeches and met with members of the press, where they spoke of cooperation and partnership. But below the surface—and in quiet conversations—rivalrous factions have simmered. Several Clinton allies told TIME they doubted the efficacy of Brock’s organizations and worried that the “amateurish” nature of some of the mailings from Correct the Record might end up hurting Clinton down the road. Another dismissed both Brock’s organizations and Ready for Hillary as “opportunists” and “outsiders” positioning themselves for plum positions in a future campaign. Meanwhile, others in Clintonland doubted whether Priorities USA, which is run by Obama’s 2012 campaign manager Jim Messina and former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, could actually raise as much as $500 million—a vast sum that many say is necessary to compete with Republicans in 2016. (The famously conservative Koch brothers reportedly intend to spend almost $900 million this election cycle alone.) In his resignation from Priorities USA on Monday, Brock accused officials at Priorities USA of orchestrating a “political hit job” against his organizations, according to Politico, which obtained a copy of his resignation letter. Brock referenced a recent New York Times story that revealed a consultant, who works closely with Brock’s groups, keeps an average of 12.5% of any fundraising money she brings in. “Current and former Priorities officials were behind this specious and malicious attack on the integrity of these critical organizations,” Brock wrote in the letter. Clintonland veterans say all this squabbling should come as no surprise. During the 2008 Democratic primary between Clinton and Obama, Clinton’s camp was known for its pitched in-fighting and epic personality clashes. Almost all the same people—plus a few of the biggest egos from the Obama world—are now alive and well in the as-yet-undeclared Clinton campaign. The Democrats’ Secret Staffing Advantage in 2016 (National Journal) By Emily Schultheis February 9, 2015 National Journal The biggest beneficiaries of a noncompetitive 2016 primary for Hillary Clinton are the Democratic Senate candidates looking to reclaim their majority. Democrats head into 2016 with a deep roster of campaign talent that earned valuable experience on President Obama’s successful campaigns. But since there aren’t expected to be many credible candidates running against Clinton—in sharp contrast to the GOP’s deep field—skilled Democratic operatives have far fewer options when thinking about campaign employment. Many are expected to make their mark on a Senate race rather than fight for a prized job with Clinton’s campaign. “Offices of consultants like myself ... are filled with 23-year-old kids who are trying to figure out what the hell they’re going to do,” said Jef Pollock, president of the Democratic firm Global Strategy Group, adding that just that day he’d been on four calls with political staffers trying to figure out their 2016 job prospects. “What’ll happen is ... the smaller races may very well be able to get higher-level talent than they might have [otherwise] been able to get because that person knows that they want to take something now.” The Senate map favors Democrats this cycle, as Republicans who rode into office on the tea-party wave of 2010—Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania—are facing reelection in a presidential-year electorate. In 2016, Republicans must defend 24 Senate seats—including five states that President Obama won twice—compared with just 10 seats for Democrats. At the moment, Clinton’s campaign-in-waiting has largely frozen the Democratic hiring market: Anyone who wants to work for her is holding on until the campaign is ready to start staffing up. Clinton, who’s expected to announce a campaign this spring, is undoubtedly the top 2016 choice of many of the party’s operatives, aides, and staffers—and she can’t possibly hire everyone who wants to work for her. One veteran of Democratic presidential campaigns said: “People are going to be crawling all over each other at the beginning to get jobs as executive assistants” for Clinton, let alone high-level positions. It’s looking less likely Clinton will be facing serious competition for the nomination. Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, and former Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia have said they’re considering the race. Even if other candidates announce, they’d likely have far smaller operations than Clinton’s. Since many of Democrats’ highest-targeted Senate races are against GOP incumbents, there’s still time before many of those campaigns will begin staffing up; Dan McNally, who will serve as campaign manager to Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado, is one of the few 2016 Senate hires who’s already been announced. But as Democratic Senate candidates begin to announce their campaigns against GOP incumbents in many of the top-tier states later this year, they’ll begin building teams of their own—and for people who’d be mid- to low-level staffers on a Clinton campaign, or perhaps know by then that they won’t get a presidential job, a bigger role on a Senate race may be a way to make more of an impact on 2016. Senate Republicans have the opposite problem: As the field of GOP presidential candidates is scrambling to snap up top campaign talent before it’s gone, that hunt for staff could leave the GOP’s vulnerable Senate incumbents without nearly as many options as they’d get in an off year or even a less busy presidential cycle. Some incumbents, like Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, have publicly announced their senior staff, while others are working behind the scenes to bring a team on board early this year. Aides to Senate Republicans’ campaign arm acknowledge that this is a problem—and say the campaign “boot camps” run through the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the Republican National Committee in recent months have been a response to concerns about a lack of talented staff. “It’s absolutely a concern,” said Kevin McLaughlin, NRSC deputy executive director. “The presidentials take a lot of oxygen out of the air on this, and it’s something that has to be addressed early.” A total of 100 staffers had gone through the NRSC’s three press and communications training sessions, and 43 people participated in the committee’s 10-week “Digital Training Academy” last cycle. The RNC runs its own political workshops to give staffers the chops they need to work on statewide and congressional races. Caitlin Legacki, who was a 2008 staffer for John Edwards, decided in 2012 that she’d rather take a lead role on a Senate race than try for a job with Obama’s reelection campaign. She ended up serving as campaign communications director for Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, one of Republicans’ top targets that year—and she took the spotlight even more when GOP candidate Todd Akin made his comments about “legitimate rape.” “Going out to a Senate race that was going to garner a significant amount of national attention, being able to have a seat at the table and actually have a role, was a lot more appealing to me than figuring out what my role was going to be on the Obama campaign,” said Legacki, who now works for the Democratic consulting firm Precision Strategies along with Obama alums Stephanie Cutter, Teddy Goff, and Jen O’Malley Dillon. “Those are very real, very serious races where you have an opportunity to make a big impact.” Justin Barasky, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s communications director—who himself took the Senate-race route and opted to work for Sen. Sherrod Brown’s 2012 reelection campaign in Ohio—said the idea of more responsibility and the chance to have a higher-profile role will be a big draw for Senate races over the presidential. “You can distinguish yourself on a presidential in many ways, obviously, but for those that aren’t necessarily senior staff, you can sometimes distinguish yourself a little more easily by working on a Senate race,” Barasky said. That’s especially true in the key presidential early states: There are U.S. Senate races and a handful of competitive House races in Iowa and New Hampshire, and New Hampshire’s governor will also be up for another two-year term. Staffers who want to get early-state experience but don’t end up on the presidential campaign could ultimately realize a Senate race will be a good fit for them too. “With a U.S. Senate race and a gubernatorial campaign in New Hampshire in 2016, I think there will be opportunities for a lot of people, even if there are not a lot of Democratic presidential candidates,” said Kathy Sullivan, a Democratic National Committeewoman from the state and a former state Democratic Party chairwoman. The NRSC’s McLaughlin said Senate races can be just as cutting-edge as presidential campaigns these days, and that they give campaign operatives a chance to practice even more political skills. “The days of [Senate races] being somewhat less sophisticated or not having as many resources as a presidential campaign per capita, if you will, are gone,” McLaughlin said. Democrats suffering from Clinton fatigue say they’re ready for Warren (WAPO) By Robert Costa February 10, 2015 The Washington Post AMES, Iowa - Thirteen Iowa Democrats wearily took their seats here this weekend and discussed among themselves the source of their angst: Hillary Rodham Clinton. “I’m utterly tired, tired of the Clintons and the whole establishment,” said Carol Brannon, 71, a retired nurse. Anne Kinzel, 57, a former health-care lawyer, nodded sympathetically. “The hacks think Hillary is entitled to be president,” Kinzel said. “I think she is one of those people who has lost the sense of why they are in politics.” As Clinton prepares to launch her all-but-certain 2016 campaign, the former secretary of state remains a favorite of a vast majority of Democrats and the front-runner for the party’s presidential nomination. Still, there is unease among progressives about her largely uncontested ascent. Seeking an alternative to the juggernaut, this restless Sunday gathering at the Ames public library and others like it are popping up around the country - all part of an effort to draft populist Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) into the race, in spite of her insistence that she will not be a candidate. The grass-roots movement is being coordinated by Run Warren Run, a joint project of MoveOn.org and Democracy for America, two national groups that promote liberal causes and connect activists. In recent months, they have signed up about 250,000 supporters. Over the course of the hour-long meeting, it was clear the frustrations of the attendees here were driven not only by Clinton but also by President Obama. Eight years after Obama first drew enormous crowds in Iowa on his way to the White House, these Democrats feel disappointed by his presidency and what they described as his lackluster attempts to champion economic populism. In Warren, they sense they’ve found a fighter and a refreshing departure from the way Obama and Clinton have addressed the rising gap between the rich and poor. More deeply, they believe Warren channels their anger about the power of Wall Street banks. “I remember going to the initial Obama rallies and I was inspired,” Bert Schroeder, 74, a retired social worker, said during a breakout session. “That was the first time I felt that way in years. I saw his crowds at the Hilton Coliseum at Iowa State and I thought, ‘Wow, this is our moment.’ “ Raising his arms in exasperation, Schroeder asked, “What happened?” “Should have done single-payer health care, should have done socialized medicine, should have taken on the banks,” replied David Brenner, 57, a botanist. Directing the meeting was Adam Beaves, 24, a polished former Obama volunteer who was wearing a navy-blue Run Warren Run T-shirt. Whenever the conversation drifted away from Warren and toward Clinton, he tried to steer it back. It wasn’t easy. The palpable disenchantment with Clinton dominated the comments even as Beaves emphasized that Run Warren Run is “focused on the positive.” Beaves was repeatedly asked by the mix of white-haired grandparents and spiky-haired college students about whether Warren could actually be persuaded to run. “If I just wanted to organize, there are many other places I could be,” Kinzel said. Carolyn Klaus, a retired educator, asked, “Is our enthusiasm grounded in reality?” “If we show her support on the ground, she will consider running for president,” Beaves told them. “If you look back to when she was drafted to run for Senate in Massachusetts, her answers were really similar to what she’s saying now. It’s not in her personality to get ahead of things.” The small crowd murmured its approval. Later, to give the drab setting a touch of celebrity, Beaves pulled out his laptop and played a video of actor Mark Ruffalo talking excitedly about Warren. Ruffalo’s encouragement, watched in silence, won no applause. Beaves closed his computer quickly after it ended. In this blue-collar community, it’s Warren’s pitch and her working-class Oklahoma roots that connect, rather than her popularity in Hollywood. “I don’t know what the heck will happen, but I’m going to put a ‘Draft Warren’ sign in my yard,” said Jerry Lamsa, another retiree. “Enough of the Clintons, enough of the Bushes. They can go - well, you know where I’d like to see them go.” Lamsa and others at the meeting were willing to consider backing former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley (D), former senator Jim Webb (D-Va.) or Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), all of whom will be in Iowa in coming months. Vice President Biden, who will be in Des Moines on Thursday, was not mentioned at all. But for the moment, their hearts remain with Warren. “The Democratic Party needs energy. It needs so much more energy, especially with my generation,” Allyson Bowers, 23, said. Klaus said that if Warren doesn’t run, she may throw her support behind “Patrick O’Malley.” When told his first name is Martin, she chuckled. “Martin O’Malley, Deval Patrick,” she said in reference to the former Massachusetts governor. “I don’t know.” The Parent Agenda, the Democrats’ New Focus (NYT) By Nate Cohn February 10, 2015 The New York Times Just a few years ago, one could be forgiven for wondering whether the liberal agenda had run its course. With near-universal health care -- the unfinished business of the 20th-century Democratic Party -- enacted, there was no obvious next step in the party’s mission of expanding the safety net. The big Democratic policies yet to be fully addressed, like immigration overhaul and restrictions on carbon emissions, pitted the party’s new progressive constituencies against its traditional, white working-class base. Yet in the months after last year’s midterm elections, a reinvigorated liberal agenda has started to emerge. Few of the pieces of this agenda were discussed in the 2012 presidential elections or last year’s midterms. But they have rapidly moved from various liberal intellectual publications into President Obama’s speeches and budget, as well as Hillary Clinton’s speeches. The emerging Democratic agenda is meant to appeal to parents. The policies under discussion -- paid family leave; universal preschool; an expanded earned-income tax credit and child tax credit; free community college and perhaps free four-year college in time -- are intended both to alleviate the burdens on middle-class families and to expand educational opportunity for children. The result is a thematic platform addressing some of the biggest sources of anxiety about the future of the middle class. It’s far too early to know how these themes will resonate with voters, or even the extent to which Mrs. Clinton will emphasize this agenda, but it does have the potential to give the Democrats a more coherent message for the middle class than the party had in 2014 or even 2012. It could give them a better chance of reclaiming their support among traditionally Democratic white working-class voters who supported Mr. Obama in 2012 but now disapprove of his performance. Yet it would still appeal to many affluent families who feel burdened by the costs of college, child care and the challenge of raising children with two parents working outside the home. The most obvious places to see the new focus have been in Mr. Obama’s State of the Union address and his budget. The central characters in his speech to Congress were Rebekah and Ben Erler, the struggling parents of two young children in Minneapolis. ‘‘Affordable, high-quality child care,’’ Mr. Obama said, is ‘‘not a nice-to-have -- it’s a must-have.’’ He added, ‘‘It’s time we stop treating child care as a side issue, or a women’s issue, and treat it like the national economic priority that it is for all of us.’’ His budget -- more of a wish list than a policy document, given Republican control of Congress -- includes $200 billion over the next decade for child care and early education, along with $60 billion for free community college. He has already proposed expanding the earned-income tax credit and the child tax credit. Beyond Washington, dozens of states have pursued expanded preschool in the last few years. Although Republicans have pushed some of the expansions, Democrats -- like Bill de Blasio, the New York mayor, who made the plan a centerpiece of his campaign -- have been behind most of them. And Mrs. Clinton has signaled that many and perhaps all of these proposals will be part of her likely campaign for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 2016. A recent commission on ‘‘inclusive prosperity,’’ containing several Clinton allies, emphasized many of these proposals. ‘‘The United States, unfortunately, is one of a handful of developed countries without paid family leave,’’ Mrs. Clinton said in September. ‘‘If we give parents the flexibility on the job and paid family leave, it actually helps productivity, which in turn helps all of us.’’ If embraced by Mrs. Clinton, the agenda could pose real challenges for the Republicans in 2016. It would adjust the focus from income redistribution -- through higher taxes on the rich, although such taxes may be needed to fund the new proposals -- toward expanded opportunity. It also has the potential to move the Democrats from seeming to focus on the poor, through the Affordable Care Act and the minimum wage, and toward the middle class. Yet its ambition would probably be enough to appease an increasingly liberal Democratic coalition. In Washington and on the campaign trail, Democrats have struggled to formulate a policy agenda focused on the middle class. The party has instead focused on several issues that are incidental -- or sometimes even inimical -- to the perceived economic interests of many voters, like immigration overhaul, gun control and restrictions on carbon emissions. These policies have helped Democrats mobilize the ‘‘new’’ coalition of young, secular and nonwhite voters that have allowed them to win recent presidential elections. But the same policies have hurt them among the traditionally Democratic but increasingly Republican Southern and Appalachian white voters who have allowed Republicans to take the House and the Senate. The parental agenda has the potential to resonate among the large group of voters with children under 18 at home, 36 percent of the electorate in 2012. It might also resonate among the already Democratic-leaning young voters of the Obama era, 18 to 29 years old in 2008, who are now entering prime childbearing years. The birthrate among millennials has dropped to near-record or record lows, depending on the age cohort, probably in part because of economic insecurity. Weekly earnings for full-time workers aged 25 to 34 are down 3.8 percent since 2000. Early polling data suggests there could be strong public support for many elements of Mr. Obama’s agenda -- including free community college, child care spending and paid leave -- although it remains to be seen whether support will endure after Republicans respond. The policies seem less vulnerable to the critiques that have endangered support for past Democratic initiatives. Far more families seem poised to benefit from these initiatives in the short term than from the Affordable Care Act, which offered its biggest immediate benefits to the poor. The parental agenda also has far fewer potential losers -- like people who might fear losing their doctors or coverage as a result of the Affordable Care Act. The proposals are not especially complex, either. This emerging Democratic agenda has already co-opted the message of so-called reform conservatives, who argue that the G.O.P. needs to come up with policies to help families. Democrats have the ideological flexibility to embrace just about any proposal from reform conservatives that might seem politically threatening, as they already have on the earned income and college tax credits. In other words, they are willing to use conservative means to accomplish liberal ends. Partly as a result, the Republican response has been muddled. Some Republicans have come out against the parent-focused proposals as more big government. Others have focused on the costs of Mr. Obama’s program, even though public concern about the deficit has waned in recent years, or have said they support the goals but believe states, rather than Washington, should lead the way. Control of Congress has allowed the Republican Party to defer its public campaign against Mr. Obama’s initiatives, since they are dead on arrival. But the G.O.P. will not have that luxury in 2016, when it will need to offer a more cogent and specific response than it has so far. Democratic wise man splits loyalties between Obama, Clinton (AP) By Julie Pace February 9, 2015 Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — John Podesta built his reputation as a Democratic Party wise man by trying to salvage the second terms of two presidents. He’s about to duck out of the White House to try to engineer the election of a third. Podesta served as Bill Clinton’s final White House chief of staff in the 1990s and is closing out a yearlong stint as counselor to President Barack Obama. After departing the White House later this week, his next act will be steering Hillary Rodham Clinton’s expected 2016 campaign for president. For months, Podesta has balanced his allegiance to both Obama and Clinton, former presidential rivals turned allies. While shepherding the president’s climate change agenda and shaping his strategy for dealing with a Republican-led Congress, Podesta has also been involved in nearly every key conversation with Clinton on campaign hires and her nascent organization, as well as the timing of a formal announcement of her candidacy. The unusual arrangement underscores the 66-year-old Podesta’s status as something of a Democratic senior statesman — “someone who knows how to navigate the waters in Washington in a way very few do,” said Maria Cardona, who worked for Hillary Clinton’s failed 2008 presidential campaign. In a statement to The Associated Press, former President Clinton called Podesta “always on the level, straightforward with allies, adversaries and fence-sitters alike, and he never forgets the impact policy decisions have on real people.” Podesta declined to be interviewed for this story, and spokesman for Hillary Clinton also would not comment on his prospective role in her 2016 campaign. But several people close to her operation spoke about Podesta on the condition of anonymity, because they were not authorized by Clinton’s team to do so publicly on the record. A wiry Chicagoan with a quirky, sometimes dark, sense of humor, Podesta accepted the post in Obama’s White House on the condition that he would only stay for one year. White House officials said it wasn’t clear at the time that Podesta intended to work for Clinton when he left. “What John does on his personal time is not my matter,” said Denis McDonough, the White House chief of staff who repeatedly tried to lure Podesta back to the West Wing before finally succeeding in late 2013. For Obama and Clinton, affiliating with Podesta — a sharp political tactician and progressive policy wonk — is a way to signal to critics and wary supporters they are willing to recalibrate and learn from past mistakes. Obama brought on Podesta after the disastrous rollout of his health care law, a deeply challenging stretch that sparked questions about his competence and that of his tight-knit inner circle. Several current and former White House officials said Podesta quickly injected more depth into strategy discussions and would often play devil’s advocate, pushing the team to consider things not on their radar. Podesta also ingratiated himself with Obama’s team, particularly younger aides. An avid cook — his specialty is Italian, including risotto and biscotti — he would invite staffers to his home in Northwest Washington for celebratory dinners after finishing big projects. He and McDonough also developed a friendly rivalry in running races, with the chief of staff finally beating Podesta, 20 years McDonough’s senior, late last year. For Clinton, bringing on Podesta is widely viewed as an effort to avoid the disorganization and backbiting that plagued her 2008 bid. Though Podesta’s title is expected this time to be something akin to campaign chairman, he is expected to have a hand in day-to-day operations and is seen as one of the few staff members who can be candid with both Hillary and Bill Clinton. “He’ll be the one who can say, you really did this right, however on this, you’ve got to change — and won’t be afraid to do that,” said Vermont Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, who was Podesta’s boss on Capitol Hill during the 1980s. The exact kind of episode Podesta is being brought on to help avoid erupted Monday, as a clash between pro-Clinton fundraising groups became public when Clinton backer David Brock abruptly resigned from the board of Priorities USA Action, a super PAC. Hours later, Brock said he was willing to reconsider his resignation, but the incident nonetheless rekindled speculation about whether Clinton can keep internal rivalries at bay. Podesta, a married father of three, first crossed paths with the Clintons more than 40 years ago, when he and Bill Clinton worked on a 1970 Senate campaign in Connecticut. They stayed in touch as Clinton became Arkansas governor, and Podesta worked in Congress and started a lucrative lobbying firm with his brother, Tony. Podesta left the firm to join Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign, then followed him to the White House. It was Podesta who was tasked with navigating the Clintons through the numerous investigations, personal embarrassments and Clinton’s impeachment hearing — experiences that deepened the couple’s trust in him. After Republicans regained control of the White House in 2000, Podesta set to work carving out a home for liberal policy in the capital. With the help of donations from wealthy Democrats such as George Soros and Steve Bing, Podesta created the Center for American Progress, which grew into an influential think tank with deep ties to the Obama White House — in part because so many members of the White House staff have worked at the center at some point during their career. After leaving the White House later this month, Podesta plans to continue teaching a class at Georgetown University on congressional investigations until Clinton’s campaign offices opens in New York later this spring or summer. While Obama is known to be aggressive in seeking to retain staffers contemplating departures, sometimes even making in-person appeals to their spouses, White House officials say Podesta has been spared that hard-sell. The only message for Podesta, McDonough said, was that he wanted to “get him as long as I could.” Progressives’ non-Hillary hope: a socialist non-Democrat? (Toronto Star) By Daniel Dale February 9, 2015 The Toronto Star WASHINGTON—Angry speech complete, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who is giving “serious thought” to running for president, sat down to take questions from the Brookings Institution audience. “No one would accuse you of being ‘Morning in America’ with your presentation today,” pundit Mark Shields began, referring to the sunny Ronald Reagan campaign ad. “My wife often tells me that after I speak we have to pass out the tranquilizers and the anti-suicide kits,” Sanders said. “I’ve been trying to be more cheerful!” White hair askew, suit jacket creased, Sanders, a 73-year-old whose Brooklyn accent occasionally turns Obama into “Obamer,” looks and sounds the part of doomsday prophet. On Monday, he said that America is either on the road to “oligarchy” or already there, that the conservative Koch brothers might have successfully purchased the country with campaign donations, and that resistance to “the billionaire class” from a grassroots candidate like him might be futile. “If you had two million people, a phenomenal response, putting in $100 bucks, that’s $200 million. That is 20 per cent of what the Koch brothers themselves are prepared to spend. Can we take that on? I don’t know the answer,” he said. “Maybe the game is over. Maybe they have bought the United States government. Maybe there is no turning back. Maybe we’ve gone over the edge. I don’t know. I surely hope not.” This man could be progressive Democrats’ last great 2016 hope. Sanders is not even a registered Democrat: though he caucuses with the party, he has sat as an independent since he was elected to Congress in 1990. He self-identifies as a democratic socialist. In an Iowa church basement in December, he called for “a political revolution in this country.” Not the stuff of major-party nominees. But no one else with sterling progressive credentials appears to possess the martyrdom instinct to stand in front of the Hillary Clinton express. A small but vocal effort to draft Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the most formidable left-leaning Democrat, has shown no sign of accomplishing anything. Warren would be a long-shot. Sanders may be a no-shot. But his presence in the debate could at least drag Clinton to the left on economic policy. And some activists believe his candour on the gap between rich and poor, which he described Monday as “grotesque and growing,” would keep him afloat. “Any candidate who speaks up as aggressively and as forthrightly as Sen. Sanders has on the growing income inequality in this country is a viable candidate. Income inequality will be the defining issue of the 2016 election,” said Neil Sroka, communications director for Democracy for America, a political action committee founded by former candidate Howard Dean. Democracy for America is trying to convince Warren to enter the race. She keeps saying no. Sroka said the group is supportive of a Sanders candidacy even if Warren gets to yes. “I think having more candidates in the 2016 Democratic primary talking about income inequality issues ensures that every single candidate has to talk about those issues,” he said. Much of the recession-era country has come around to Sanders’s anti-elite fury. He said Monday that “the business model of Wall Street is fraud and deception,” demonstrating a populist frankness resonant with the segment of the Democratic base uneasy with Clinton’s coziness with big donors. Sanders offered a 12-point prescription for change. He called for a doubling of the federal minimum wage to “at least” $15 per hour, $1 trillion in infrastructure spending, repealing NAFTA, Europe-like free university tuition, and a Canada-like single-payer health-care system that insures everyone. Obamacare, he said, has been only a “modest success.” He said he has seen “a lot of sentiment that enough is enough, that we need fundamental changes.” Lest anyone get too excited, he added a caveat. “On the other hand, I also understand political realities,” he said. “And that is: when you take on the billionaire class, it ain’t easy.” Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said on Monday that America is either on the road to “oligarchy” or already there. Sanders: I would ‘run to win’ in 2016 (Hill) By Kevin Cirilli February 9, 2015 The Hill Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) says he will be running to win in 2016 if he decides to challenge Hillary Clinton in a Democratic primary. “I am giving thought to running for president of the United States,” Sanders said in a speech at the Brookings Institution in Washington on Monday. “But don’t tell my wife... If I run I want to run to win and to run to win we need to have millions of people actively involved.” Sanders said he’d need the help of a “vibrant grassroots movement all over this country that says to the billionaire class, ‘Sorry — government is going to work for all of us and not just for the one percent.’“ Sanders, who caucuses in with Democrats in the Senate, declined to say whether he would enter into the race if Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) decided to run, too. Warren has insisted she’s not running for president, but progressive grassroots groups are trying to change her mind. Sanders called Warren “brilliant.” “I will not be a spoiler,” Sanders said, reiterating previous comments that he’s made about how he would not run as an independent but as a Democrat. “If I run and if Secretary Clinton runs what I would hope would happen is that we have a debate about how you rebuild the middle class,” Sanders said. “I also understand political realities and that is when you take on the billionaire class -- it ain’t easy.” Clinton maintains a dominant lead in 2016 Democratic polling against Sanders, Warren and Vice President Biden. None of the prospective Democratic candidates have officially declared they are running. Sanders criticized Wall Street extensively, saying it had become “an island unto itself where its goal is to make as much money as it can.” “I don’t want to be too dramatic here, but I happen to believe that the business model of Wall Street is fraud and deception,” Sanders said. How Bernie Sanders Would Run Against Hillary Clinton (National Journal) By Lauren Fox February 9, 2015 The National Journal Sen. Bernie Sanders has a clear view of what he will be up against if he runs for president in 2016; billionaires, Wall Street, Hillary Clinton, and a less-than-stellar name ID. But while the Vermont senator once received single digit-support for statewide elections in Vermont, he has shown a propensity as a pragmatic campaigner with keen insight into what it takes to spark a grassroots movement. But whether he can mobilize enough people in 2016 to make the race worth his while is still a question even he has not answered. “I don’t want to run a futile campaign,” Sanders said during an appearance at the Brookings Institution Monday. In recent months, Sanders has traveled around the country, hitting early primary states like New Hampshire and Iowa. He’s confident, in talking with voters, that there is an appetite for a straight talking candidate in the Democratic primary who can articulate a clear vision to reduce income inequality and isn’t afraid to call out Wall Street as a business model built on “fraud and deception.” If he does run, Sanders said, he’s not looking to be a “spoiler” in the mode of Ralph Nader. He’s instead considering shedding his “independent” label and jumping into the race for the Democratic ticket, where he fully recognizes he’d likely be going head-to-head on the debate stage with the Democratic Party’s presumptive candidate Hillary Clinton. Sanders sees running against Clinton, however, as an opportunity not to tear her apart politically, but to distinguish himself and force the party to have a serious policy discussion on issues as diverse as income inequality and foreign policy. “This is a woman I respect, clearly a very intelligent person who I think is impressive on issues by the way,” Sanders said. “I think we have a debate about how you rebuild a crumbling middle-class, a debate about how you reverse climate change, a debate about the foreign policy...a debate about Wall Street, and that would be, I think, good for the American people, to be honest with you.” On Monday, Sanders began by distinguishing himself on foreign policy. He reasserted his opposition to more troops in Iraq, a conflict Clinton initially voted in favor of authorizing military action for during her time in the Senate. Sanders also said he feared the U.S. was entangling itself in an “endless war” in the Middle East. Instead of the U.S. spending its resources and developing the lead strategy, countries like Saudi Arabia, for example, needed to step up, he said. Sanders also announced he would not attend Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s planned address to Congress, an issue Clinton has yet to weigh in on. Sanders emphasized that, despite pointing out contrasts, he won’t run negative ads against Clinton. He didn’t during his mayoral races, Senate races or for congressional seats, he said. And he is not going to start now. “It is not my style to trash people,” Sanders said. While Sanders said he doesn’t expect fellow progressive Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., to jump into the presidential fray, he didn’t miss an opportunity to highlight her vision and accomplishments before the audience at Brookings. “We brought senator, well Elizabeth Warren to the town meetings and she blew me away with her ability to deal with complicated economic issues in a language that people could understand,” Sanders said. “I’m a fan of Elizabeth Warren.” The main obstacle for Sanders may not just be Clinton, however. Part of running a successful campaign is filling campaign coffers. And, in a cycle where the billionaire Koch brothers have already pledged to spend almost $900 million, Sanders will have to do better than merely relying on his engaged network to make small donations. That remains a stumbling block Sanders is not confident he can overcome. “If you had two million people putting in 100 bucks, that’s $200 million, that is 20 percent of what the Koch brothers themselves are prepared to spend,” Sanders said. “Can you take that on? I don’t know the answer. Maybe the game is over. Maybe they have bought a United States government. Maybe there is no turning back. I don’t know. I surely hope not, but we have to look at that reality.” If he is going to run, Sanders says he has to be sure he is going to make a serious impact on the race if he does. “I want to do it well and it’s important not just for my ego I do it well. It’s important for millions of people who share the same set of beliefs that I hold,” Sanders said. “To do it well, we would have to put together the strongest grassroots movement in the modern history of this country with millions of people are saying, ‘you know what? Enough is enough. We are going to take on the billionaire class.’“ Is Bernie Sanders The 2016 Progressive Candidate? He’s Considering A “Not Hillary” Presidential Campaign (Bustle) By Alicia Adamczyk February 9, 2015 Bustle She might not have officially announced a run for president in 2016, but progressives are already offering alternatives to a Hillary Clinton candidacy. Sen. Elizabeth Warren is often the first name that comes to mind, but Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, is also toying with the idea of launching a campaign as the “Not Hillary” candidate. But does he have a chance? Since speculation began that Clinton would launch another bid for president, some progressive groups have been actively seeking an alternative candidate, one a little more outside the establishment than Clinton, who could take the nomination or at least move the former Secretary of State a bit more to the left on key issues. Although populist candidate Warren, who made a name for herself as a crusader against moneyed Wall Street interests, has been the favorite, Sanders is also drawing attention for his longtime commitment to liberal causes and aversion to playing political games. In an interview with MSNBC on Saturday, Sanders promised there would be “real differences” between himself and Clinton. But Sanders has no organized campaign infrastructure and lacks the funding that Clinton and Warren are already enjoying from PACs established months, and in Clinton’s case, years, ago. In early polls, he trails Clinton by more than 50 points. At 73, he is six years older than Clinton, who already had to defend herself against arguments that she is too old to effectively lead the nation. Not that Sanders seems to be particularly worried. At a conference this weekend held by Keystone Progress, the largest progressive organization in Pennsylvania, Sanders went after billionaires, saying they are “addicted to money,” and calling for a “political revolution” that would take the country back in time and allow Americans to support their families on a 40-hour work week. He is expected to further lay out his agenda at the Brookings Institution on Monday. The executive director of Democracy for America Charles Chamberlain told MSNBC in December: The results from our first 2016 presidential pulse poll indicates that progressives want to hear from many candidates during the nomination process and that the fight for the support of Democrats’ grassroots base is far from over. Warren, for her part, has repeatedly said she does not want to run for president and has given no indication that she will change her mind. Once it becomes clear she isn’t in the running, Sanders will likely enjoy support from current Warren proponents. Will it be enough? If he can reinvigorate the Democratic base, get them mad enough about those “addicted to money” billionaires and inspired by his political revolution, he might have a chance. Hillary Clinton Gets Ready with A Big Team-in-Waiting for Presidential Race Campaign (International Business Times) By Kalyan Kumar February 9, 2015 International Business Times Hillary Clinton, widely considered as the Democratic nominee for the Presidency race of 2016 has quietly put together a massive campaign team-in-waiting. Interestingly, this is before any official announcement has been made on her candidature. In terms of the size and talent of Clinton team, reports say that it can outstrip anything that is on the rival Republican side. The Washington Post reports that Clinton has already appointed a campaign chairman, campaign manager, chief strategist and lead pollster, associate pollster, lead media adviser, communication director, deputy communications director, focus group director and communications strategist. The report also added that Clinton is close to finalising her New York City campaign headquarters and looking for a suitable date to make these official announcements. White House senior adviser John Podesta is reportedly heading the recruitment of Clinton’s team. But the final decision is vetted by Clinton herself. Though Clinton faces no competition for Democratic campaign talent, she has told senior advisers that the legal framework of the campaign needs to be in place by this spring. The report says that the advanced planning of the campaign team is also a sign that Clinton will be the official Democratic nominee, who will run in support of a sitting president and his agenda. Clinton has already hired many former aides of President Obama to assist her in the campaign. Key Obama Aide Jim Messina, who was with Mr Obama during his campaign and engineered Clinton’s downfall in 2008, is the head of super Political Action Committee devoted to supporting her in 2016. “It’s her turn and her time,” he said on MSNBC and added “we’re going to do whatever it takes to make sure she’s the president of the United States.” Thus the political machinery that helped in the victory of Mr Obama twice, has thrown its weight behind Clinton candidacy. While Podesta is advising Clinton unofficially, he may soon take up the post of campaign chairman and has announced the decision to leave the White House within a few weeks. White House communications director Jennifer Palmieri will be donning the role of communication head in the Clinton campaign. Clinton’s close advisers are also looking at ways to keep her in a fighting mode throughout the slow and uneventful early phase of the campaign. There will also be a strategy to distance herself from Mr Obama regime by focusing more on populist and base-friendly economic issues despite her association with Mr Obama administration as a former secretary of state. Clinton is keen to project her foreign policy to be more self-assured than that of Mr Obama. Sander’s Challenge Meanwhile, Hill News reports that Senator Bernie Sanders can be a challenger to Clinton in the primarry. He has claimed that voters will see stark differences between himself and Hillary Clinton if the two decide to run for the White House in 2016. Sanders told on MSNBC’s “Up with Steve Kornacki” that though he likes and respects Hillary Clinton, on issues like massive investments in infrastructure, real tax reform and “on the need to deal in a very bold way with the planetary crisis of climate change, with the transpacific partnership, I suspect we will have some real differences.” Sanders is mulling to enter the 2016 Democratic presidential primary. If Sanders runs, he will be highlighting the goals of the progressive wing of the party, which wants bold policies to address the rising income inequality in the United States. White House candidates are in no hurry this time (McClatchy) By David Lightman February 9, 2015 McClatchy Washington Bureau WASHINGTON There’s one year to go before the presidential voting starts, and no one’s even inching to the starting gate. No one’s formally announced. No one’s close. The field of potential candidates for the 2016 Democratic and Republican presidential nominations is mum about officially running. They’re raising money, ripping rivals, speaking at Iowa breakfasts, lunches and dinners – but they’re holding back on the formal announcement. It’s a stark contrast from 2007 – the last time there was no incumbent running – when most of the the big-name candidates were all in by mid-February. Three days after Christmas 2006, Democrat John Edwards formally kicked off the season with an announcement tour that began in New Orleans, at a home being rebuilt after Hurricane Katrina . On Jan. 20, 2007, exactly two years before the next inauguration, Hillary Clinton declared “I’m in” on her website and released a one-minute 45-second video from a cozy den. She said she was “beginning a conversation with you.” That same month, Joe Biden, Bill Richardson and Chris Dodd joined the race. On Feb. 10, 2007, in the shadow of the Old State Capitol and the legacy of Abraham Lincoln in Springfield, Ill., Barack Obama entered , and three days later, Mitt Romney announced in Michigan. This year, no one’s in a hurry. Party bigwigs say the race has already begun unofficially in early-voting states such as Iowa. The evidence: More than 1,000 Iowa Republican activists spent all day Jan. 24 listening to potential candidates. “That event allowed them to begin their campaigns without actually having to begin their campaigns,” explained Iowa Republican Chairman Jeff Kaufmann. They can continue those campaigns without saying they’re campaigns. Republicans will gather at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland later this month. A week later, at least eight potential candidates are to appear at Iowa Ag Summit . New Hampshire Republicans are organizing a big get-together in mid-April . They have a lot of reasons to stay coy: – The Clinton factor. Her likely summer decision “buys people time. They want to see who they may be running against,” said Judy Davidson, Scott County, Iowa, Republican chairwoman. If Clinton is out, a lot of Republicans and Democrats see big opportunities. – The weather factor. The average Des Moines daily high never climbs above freezing during January, and Manchester, N.H., is almost as frozen . It’s better to stage the big event when the candidate isn’t risking pneumonia. When Obama announced his candidacy eight Februarys ago, the outdoor temperature was about 20. – The legal factor. Once someone formally becomes a candidate under federal campaign-finance laws, the candidate has to disclose personal finances, register with the Federal Election Commission and file regular statements detailing spending and contributions. – The scrutiny factor. Once you’re really in, the media won’t let you alone. If you’re not, you can skip big events without looking rude and claim a reason to duck reporters. The Republican National Committee has cited 28 instances since last spring when Clinton’s camp refused to respond to media requests. – The Romney factor. The 2012 Republican nominee said late last month that he was out . 2016 hopefuls pounced, now that his donors and supporters were free. That crowd is now wooable, and that means a lot of time on the phone and in small meetings, not on the stump making speeches. Then there’s the practical way to look at an announcement: Has anyone ever won or lost because they delayed their candidacy announcement a couple of months in the year before an election? RNC launching ‘Hillary’s hiding’ campaign (Politico) By Gabriel Debenedetti February 9, 2015 Politico Nearly two dozen Republicans are in the early stages of clawing at each other over the 2016 presidential nomination, but that’s not stopping national party leaders from lobbing new attacks at Hillary Clinton ahead of the Democrat’s all-but-certain presidential campaign roll-out. The latest front in Republicans’ anti-Clinton effort will launch on Tuesday morning, with the Republican National Committee’s “Hillary’s Hiding” campaign designed to highlight the former secretary of state’s recent lack of straightforward political activity despite her presumed pre-candidate status. The RNC’s effort will include billboards in early-primary/caucus states such as Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, op-eds, and videos like the two-minute post it plans to unveil Tuesday featuring edited clips of President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest, and Clinton, branding her candidacy as “#Obama’s 3rd term.” “What’s the only way not to seem like she’s campaigning?” asks RNC communications director Sean Spicer in the planned campaign kick-off memo. “Go into hiding.” The memo notes that Clinton has not held a press conference in over 200 days, and has not been to either Iowa or New Hampshire since November’s midterms. It also details 28 times Clinton’s camp has declined to comment on the record for press stories since May. Clinton allies largely maintain that there is no need for her to start campaigning yet given her strong position in preliminary polling, and that as a non-candidate there is no reason for her to hold press conferences. “If she runs she will take nothing for granted, and she will fight for every vote. Anyone who thinks otherwise should think again,” said Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill. The former senator and first lady has not yet formally embarked on a 2016 run, but a number of high-profile Democratic operatives have already signed onto her effort while other potential contenders for the nomination — including former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb, and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders — struggle to gain traction. Clinton has avoided political appearances since the midterms, and Spicer’s memo alleges that her silence is part of a “strategic decision that the only way to ensure she is the Democratic nominee is to make everyone think she’s inevitable.” The memo also highlights liberal efforts to draft Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren to run for president, despite her own insistence that she is not running. Democrats and Republicans alike have publicly worried about the possibility that Clinton could face little Democratic opposition, and the RNC offensive is expected to recall low points of Clinton’s failed 2008 bid for the nomination, when her campaign was plagued by staff infighting and an overall sense of inevitability that backfired. A research guide attached to Spicer’s memo compares the ongoing pre-campaign state of Clinton’s candidacy to that run, and specifically points to the Monday resignation of Clinton ally David Brock from the board of the pro-Clinton super PAC Priorities USA as a sign of trouble. But the RNC campaign also comes as a wide field of current and former Republican public officials spreads out across the country to garner financial and political support before the party’s primary season, when the group is eager to avoid a scramble reminiscent of 2012’s drawn-out nominating battle. Clinton’s likely 2016 candidacy has been a target of national Republicans for over a year, and her record as secretary of state is regularly mentioned by GOP White House contenders campaigning across the country. So as Republican aspirants frequent Des Moines ballrooms and Manchester cafes, the “Hillary’s Hiding” campaign is just one in a series of the committee’s efforts to paint Clinton in a negative light. It is officially distinct from the “Hiding Hillary” Facebook page set up by Republican opposition research group America Rising on Friday, but the similarity indicates Republicans’ universal wish to combat Clinton’s candidacy early on. Advice to Hillary: Run like insurgent (USAT) By Susan Page February 9, 2015 USA Today CHICAGO — She’s the prohibitive Democratic front-runner, David Axelrod says, but if Hillary Rodham Clinton is going to win the White House in 2016 she needs to campaign like an insurgent. Axelrod has credentials to make the critique: He was the strategist for challenger Barack Obama when he wrested the Democratic nomination from her the last time she was the front-runner, in 2008. In his memoir, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics, published Tuesday by Penguin Press, Axelrod recalls both how Clinton’s caution and missteps cost her the nomination — and how she then countered and threatened to win it back. “What she can’t rely on, and I don’t think she will, is the Clinton name, although the Clinton name trades very high in American politics,” Axelrod told Capital Download in an interview at his office at the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics. “Americans are always about the future. Bill Clinton was famously the one who said that, and he was right. So she needs a very well-conceived message about where she wants to lead the country. If she doesn’t have that, then it does become a problem. .... “I think she has to approach this campaign like a challenger, not like a front-runner — like an insurgent.” That means not only delivering speeches but also connecting viscerally with voters, making herself vulnerable and approachable the way she did in New Hampshire after losing the Iowa caucuses, and not shying from primary debates even against a distant field. While she’s one of the most familiar faces in American politics, she has to project a fresh and forward-looking message that tells people where she wants to take the country. That said, some of the characteristics that hurt Clinton’s campaign last time should help her now, he says. After eight years of President Obama — and amid disappointment over what Axelrod calls his “great, unfulfilled promise” to change the capital’s politics — voters may well be looking for a Washington insider who knows how to make a gridlocked system operate. “Her status as someone who had worked within Washington and who was familiar with Washington was actually a liability” then, Axelrod says. Now, “people are going to be looking, as they always do, not for the replica but for the remedy. They’re going to want someone who knows how to manage the system, navigate the system, and I think her skill set and her background are probably better for this campaign than they were for the last.” While Democrats retain advantages in presidential politics, especially among an increasingly diverse electorate, he says former Florida governor Jeb Bush would be a formidable Republican opponent, especially if he can resist being pulled to the right during the GOP’s primary battles. “Jeb Bush, obviously, is someone who’s supported immigration reform, who supported education reform. If he can stick to his guns and hold those positions, I don’t think we Democrats can take our tactical advantages for granted. I don’t think having demographic advantages and the kind of advantages that we’ve counted on in the past few elections are enough.” He dismisses Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, another GOP hopeful, as “the flavor of the month” who “gave a great speech at a little meeting in Iowa” but is untested on the national stage. TURKEY LEG DAY AT MANNY’S Axelrod, who turns 60 this month, is one of the most successful strategists in modern American politics. He has helped elect not only a president but also senators, governors and a string of mayors. But he still projects the air of the rumpled political reporter he once was for The Chicago Tribune, and his favorite place to eat is still Manny’s, the legendary deli that is a favored hang-out of pols and press. “I haven’t been to Manny’s in a while,” he says eagerly on the drive over through snowy Chicago streets. “Well, not since last week.” Fortuitously, it is turkey leg day at Manny’s. The counterman in the cafeteria line doesn’t even wait for Axelrod to order before he puts a comically large turkey leg on his plate and covers it with gravy that will eventually make a spotted pattern across the front of Axelrod’s blue dress shirt. (Fortuitously, he isn’t wearing a tie.) Axelrod’s 509-page memoir already has caused a bit of a stir, especially over his depiction of the concession call Republican Mitt Romney made on election night in 2012. “Obama said the appropriate things,” he recalls, but “was unsmiling during the call, and slightly irritated when it was over.” Obama then told those around him that Romney had congratulated him on doing “a great job in getting the vote out in places like Cleveland and Milwaukee.” “In other words, black people,” Obama said after hanging up. “That’s what he thinks this was all about.” That account heatedly was denied by Garrett Jackson, Romney’s body man in 2012, who was in the room with the Republican and told Politico’s Playbook that Axelrod “concocted” the exchange. “There was nothing about voter turnout,” he said. Romney aides have lined up behind Jackson’s account; Obama aides behind Axelrod’s account. “I appreciate his loyalty to his guy,” Axelrod told USA TODAY’s video newsmaker series in his first public response. “And the truth is, I don’t think Romney, and I didn’t imply that Romney, was being ungracious. I think Romney was trying to pay a compliment. It was a reflection of how two guys viewed things from a different lens.” The lens of race, that is. During the 2008 campaign and in the White House, Axelrod and other top Obama aides routinely turned aside questions about the role of race in Obama’s political support and his opposition. In his book and the interview, however, Axelrod describes it as an unavoidable factor that has helped shape and complicate Obama’s rise and his presidency. “I’ve always sort of resisted answering that question in the past because I never wanted to imply that somehow he was being treated unfairly or that whatever our political problems were, were a consequence only of race,” he says. “But I do think that there are some people who have a hard time accepting that America’s becoming more diverse and we have an African American president; I don’t think there’s any question about that. And has it infused some of the debate? I think it has.” He recalls the outburst in 2009 from South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson during Obama’s address to a Joint Session of Congress. “I don’t think any other president has had someone stand up in the chambers of Congress during his speech and yell, ‘You lie,’ “ Axelrod says. “I don’t think any other president has had people persistently challenge his very citizenship. I think those are consequences of his background and his race.” Axelrod’s portrait of Obama is overwhelmingly positive and admiring. But he expresses frustration about Obama’s inclination to separate campaigning from governing, an attitude that hampered his ability to connect with Americans and get things through Congress once in office. For an undeniably successful politician, he often didn’t seem to like politics. “I think he likes people, (but) I don’t know that he likes the politics of Washington very much,” Axelrod admits, and his disdain can infect his relationships with other powerful figures in town. “He doesn’t always deal well with people who don’t share his view that winning elections isn’t the most important thing, that getting big things done is the most important thing.” In his re-election bid in 2012, Obama rejected his aides’ appeals for more rehearsals and their critique that he wasn’t ready for the first debate against Romney. The night before the debate, when they sat down to review a tape of the final rehearsal, Axelrod began by saying there was “some stuff we need to clean up.” That prompted the president to hurl an unprintable expletive at him and stalk from the room. Obama’s performance at the debate the next night was disastrous, though he would recover and win a second term. ‘AN UNWORTHY NITWIT’ Axelrod’s portrait of other political candidates he has encountered over the past four decades is considerably less glowing that his picture of Obama. • Andrew Stein, one of his first clients, won election to the New York State Assembly in 1968. “I couldn’t shake this nagging feeling that, for a few bucks, we had just helped install an unworthy nitwit in public office.” Stein later served as Manhattan Borough president and president of the New York City Council. • Rod Blagojevich summoned him to discuss his 2002 bid for governor of Illinois. “Why do you want to be governor?” Axelrod asked. Blagojevich replied, “You can help me figure that out.” Axelrod declined to work for the campaign. Blagojevich was elected but was later convicted of corruption. • John Edwards hired Axelrod for his 2004 presidential campaign, to the consultant’s quick regret. “The most difficult personality in this caustic stew was Elizabeth,” he writes. “If her attitude toward John was right out of My Fair Lady” – she saw him as a hick whom she had educated – “her approach to the campaign bore a greater resemblance to The Manchurian Candidate. John Edwards became the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2004; in 2011 he was indicted but not convicted of charges of violating campaign finance laws in his 2008 presidential bid to cover up an affair. Elizabeth Edwards died of cancer in 2010. Axelrod portrays himself as figure with flaws as well, particularly in his willingness to sacrifice his family life for his career, particularly after his daughter, Lauren, began to struggle with epilepsy. “One of the hard things in writing the book was to confront the choices I made,” he says. “As you draw your last breath, you’re not going to say, ‘I wish I had taken this race or that race.’ “ He attributes some of those choices to an unhealthy need to seek approval and affirmation that may have stemmed from a difficult early family life, growing up in New York City’s Stuyvesant Town. His mother, a groundbreaking journalist, was driven and distant. His father was warm but sometimes adrift, and he committed suicide when his son was 19 years old and a a student at the University of Chicago. The notification of his death, Axelrod says, signaled the end of his childhood. “Dad left me seventeen thousand dollars, an old Plymouth Fury, and a broken heart,” he writes. “For years after his death, the anniversary announced itself to me through bouts of depression and self-doubt.” Nowadays, though, he seems happy as an academic, a commentator on MSNBC and an adviser on some foreign campaigns in Great Britain and elsewhere. As he heads out of the grand old house that has been converted to the Institute of Politics offices, Don Rose, a legendary leftist Chicago political consultant, is holding forth to students in the living room. At Manny’s, David Bonoma, a local lawyer, comes 