podesta_email_19186.txt

podesta-emails 10,108 words email

D6 V11 P22 P17 P20

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*​**Correct The Record Monday September 29, 2014 Morning Roundup:* *Headlines:* *New York Daily News: “Bill and Hillary Clinton return to hospital to see Chelsea and granddaughter Charlotte” <http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/bill-hillary-clinton-resume-adoring-grandparents-article-1.1956330>* [Subtitle:] “The Clintons visited Lenox Hill Hospital on Sunday to see daughter Chelsea Clinton and granddaughter Charlotte, who was born Friday. They arrived late in the afternoon and stayed well after dinner.” *Politico Magazine: “Can Hillary Overcome Iowa’s Woman Problem?” <http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/09/can-hillary-overcome-iowas-woman-problem-111407.html#.VCkxOvldWSo>* “Campbell became determined to help Hillary Clinton do what she herself couldn’t do during that run for governor: win in Iowa.” *New York Magazine blog: Daily Intelligencer: “The New York Post Wastes Absolutely No Time Attacking Chelsea Clinton's Baby” <http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/09/new-york-post-welcomes-clinton-baby.html>* “With Sunday's paper, the conservative tabloid welcomed Bill and Hillary's first grandchild in true Post fashion, complete with partisan rancor, irrational outrage, and multiple pieces of wordplay. “ *New Republic: “How Do We Know Hillary’s Approach to Inequality Won’t Work? Brazil” <http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119622/inequality-brazil-shows-why-hillary-clinton-wrong>* “Essentially, Clinton has argued that the answer is to boost the economic lot of ‘people on the bottom and people in the middle class [who] no longer feel like they have the opportunity to do better.’ Lift more people out of poverty and get middle class incomes growing again, and inequality will diminish. This isn’t really true.” *Politico Magazine: “Can Hillary Overcome Iowa’s Woman Problem?” <http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/09/can-hillary-overcome-iowas-woman-problem-111407.html#.VCkxOvldWSo>* “Campbell became determined to help Hillary Clinton do what she herself couldn’t do during that run for governor: win in Iowa.” *Washington Post: “Jim Webb, former senator from Va., takes on his party’s hawks. And maybe Clinton.” <http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/jim-webb-former-senator-from-va-takes-on-his-partys-hawks-and-maybe-clinton/2014/09/28/ba12f572-43f1-11e4-9a15-137aa0153527_story.html>* “Still, as the national debate turns increasingly toward questions of U.S. military involvement abroad, Webb — a decorated Vietnam veteran who is antiwar — may be uniquely positioned to be a disruptive force on an issue where many Democrats consider Clinton compromised.” *New York Times: “House Hopefuls in G.O.P. Seek Rightward Shift” <http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/29/us/politics/midterm-elections-house-republicans.html?ref=politics&_r=0>* “One nominee proposed reclassifying single parenthood as child abuse… Still another labeled Hillary Rodham Clinton ‘the Antichrist.’” *Townhall: “Source: Clinton Directly Involved In Terrorist Group ‘Security Force’ At Benghazi” <http://townhall.com/columnists/lawrencemeyers/2014/09/29/source-clinton-directly-involved-in-terrorist-group-security-force-at-benghazi-n1897853?utm_source=TopBreakingNewsCarousel&utm_medium=story&utm_campaign=BreakingNewsCarousel>* “A source who has asked to remain anonymous due to their proximity to the investigation, said that much of the blame for the murders rests squarely within the State Department, then under the command of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.” *New York Magazine blog: Daily Intelligencer: “Martin O'Malley Is Campaigning For...” <http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/09/martin-omalley-is-campaigning-for.html?mid=twitter_dailyintelligencer>* “He beamed from the podium as the crowd stood to applaud. ‘You all fired up?’ he asked. And they were fired up, as well as curious and skeptical. Who was O’Malley? What was he doing there?” *Articles:* *New York Daily News: “Bill and Hillary Clinton return to hospital to see Chelsea and granddaughter Charlotte” <http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/bill-hillary-clinton-resume-adoring-grandparents-article-1.1956330>* By Dale Eisinger September 29, 2014, 12:49 a.m. EDT [Subtitle:] The Clintons visited Lenox Hill Hospital on Sunday to see daughter Chelsea Clinton and granddaughter Charlotte, who was bornFriday. They arrived late in the afternoon and stayed well after dinner. Bill and Hillary Clinton continued to play the role of excited grandparents Sunday. The once and perhaps future White House residents went to Lenox Hill Hospital in the late afternoon to see daughter Chelsea Clinton, resting after giving birth Friday night to daughter Charlotte. The former First Couple stayed until well after dinner with Chelsea and her husband Marc Mezvinsky, offering no comment as they left the Upper East Side medical center. Chelsea and Mezvinsky remained in a posh and private hospital suite o the same floor where Beyoncé delivered Blue Ivy in 2012. *Politico Magazine: “Can Hillary Overcome Iowa’s Woman Problem?” <http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/09/can-hillary-overcome-iowas-woman-problem-111407.html#.VCkxOvldWSo>* By Dave Price September 28, 2014 Bonnie Campbell knows all about winning, losing and history. Campbell is a longtime Iowa Democratic activist, former state party chair and prominent Des Moines attorney But Iowans really learned her name in 1990, when Campbell became state attorney general. No Iowa woman had ever done that. That was Campbell’s lesson in both winning and history. Four years later, she got a painful lesson in both losing and history. Campbell recalls a conversation from back then. “Some people said it to my face,” Campbell says, “They would just say ... and they weren’t being mean or anything ... they would say, ‘I can’t see a woman as governor.’” She heard comments like those too many times to count during her campaign for governor in 1994. They weren’t being mean—just honest, Campbell believed. “They just weren’t ready for a woman to be governor,” she says now. The final numbers showed it: Campbell mustered just 42 percent of the votes. The popular Republican governor, Terry Branstad, finished with 57 percent. (Branstad, by the way, is back in the governor’s mansion following a 12-year absence. He is already the state’s longest-serving governor. And if he wins re-election in November, Branstad would hold the distinction of serving more years as governor—24 years—than anyone in U.S. history.) Twenty years after Campbell’s failed bid, no Iowa woman has yet been elected governor. Or to Congress. Or won an Iowa Caucus. None. Flash forward to late 2013. That’s when Campbell started having serious conversations with friends. “People kept coming up to me and said Hillary has to run,” Campbell says. Campbell will often say “Hillary” or “Bill.” And she isn’t name-dropping. She is on a first-name basis with both Clintons. They have known each other for more than 20 years. President Clinton hired her during his first term to head the Justice’s Department’s Violence Against Women Office. They stayed in touch after he left office. The Clintons called years later to check in on her as Campbell’s husband, Ed, was dying of cancer. Campbell became determined to help Hillary Clinton do what she herself couldn’t do during that run for governor: win in Iowa. They thought they could do it in 2008. With Campbell serving as the campaign’s Midwest co-chair, Clinton, the only female presidential candidate for her party that year, finished with an impressive 737 delegates. (That was nearly 30 percent of the total. But Clinton’s presence in the race helped attract nearly 240,000 Democratic caucus-goers, which more than doubled the 2004 turnout.) Campbell realizes many wouldn’t use the word “impressive” to describe Clinton’s 2008 campaign. But she thinks Clinton gets unfairly criticized for the 2008 Iowa Caucus efforts. “I think it’s important to understand what happened,” She said, “Hillary’s campaign got out more supporters than anyone ever had. But Barack got more.” John did, too. Edwards beat Clinton’s third-place finish. Obama beat them both. He won the caucuses, on his way to making history of his own as the first African American to win Iowa’s cherished first-in-the-nation event and, later, the first to become president. Campbell says Americans were ready for history then. And they are ready for history again. “It’s time ... we need to do it historically to show the world that women can do this,” Campbell says. Enter “Ready for Hillary.” Campbell is one of its proudest volunteers. No fancy title, she says: “If they want me to go somewhere and talk to somebody, I do it.” Ready for Hillary is a political action committee, unlike one anyone here can recall ever seeing, with one mission: “Organization, organization, organization,” says Campbell. “It’s really the group that’s goal is to set the table for a hopeful ... slash ... eventual ... Clinton campaign,” says Derek Eadon, a Des Moines Democratic political consultant. Like everyone else in the political world, Eadon thinks Clinton will run for president. She just hasn’t announced it yet. Eadon admits, “I usually use ‘if’ and ‘when’ interchangeably.” Eadon, like Campbell, claims no special insider knowledge—it is just a matter of time in his mind. Until Clinton does announce, Eadon will get Iowa ready for her. He serves as Ready for Hillary’s Midwest regional director, but Iowa is his primary focus. He is one of only two paid staff, and there is no official Ready for Hillary office. So they work out of his political consulting business in Des Moines’ trendy East Village. Iowa has been Eadon’s focus for much of the past decade. In 2004, he helped out with attorney Art Small’s U.S. Senate campaign. Never heard of Iowa City’s Art Small? Most Iowans hadn’t either, although he did serve in the state legislature in the 1970s and 80s. Small ran a U.S. Senate campaign fitting of his name. Eadon worked for him. “For three weeks while they could pay me,” Eadon chuckled. Small lost big-time to longtime Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley. But Eadon gained a little experience. He got far more experience when he went on to become a field organizer for the Iowa Democratic Party in 2006. Then in 2007 Eadon really put that organizing experience to work. Not for Hillary Clinton’s Iowa campaign—for Barack Obama’s. Eadon is an Illinois native and had met Obama several times before he announced his presidential campaign. “I was only going to work for Obama,” Eadon says, “With presidential campaigns you have to make decisions with both the heart and the head.” Neither his heart nor his head was with Clinton in 2008. But both are now. It may seem a bit odd that someone like Eadon, who busted his butt to beat Clinton, became state director for the Obama campaign’s offshoot issue advocacy arm, Organizing for America, and later became state director for Obama’s second Iowa campaign would now spend his days trying to make a winner of the woman he helped defeat. “To me,” Eadon says, “The decision in 2007 ... it was less about Hillary and the other candidates. It was more about Obama.” But now it is more about Clinton. “She’s so well-known. The potential to have the first female president,” Eadon says. Many of Obama’s top Iowa supporters are now pushing Clinton’s second run, including former Obama campaign state director Jackie Norris and prominent Cedar Rapids lawmaker Tyler Olson. “[Clinton’s] time as secretary of state went a long way to win over Obama people who saw how she served,” says Eadon. “I think that’s done a lot.” And now Ready for Hillary has done a lot. A lot of organizing—something Clinton’s campaign was good at doing in 2008, but not nearly good enough to win Iowa. Eadon counts “tens of thousands” of Iowans who have joined the group’s Iowa email list of supporters. Many joined efforts to bring out the masses to retiring Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin’s final Steak Fry, his annual fundraising gathering, which also usually features a possible presidential candidate or two. Hillary and Bill Clinton headlined the event earlier this month—and Ready for Hillary was ready. “It was an event about Tom Harkin,” says Eadon, “But they made sure the signs [put up on the Warren County rural hillside where the event took place] said, ‘Thank you, Tom.’ So it wasn’t all about Hillary.” The group also made sure that thousands of Iowans who are all about Hillary for 2016 showed up. Volunteers set up phone banks to drive up interest in the event. They blasted out emails. They even bussed in supporters from college and university campuses in Iowa City, Ames, Cedar Falls and Grinnell. And they filled up several more busses from far-flung Marshalltown and Decorah, meaning the Clinton faithful came from all over the state. It’s hard to say how many people on that day came for Clinton and how many came to celebrate Harkin’s 40 years in Congress; Eadon can’t really guess. But it was easy to see Ready for Hillary’s reach. “It’s skyrocketed,” Eadon says. Busses, T-shirts, signs, bumper stickers. They were everywhere. And that doesn’t count the Ready for Hillary merchandise supporters could push the curious to find online. The group’s website sports Ready for Hillary baby onesies (think Chelsea’s baby has one of those waiting?), tote bags and even dog food bowls with “ready” and “Hillary” written prominently on the sides for when Fido gets his chow. “In this day of presidential politics, you need to have a movement behind you,” Eadon says. And he feels that movement is here and growing by the day. From a distance, Doug Gross isn’t convinced. Gross, a longtime Iowa Republican activist, Des Moines attorney and former gubernatorial candidate, helped lead Mitt Romney’s second-place 2008 Iowa Caucus campaign. Clinton almost has no choice but to rely on this Ready for Hillary effort, Gross says: “It’s necessary because she lost last time.” Gross’ chosen candidate in 2008, Romney, also tried a second time at a presidential campaign and lost the Iowa Caucuses again in 2012. But he thinks Clinton is different. Clinton got dinged by critics in 2008 for not coming to Iowa enough, but still expecting to win, in part, because of her famous name. Gross doesn’t deny the organization Ready for Hillary has been able to put together so far this year. But he describes it as “artificial.” It’s obvious to him Clinton will run. And the group’s spadework in Iowa means Clinton can largely stay away from the state, much like she did in 2007, and delay getting into the race. Clinton can also delay the rigors of campaigning, traveling, fundraising and organizing, especially if the group will take care of the latter two. “The only way to create a ground game is you have to be here a lot. Normally a ground game in a presidential race is usually inspired by a candidate, not the hope of a candidate,” Gross says. Bonnie Campbell would disagree with that. Hillary Clinton is inspiring this ground game and inspiring this effort. It just wouldn’t make sense for her to jump in too early. “It would be crazy for her to announce before this [2014] cycle was over,” Campbell says. Besides, Campbell argues, it’s unlikely that anyone would be able to beat Clinton. Polls show her an overwhelming favorite among Iowa Democrats, prominent Obama supporters have already bypassed Vice President Joe Biden to support Clinton in 2016, and the state’s party activists are too focused on this November. So is Ready for Hillary. Eadon says the group has given $30,000 to the Iowa Democratic Party for campaign efforts. The group’s volunteers are phone-banking, emailing and door-knocking for Iowa Democratic candidates statewide—including U.S. Senate candidate Bruce Braley who is in a battle for his political life, locked in a tougher-than-expected slugfest with previously little-known State Senator Joni Ernst, a Republican from southwest Iowa. Braley was Harkin’s personal choice to replace him. Clinton praised them both during her remarks at the Steak Fry. And she also took at shot at Ernst, who opposes abortion rights. Clinton said to the crowd, Iowans have “a chance to elect a senator who knows that women should be able to make our own health care decisions.” Supporters jumped to their feet with boisterous applause. Braley has to hope that enthusiasm follows him until November—but the latest Des Moines Register poll, which showed Ernst up by 6 points, does not look good for his chances. (Bill Clinton also tried to help Braley with words of support that day but bungled the candidate’s name, urging voters to “elect Bruce Bailey.”) Win or lose, all that 2014 work for Braley and others helps put Hillary’s early 2016 structure into place. Ready for Hillary, Eadon says, already has a presence in all of Iowa’s 99 counties, where volunteers have worked to get people involved in conventions at the district, county and state levels. By Election Day in 2016, Ready for Hillary will be as Iowan as corn. Campbell knows Hillary Clinton knows it. She only got to talk a few minutes with the Clintons at the Steak Fry, and never once did they talk about 2016, especially not with so many eager ears and eyes surrounding them, Campbell says. But Campbell knows what Clinton must have thought looking at the 10,000 strong gathered for her much-anticipated return: “Hillary must have looked out and said, ‘My, God!’” Campbell, the woman whose Iowa experience taught her more than she ever wanted to know about winning, losing and history will now try to make Hillary Clinton, a losing presidential candidate, into a winner and make history in Iowa and all across the country. Campbell is banking on the fact that Iowa is no longer the state that wasn’t ready for her own campaign two decades ago. “It’s a different day in Iowa,” she says. Iowa has more women serving in the state legislature than when Campbell ran. And the state has its best chance ever to send a woman to Washington for the first time. Ernst is one of three Iowa women with a realistic chance of winning their federal race. “Young women, they don’t even know what you’re talking about when you talk about the battles we had back then,” Campbell says. She feels the state has even changed since Clinton ran in 2008. Iowans celebrated making history with Obama back then. And they will once again embrace the chance to make history again—and Ready for Hillary will be there to make it happen, Campbell says. “When she announces, they can turn over a pretty significant organization. I’ve never seen anything like this!” Campbell exclaims. “It’s as if there is a campaign for Hillary without Hillary having announced.” That, of course, has been the idea all along. *New York Magazine blog: Daily Intelligencer: “The New York Post Wastes Absolutely No Time Attacking Chelsea Clinton's Baby” <http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/09/new-york-post-welcomes-clinton-baby.html>* By Caroline Bankoff September 28, 2014, 3:40 p.m. EDT Perhaps no publication was more excited about the birth of Charlotte Clinton Mezvinsky than ancient Clinton family enemy the New York Post. With Sunday's paper, the conservative tabloid welcomed Bill and Hillary's first grandchild in true Post fashion, complete with partisan rancor, irrational outrage, and multiple pieces of wordplay. "Another liberal crybaby for Dem Clintons," the cover trumpeted. "PARTY POOPER." The online coverage of the helpless infant was a bit gentler, noting that, "Little Charlotte was fashionably dressed for her first photo shoot in a pink-and-blue-striped white blanket and a pink knit cap with a floppy bow." But everyone knows the headlines are the Post's inimitable, dark heart and soul — and, honestly, we'd expect nothing less than this one. *New Republic: “How Do We Know Hillary’s Approach to Inequality Won’t Work? Brazil” <http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119622/inequality-brazil-shows-why-hillary-clinton-wrong>* By Noam Scheiber September 28, 2014 [Subtitle:] There's no alternative to targeting the rich To her credit, Hillary Clinton has seized on inequality as a theme of her proto-presidential campaign. She has despaired about the increasing “share of income and wealth going to those at the very top—not just the top 1 percent, but the top .1 percent or the .01 percent.” She has warned that inequality is an issue that “affects our democracy.” But when she has hinted at solutions to the problem, Clintons’ rhetoric has been much less rousing. Essentially, Clinton has argued that the answer is to boost the economic lot of “people on the bottom and people in the middle class [who] no longer feel like they have the opportunity to do better.” Lift more people out of poverty and get middle class incomes growing again, and inequality will diminish. This isn’t really true. The analytical mistake Clinton makes is to assume that inequality is one problem, when in fact it’s two. There’s the problem of economic stagnation for lower- and middle-income workers. And there’s the problem of the ultra-rich capturing more and more of the country’s income and wealth. And fixing one does not mean fixing the other. If you’re as concerned about the escalating power of the one percent as you are about the declining economic fortunes of folks at the bottom, then merely boosting the middle class will not suffice. We know this partly from a historical episode Clinton should be intimately acquainted with: her husband’s presidency. Over the course of those eight years, poverty declined and the middle-class saw some genuine gains, with average income for the non-wealthy increasing by about 15 percent. But the one percent’s share of income still skyrocketed, from just under 14 percent in 1993 to over 19 percent in 2000, according to data from Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty.1 Of course, one could argue that in the ‘90s the inequality problem hadn’t yet penetrated the mind the way it has since the recent financial crisis and recession. There was no Piketty yet—or at least no Piketty—and no Occupy Wall Street. Had inequality been the preoccupation it is today, Bill Clinton might have worked even harder to raise the incomes of people at the bottom and middle. But even if he’d succeeded, it still wouldn’t have done much to ease inequality. The example of Brazil illustrates why. Brazil is one of the most notoriously unequal countries in the world. During the 2000s, the government of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva made reducing inequality a priority. Lula’s approach was essentially the one Hillary advocates: boosting the economic prospects of the less fortunate. Partly this came from a sustained period of growth, something Brazil hadn’t seen in nearly a generation. Partly it came from increases in the minimum wage. And partly it came from investments in education and welfare benefits—most prominently, the Bolsa Familia program, in which the government makes cash payments to parents who send their children to school and vaccinate them. Overall, poverty fell dramatically during Lula’s presidency. Initially, it appeared that inequality fell, too. Using one common measure, the Gini coefficient, inequality dropped by nearly 7 percentage points in Brazil between 2006 and 2012. But the result was based on unreliable survey data. After unearthing more precise tax data, Fabio Castro, Pedro Ferreira de Souza, and Marcelo Medeiros of the University of Brasilia discovered that inequality barely budged during this period.2 The one percent’s share of income actually ticked up slightly, from just under 25 percent to just over. Even with the higher minimum wage and transfer payments that Lula introduced, the bottom half of the population only earned 11 percent of all the income generated in Brazil between 2006 and 2012, while the top five percent took home half.3 These findings suggest two key conclusions, both of which have big implications for how Hillary Clinton and the rest of us think about inequality in the United States. First, says de Souza, if you’re really serious about reducing inequality, at some point you have to target the rich directly—through tax increases or other policies.4 Because the incomes of the rich tend to grow very quickly (the one percent saw their incomes double under Bill Clinton’s presidency) boosting the bottom and middle will almost never be sufficient to narrow the gap in any meaningful way. Second, Brazil demonstrates that once the rich control a certain amount of wealth and income, they are very good at protecting it—at using their connections to the government and other powerful people to stay rich. “Intuitively, it makes perfect sense that economic power becomes political power,” says de Souza. “Daily experience would seem to reinforce it.” He notes that, over the past few decades, Brazil has experienced economic crises and economic booms. It has lived through hyperinflation and low inflation. If inequality were strictly a market-based phenomenon, the level of inequality should have lurched around rather violently. Instead, it’s been remarkably stable. The system is almost certainly being gamed. The upshot is that the longer we wait to deal with inequality, the harder it will be to reverse. In Brazil, where the one percent control 26 percent of the country’s income, it may be too late for all intents and purposes. In the United States, where the one percent control 21 percent and rising, we may have a small window of opportunity, but it’s rapidly closing. Hillary needs to stop messing around and get to work. *Washington Post: “Jim Webb, former senator from Va., takes on his party’s hawks. And maybe Clinton.” <http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/jim-webb-former-senator-from-va-takes-on-his-partys-hawks-and-maybe-clinton/2014/09/28/ba12f572-43f1-11e4-9a15-137aa0153527_story.html>* By Robert Costa September 29, 2014, 6:00 a.m. EDT Hillary Rodham Clinton’s enormous popularity and dominant standing among Democrats means that any potential challenger for the party’s 2016 presidential nomination would be, by definition, a long shot — and maybe none more so than James Webb, a former senator from Virginia who served in the Reagan administration. A Washington Post-ABC News poll in June showed that Webb has only 2 percent support among Democrats nationally, lagging 64 percentage points behind Clinton. Add to that his political baggage, especially on women’s issues, and his chances seem even slimmer. Still, as the national debate turns increasingly toward questions of U.S. military involvement abroad, Webb — a decorated Vietnam veteran who is antiwar — may be uniquely positioned to be a disruptive force on an issue where many Democrats consider Clinton compromised. “It would be an uphill fight, almost like climbing a wall,” former senator Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.) said in an interview. “He would be running against someone who simultaneously has two television shows based on her. She is a political figure with such remarkable strength ahead of the campaign, unlike anything I’ve seen in my lifetime. The question is whether all the minds of those who would vote at the convention are closed.” Kerrey, who in 1992 battled for the Democratic nomination that Bill Clinton eventually won, has been urging Webb to challenge Hillary Clinton in 2016. Over phone calls in recent weeks, the two friends — Kerrey is also a decorated Vietnam veteran — have concluded that Clinton could be vulnerable. They believe Webb could win over activists in early primary states who are uncomfortable with Clinton’s vote as a senator in 2002 to authorize war in Iraq and her support for the strategy President Obama is pursuing to fight the Islamic State. *A contrarian voice* Webb “would speak forcefully and have tremendous credibility on the issue of war and peace,” Kerrey said, and with war raging, some Democrats may seek a contrarian voice to counter the hawkish impulses that have shaped Clinton’s worldview. Webb stoked the speculation about his 2016 intentions last week when he delivered a stinging rebuke of Obama’s foreign policy. “Our country has been adrift,” Webb said in a speech Tuesday at the National Press Club in which he rattled off a list of his disagreements with the administration. “We continue to be trapped in the never-ending, never-changing entanglements of the Middle East.” Webb, 68, is a terse former secretary of the Navy in the Reagan administration who won national fame in 2006 when he beat then-Sen. George Allen (R-Va.). On the campaign trail, he wore his son’s scuffed combat boots as he railed against President George W. Bush. Now Webb, who earned two Purple Hearts in Vietnam, is questioning Obama’s judgment on his decisions to launch airstrikes in Iraq and Syria. “We need to be very careful,” Webb said. Comparing the situation in Syria to the civil war in Lebanon in the early 1980s and drew U.S. involvement, he called Syria “Lebanon on steroids.” Clinton and other senior Democrats have mostly backed the president’s efforts. Clinton was an early proponent of the intervention idea even before Obama came around. The specter of a Clinton candidacy loomed over the proceedings at the National Press Club last week, but Webb resisted criticizing her by name. Instead, he cited disagreements he had with the Obama administration during Clinton’s tenure at the State Department. “I’m not here to undermine her,” Webb said during a question-and-answer session. “I’m here to explain where my concerns are.” When pressed on whether his comments were meant as a direct critique of Clinton, Webb assumed a bemused smile: “As you know, I’m a writer and I choose my words carefully. . . . This isn’t personal.” Webb was not coy about whether he was considering a presidential run. “I’m seriously looking at the possibility of running for president,” Webb said. “We want to see if there’s a support base from people who would support the programs that we’re interested in pursuing.” Oddly, if he ran, the former Reagan official would probably be challenging Clinton from the left, but he could expect sharp disagreements with the party base on numerous issues. He is, for example, an advocate for gun owners’ rights and on Tuesday praised both Franklin D. Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan for their leadership abilities. “Some of my Democratic friends don’t like it when I say that,” Webb said. “But Ronald Reagan was once a Democrat and still a leader. He brought strong people around him, and he had a vision for where he wanted to take the country.” If he runs, Webb will run as a Democrat rather than as an independent. “I’m a Democrat, and I have strong reasons for being a Democrat,” he said, citing the party’s alliance with the poor and its message of “economic fairness” as integral to his own politics. *Brewing populism* Webb said in an interview that the brewing populism in Democratic ranks, particularly at the grass-roots level, resonates with him. That same shifting tide in the party has led some Democrats to draft Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a progressive favorite, to run against Clinton. Steve Jarding, a former political consultant for Webb, said Webb could run a “maverick campaign” comparable to the presidential candidacies of Republican John McCain in 2000 and Kerrey in 1992. “In this climate there is a thirst in the electorate for someone who can shoot straight, and Jim knows that,” Jarding said. “I don’t think he’s intimidated by the long odds. It’s not in his makeup to be fearful, and I think he’s putting a trial balloon out there because he is probably going to run.” Several influential Democrats in early primary states said Webb could eventually gain traction should the left wing of the Democratic Party sour even more on the airstrikes in Syria and desire an aggressive, antiwar populist to be the party’s standard-bearer. “I don’t know enough about him, but there is always room for more in a presidential race,” said Iowan Jan Bauer, chair of the Story County Democratic Party. In October, Webb will head to New Hampshire, where he will speak at Saint Anselm College near Manchester and stump for Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D). A Webb campaign would start with little national name recognition, little money, and questions about his appeal. For a party that has made improving the lives of women a central part of its pitch this year, Webb has a controversial history of statements. Webb, who has Confederate roots, has praised rebel troops for their “gallantry” during the Civil War, and in 1979 he wrote a Washingtonian magazine article questioning whether women should be on the front lines of battle. Robert Shrum, a longtime strategist for Democratic presidential candidates, said Webb is “intriguing” as a political figure but would enter a race stacked against him. “I think Hillary Clinton is going to be the nominee, and I don’t think she would run in any of the caricatured ways it’s assumed she would run,” he said, adding that “there is not a lot of room to take her on,” be it as a Democratic dove or otherwise. In June, Webb began to solicit donations for Born Fighting, his mostly dormant political action committee, and wrote a letter to supporters about his desire to jump back into national politics. “When I left the Senate in January, 2013, I decided to take a full year away from all media interviews, editorial articles, and direct political activities,” he wrote. “I am now ready to reenter the debate, and I am asking that you consider helping me do so.” In July, Webb gathered former aides and supporters for a reunion in Falls Church, Va. Soon after, and working with his adviser Jessica Vanden Berg, an Iowa native, he began to map out a travel itinerary. “I had a great time in Iowa,” Webb said of his trip there last month. “I really did. We drove about 800 miles and did 15 events.” He will have to go much further to mount a real challenge to Clinton. “Secretary Clinton is the dominant figure,” said former senator Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), a friend of Webb’s and a Clinton supporter. “But I don’t anticipate her being unopposed.” *New York Times: “House Hopefuls in G.O.P. Seek Rightward Shift” <http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/29/us/politics/midterm-elections-house-republicans.html?ref=politics&_r=0>* By Jonathan Weisman September 28, 2014 One nominee proposed reclassifying single parenthood as child abuse. Another suggested that four “blood moons” would herald “world-changing, shaking-type events” and said Islam was not a religion but a “complete geopolitical structure” unworthy of tax exemption. Still another labeled Hillary Rodham Clinton “the Antichrist.” Congressional Republicans successfully ended their primary season with minimal damage, but in at least a dozen safe or largely safe Republican House districts where more mild-mannered Republicans are exiting, their likely replacements will pull the party to the right, a move likely to increase division in an already polarized Congress. “Congressman Hall is a very genial and well-liked guy, and I hope that eventually I’m perceived that way too,” said John Ratcliffe, who in the Texas Republican primary defeated Ralph M. Hall, a 91-year-old with nearly 34 years in the House. But, he added: “The district that I will represent is far more conservative than most districts. Leadership will or should understand what the people in my district want — more conservative approaches and more conservative stands.” For the House speaker, John A. Boehner, the newest crop of conservatives will present at best a headache, at worst a leadership challenge. Many, including Mr. Ratcliffe, have refused to commit to voting for him to serve again as speaker, lending potential votes to rebellious conservatives who nearly defeated him in 2013. And if Republicans take control of the Senate, the group will probably compound the difficulties House and Senate Republican leaders will have finding legislative unity. “Obviously I’m interested in the House going forward with the Senate, and I think there are going to be a lot of challenges,” said Representative Spencer Bachus, Republican of Alabama, who will retire in January and likely be replaced by Gary Palmer, who has helped lead the Alabama Policy Institute, a conservative think tank. “A lot of the people who have sat down to solve problems are leaving, those like me that are concerned about the dysfunctionality.” As for their replacements, Mr. Bachus said: “I think they love their country every bit as much as we do. I think maybe they’re not as pragmatic.” Mr. Bachus is one of 26 House veterans who are retiring or running for the Senate or were defeated in the primaries. Few people know Mr. Hall or Mr. Bachus, or the departing Representatives Howard Coble of North Carolina, Tom Petri of Wisconsin or Steve Daines of Montana, outside their districts. In the coming years, they are far more likely to know their flamboyant replacements. Even the conservative firebrand Paul Broun of Georgia, who is leaving the House, is likely to be replaced by Jody Hice, a radio host and Southern Baptist pastor who may be even more conservative. Mr. Petri, one of the last of the veteran Republican centrists, is likely to be replaced by Glenn Grothman, one of the most conservative members of the Wisconsin State Senate. Mr. Grothman has explained his opposition to equal-pay legislation by saying, “You could argue that money is more important for men.” He has also suggested that some gay teachers “would like it if more kids became homosexuals.” Mr. Coble, an 83-year-old known as much for his colorful sport jackets as his aw-shucks demeanor, will almost certainly be replaced by Mark Walker, a Baptist pastor who wrote on Facebook that he “had the privilege of spending an hour with an African-American male who grew up in the inner city,” but that “most of these Americans have no concept of the pride and joy when we, as parents, invest in our children.” Ryan Zinke, a former Navy SEAL team member, is seeking the House seat being vacated in Montana by Mr. Daines, a former business executive who polls show is leading in the Senate race there. Mr. Zinke has taken on a decidedly more confrontational tone, saying the United States is losing its focus on “the real enemy,” Mrs. Clinton, whom he called the Antichrist. When Representative Shelley Moore Capito, Republican of West Virginia, vacated her House seat to run for the Senate, a far more conservative candidate, Alex X. Mooney, who had run for office previously in New Hampshire and Maryland, moved in. Likewise, Representative Cory Gardner’s run for the Senate in Colorado has opened the door for Ken Buck, the Tea Party candidate whose views helped cost him a Senate win in 2010. In Northern Virginia, the retirement of a veteran Republican, Representative Frank Wolf, has set off a competitive race, with voters appearing to lean toward Barbara Comstock, a Republican who as chief counsel to the House Government Oversight Committee led attacks on President Bill Clinton in the 1990s. While Mr. Wolf has eschewed the no-tax-hike pledge and embraced deficit reduction through budget cuts and some new revenues, Ms. Comstock is blasting her Democratic rival as a tax hiker. Mr. Wolf also worked with Democrats to protect the pay of federal employees and to secure funding for rapid transit, said Representative Gerald E. Connolly, Democrat of Virginia. “Comstock would be a significant shift to the right,” he said. In one key race, David Brat, the Tea Party candidate, will try to take the seat of the man he defeated in the Virginia Republican primary, Eric Cantor, the former House majority leader. In Washington and California, unusual primaries that left two Republicans competing in November will mean that Tea Party firebrands will face more mainstream party members to replace the retiring veteran Representatives Doc Hastings and Howard (Buck) McKeon. Victories by Clint Didier, a former professional football player, in Washington and State Senator Steve Knight in California would bolster the House’s far-right flank. “Just go down the line, these are good, solid conservatives,” said Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio and a House conservative leader. Then there is Mr. Hice. Having once called evolution a lie from “the pit of hell,” Mr. Broun, the departing representative from Georgia, would be hard to beat on the inflammatory front. But Mr. Hice has a record. He once said of women in politics, “If the woman’s within the authority of her husband, I don’t see a problem. ” He compared the recent appearance of red “blood moons” to prophecies that preceded the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, Israeli statehood and the Arab-Israeli War of 1967. In a satirical book, he claimed he had found a homosexual agenda to “sodomize your sons” by seducing them “in your schools, in your dormitories, in your gymnasiums, in your locker rooms.” Mr. Walker, Mr. Palmer, Mr. Hice and Mr. Grothman have already vowed to vote against Mr. Boehner for speaker. “We have plenty of yes men in Congress, and look where it’s gotten us,” a new Grothman campaign advertisement says. “Glen Grothman knows when it’s time to stand up and say no.” Already, Republican leaders appear to be trying to head off a challenge from the incoming freshmen. Mr. Ratcliffe said he had been to Washington four times since the summer, and has met with the top House leaders. It was “their chance to conduct a scouting report,” he joked. “There’s a perception that if you run to right of an incumbent, you’re some sort of a bomb thrower,” he said. “I don’t see myself that way.” *Townhall: “Source: Clinton Directly Involved In Terrorist Group ‘Security Force’ At Benghazi” <http://townhall.com/columnists/lawrencemeyers/2014/09/29/source-clinton-directly-involved-in-terrorist-group-security-force-at-benghazi-n1897853?utm_source=TopBreakingNewsCarousel&utm_medium=story&utm_campaign=BreakingNewsCarousel>* By Lawrence Meyers September 29, 2014 Gross incompetence at the State Department, likely stemming from decisions by Hillary Clinton, is a primary reason why Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed in the Benghazi terrorist attack. A source who has asked to remain anonymous due to their proximity to the investigation, said that much of the blame for the murders rests squarely within the State Department, then under the command of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The State Department had final decision-making authority over all of the following: · The selection of the 17 February Martyrs Brigade, affiliates of terrorist organization Ansar al-Sharia, as security for the U.S. Special Mission Compound, which housed the Ambassador; · The refusal to provide U.S. Special Forces as security for the Ambassador; · The location of the compound, which was located next door to an outpost of terrorist organization Ansar Al-Sharia; The “stand down” order that delayed military contractors at a nearby CIA Annex from aiding the compound. *Terrorists as Security Guards* The 17 February Martyr’s Brigade, or 17 Feb, was the largest and most well-known militia group in Libya at the time of the attack. Its moniker refers to an incident on that date in 2006, when Libyan security forces killed a group of people outside the Italian consulate in Benghazi. The militia was born during the war against Qaddafi, taking advantage of the security vacuum to collect weapons and recruit personnel. After the September 11 attack on the compound, members merged into Ansar al-Sharia, a coalition terror organization whose name means “Partisans of Sharia Law.” However, there appears to be no explanation for why the State Department chose a known Jihadist group to protect Americans in a war-torn Islamic nation. At a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in May of 2013, Rep. Blake Farenthold (R – TX) told Eric Nordstrom, the State Dept.’s Regional Security Officer in Tripoli at the time, “I’m stunned that the State Department was relying on a militia with extremist ties to protect American diplomats. That doesn’t make any sense. How does that happen?” Nordstrom went on to list a host of cases in which local militias, in Islamic countries, had betrayed and murdered their American employers, implying that such poor tactical decision-making was not an unusual occurrence at State. Despite all this, 17 Feb was chosen to handle security for the Ambassador. Who made the ultimate determination? A source close to the investigation says Hillary Clinton made that decision. “She could have outsourced that work to anyone,” the source says. “17 Feb was never properly vetted. Even a casual look at Middle East newspapers would have revealed them to be Ansar al-Sharia affiliates. As early as that summer, the Libyan government was conducting air strikes on 17 Feb. Obviously, nobody at State read these reports.” The source went on to say, “The 17 Feb guys that resided on the compound were paid by us, were fed by us, we gave them cars, they swam in our pool, and they repaid us by participating in the attack.” *“We did not trust 17 Feb”* Kris “Tanto” Paronto, one of several military contractors housed in a nearby CIA Annex who attempted to rescue Ambassador Stevens, says “We did not trust 17 Feb. They were a former terrorist organization and we believed the group had been infiltrated by Islamic Radicals. Even beyond this, though, there is a bigger issue.” “We normally train directly with local militias in other countries, which is a tactically sound decision. It is critical that a rapport be established with 17 Feb for them to be used as a Quick Reaction Force. While our Chief of Base had spoken to them numerous times, the GRS staff itself – the people supporting the agency at the Annex -- never spoke to, worked with, or trained with any 17 Feb commanders or members.” Tanto reports that the Blue Mountain Group, a group of unarmed Libyan security guards outside the compound gate, either abandoned their posts as the attack began, and may have even opened the gates for the terrorists to enter. There was no “break-in” as has been falsely reported. *Indefensible Compound* Tanto further says thathe had been in charge of high-level ambassador protection in Iraq on previous occasions. Thus, when he saw the compound, he knew something was “extremely abnormal.” The eight-acre compound was too vast to be effectively fortified and defended. “I chalked it up to the State Department being idiots, because they never did anything that made sense security-wise,” he said, reiterating his statements from the recently released best-seller, “13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi.” The sheer indefensible size of the compound was but one mistake. A second fatal error was committed by State Department Undersecretary Patrick Kennedy, who refused to provide U.S. Special Forces security, according to a Wall Street Journal editorial by Gregory Hicks, the former Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy in Tripoli. A third fatal mistake was the selection of compound’s location. Three weeks after the compound was rented, an outpost of the terrorist organization Ansar al-Sharia moved in next door. The compound’s location was not changed, nor was additional security or rooftop firepower provided, despite requests. It seems unfathomable that the compound was not relocated with terrorists living right next door. *Who Gave Bob the “Stand-Down” Order?* There is no question that a “stand down” order was delivered to Tanto and the operators directly, by their Chief of Base, the CIA official known only as “Bob.” The operators have corroborated that the order was given to them while Bob was on the phone. Until now, however, exactly to whom Bob was speaking to has been a mystery. Our source reports that Bob was seeking assistance from none other than the 17 February Martyr’s Brigade – the very group participating in the attack. “Bob was literally on the phone, calling for help from the guys who were in the midst of attacking our people,” our source says. “Interdepartmental communication was so poor that he didn’t know that he was essentially calling al-Qaeda to save our people from al-Qaeda.” Additionally unreported until now, was that Bob made a second call while Tanto and his team were in their SUVs, ready to roll to the Ambassador’s rescue. According to the source close to the investigation, “If the chain of command was followed, and there is no reason to believe it wasn’t, Bob was on the phone with the Chief of Station in Tripoli, who in turn would have been in direct contact with the Seventh Floor at State.” The “Seventh Floor” is where the highest-ranking State Department officials, including Hillary Clinton, are located. *Why?* Additional military support wasn’t just lacking during the battle, but well after it ended. After evacuating everyone from the compound and CIA Annex to the Benghazi airport, hours after repeated calls for help had been made, no U.S. plane ever came for them. All that time passed, four men were dead in a terrorist attack, yet not a single US asset showed up. It was if everyone involved literally did not exist. I offered the only two logical explanations for this lack of support, both of which Tanto agreed with. Either there was gross incompetence at multiple levels, across multiple assets in multiple regions, including Washington, all occurring at that exact time when help was needed most… …or that calls for assistance were received, but deliberately ignored. The former theory is implausible, but not impossible. The latter theory is both plausible and likely. More than one report suggests that Stevens was in Libya to buy back surface-to-air missiles sold to al-Qaeda groups in Libya, to fight against Qaddafi, and/or Syria to fight against Assad. If so, it raises the question of whether military support could be sent for a mission that Administration or Congressional officials would prefer to deny the existence of. After all, who wants to tell the American people about missiles being sold to any Islamic terrorists, regardless of who they are allegedly fighting against? *Cover-Up* This theory would explain the cover-up emanating from Washington. It, along with the pre-election embarrassment of a terror attack, would explain the Administration’s adherence to the ludicrous “offensive video” explanation for days after the attack. It would explain why the operators have not been interviewed or invited to testify before the Accountability Review Board. The ARB report is Washington politics at its worst – a document filled with bureaucratic nonsense about “recommendations” and references to the operators only facing “a few skirmishes” when returning from the compound to the Annex when, according to our source, “more than eighty terrorists were killed in lengthy firefights.” It should come as no surprise that Hillary Clinton appointed four of the five people to the ARB. It would also explain why Hillary Clinton thinks there is no difference between a terrorist attack and a spontaneous demonstration. *The Heroism* Amidst all these new revelations, it is easy to forget the distinction between the Ambassador’s compound and the nearby CIA Annex. This is critical, as it highlights the heroism of Tanto and his comrades. These brave individuals were hired strictly as security for the case officers at the CIA Annex, not for the Ambassador’s compound. It was only during a routine meeting that Tanto told the compound’s occupants, “if you are in trouble, give us a call and we’ll come get you.” Civilians intellectually understand that military service is about sacrifice, dedication, honor, and bravery. To men like Tanto, however, those words have a primal, visceral meaning. There was no legal or operational requirement for the operators to risk their lives. Each man did so for one reason: they gave their word. That was one reason the delay was so agonizing. The other reason was that nobody else was coming to help the Ambassador and his group, and the operators knew it. They were completely alone. The compound’s house had been set on fire. There was no air support. There was no cavalry. *Coming Forward* Despite the heroic acts of Tanto and his comrades, the U.S. Government and the mainstream media have tried to bury everything having to do with their story. The disrespect shown to them by their former employer, and suppression of the truth, is what motivated the men to come forward. Tanto said, “We watched on TV, as the news media distorted the facts. The story was being politicized, instead of it being about what was important: the sacrifices of Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty. At one point, I heard on NPR how we were figments of the right wing’s imagination!” Besides never being asked to testify at any hearings, the men were also denied reimbursement for their losses in Libya…right down to their socks, undershirts, and underwear. The last straw came when, immediately following the memorial service for their fallen comrades, they were asked to sign non-disclosure agreements. “We couldn’t stay silent after that. We resigned immediately,” Tanto said. “This has never been about politics. It’s about people hearing the truth, wherever it leads.” *Haunted* As for whether a flood of emotion hit Tanto after the incident, he says it still hasn’t come out. “I’m holding on to it. It’s all still there. I need it to strengthen my resolve for all the naysayers who claim this didn’t happen.” That’s why the support the team has received on social media means more to them than words can express. “Please tell everyone how much it means to us to know when Americans have our back, so we don’t have to fight anymore. Any veteran just wants respect for what he did. It is so powerful to see some naysayer on Twitter say something and have a hundred replies bury him. “ “It helps keep the demons at bay.” *New York Magazine blog: Daily Intelligencer: “Martin O'Malley Is Campaigning For...” <http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/09/martin-omalley-is-campaigning-for.html?mid=twitter_dailyintelligencer>* By Annie Lowrey September 28, 2014, 8:51 p.m. EDT On Friday night, two hundred of New Hampshire’s most dedicated liberals arrived in the ballroom of a Residence Inn for the Portsmouth Democrats' annual dinner. It was local politicking at its finest, lubricated by a cash bar making big pours. There was the gentle ribbing of Maine, a yarn about the ribbon cutting at a new bridge, and an appreciation of Market Basket grocery stores. Governor Maggie Hassan talked budgets and health care. Senator Jeanne Shaheen’s husband described his wife’s opponent, Scott Brown, as being "a couple sandwiches short of a picnic." But two hours in, the topic of discussion lurched south. The lights dimmed and a video came on. It told of the Baltimore of The Wire, the drugs, the deaths, the cops, and the racial strife. (The servers kept clearing dishes.) Then, it told of Baltimore’s turnaround and Maryland’s broader success. “Number one in education, five years in a row,” the narrator boomed. “Number one in research and development. Number one in median family income, with a certain public official named number one in the nation.” That certain public official is Martin O’Malley -- Maryland’s governor, an Obama surrogate, a rising party star, and as sure a contender for the 2016 Democratic presidential primary as there is at this early stage. He beamed from the podium as the crowd stood to applaud. “You all fired up?” he asked. And they were fired up, as well as curious and skeptical. Who was O’Malley? What was he doing there? The video did a good job of answering the first question: Martin Joseph O’Malley is a family man, the former mayor of Baltimore, and the current executive of the state boasting the richest middle class in the nation. And nobody really needed an answer to the second. What is any ambitious out-of-state politician doing in New Hampshire two years before a presidential election? Introducing himself might be the politic way of putting it, as O'Malley has lofty ambitions but a thin national profile, in spite of his surrogacy for Obama, speeches at major Democratic events, and general enthusiasm for getting out and beating the drum. “He’s got the basics going for him,” said one commercial real-estate broker, who said he had not heard of O’Malley before the event. “He’s tall, dark, and handsome.” Of course, as an official matter, O’Malley had traveled to New England to help his fellow Democrats raise money and get elected. Before speaking at the dinner, he stopped for selfies at a local campaign center and gripped-and-grinned at an event for Martha Fuller Clark, a state senator running for re-election. “When I was looking over all the things they wanted me to say about you…” Clark said as she introduced O’Malley to a gathered crowd. “Those are things that Governor Hassan asked you to say about me?” O’Malley quickly interjected, chuckling. “Of course!” Clark said, before praising his liberal bona fides and getting him to sign a photograph of the two of them. Over the past few months, O’Malley has also visited Wisconsin and Nevada and Massachusetts and Iowa and Illinois and South Carolina and on and on. He has held fundraisers for out-of-state politicians. He has sent employees from his political action committee out to assist in other campaigns. After this most recent New Hampshire stop, he headed to Nevada and California, hitting three states in as many days. “It is always helpful at a state party dinner to bring in people from out of state, who are people who might help you sell tickets,” O’Malley told me as he nursed a beer after the event. “There are in these circles of the party a fair number of people that know of me a little bit and are curious to hear what I have to say.” But all that good soldiering might also help O’Malley build an army one day, as it exposes him to thousands of party apparatchiks and tens of thousands more likely primary voters. He is not coy about the fact that is seriously contemplating a 2016 run. His tour has “reinforced the hunch I had that people want to hear a new perspective, that they want to hear from new leaders,” O’Malley told me. “I think that reality is very much out there.” To translate, “I am not Hillary Clinton. I am not Joe Biden. I am fresh. I am different.” He went on: “I think they want to hear from leaders that can solve problems and get things done and achieve results. They see it all the time in their local government, but it seems so elusive nationally.” To translate again, “I am not Barack Obama. I have passed bipartisan legislation, and worked with Democrats and Republicans to get things done.” But what of the hyperpolarized, deep-frozen Congress? How would any executive work with that institution? “The problem isn’t what the other guy is doing to you,” O’Malley said, describing a pep talk a coach gave a prizefighter after a particularly bruising bout. “The problem is what you’re not doing for yourself.” He worried that Democrats had neglected down-ballot races, and had lost some party cohesiveness. In other words, “I am not Barack Obama, who has notoriously frosty relations with many Hill Democrats. I am a true uniter, within the party and between the parties.” Squint enough and you see the beginning of a primary platform in between the lines there -- even as O'Malley, a party loyalist, studiously avoids criticism of the current administration and generally, like a good prizefighter, parries, floats, and weaves. Most important for O'Malley might be his record in Maryland, where he has served as governor since 2007. Within the state, O'Malley is well-known as an aspirant, but also as a manager, a wonk interested in getting his hands into the guts of government. He likes measuring, cutting, trimming, and making more efficient. (As an excellent Washington Monthly story on O'Malley-as-manager notes, those tend to be the characteristics of a good vice president, too.) Of course, there are many, many months before those outlines would need to become bullet points. In the meantime, O’Malley’s tour also serves a more prosaic purpose, of building name recognition and a national brand. In one recent poll, for instance, O’Malley got 1 percent of the New Hampshire Democratic primary vote, versus Clinton’s 60 percent, Elizabeth Warren’s 11 percent, Biden’s 8 percent, and Bernie Sanders’ 7 percent. That probably reflects familiarity as much as anything else. So we might be hearing a lot more about the bloody streets of Baltimore and median income in Maryland in the coming months. It would not surprise anyone in this sleepy corner of New Hampshire. After O’Malley’s speech, Ray Buckley, the chair of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, handed him a book titled “Outtastatahs,” a guide for, well, out-of-staters. “I assume you might be here more,” he said. “Check it out.” *Calendar:* *Sec. Clinton's upcoming appearances as reported online. Not an official schedule.* · September 29 – New York, NY: Sec. Clinton headlines fundraiser for DCCC for NY and NJ candidates (Politico <http://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/hillary-clinton-new-york-fundraiser-110902.html?hp=r4> ) · September 29 – New York, NY: Sec. Clinton headlines another fundraiser for DCCC (Politico <http://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/hillary-clinton-headline-dccc-fundraiser-110764.html?hp=l8_b1> ) · September 29 – New York, NY: Sec. Clinton meets Indian Prime Minister Modi (Zee News <http://zeenews.india.com/news/india/no-modi-sharif-meeting-in-new-york-mea_1474656.html> ) · September 30 – Washington, DC: Sec. Clinton keynotes Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, Inc., conference (CHCI <http://www.chci.org/news/pub/former-secretary-of-state-hillary-clinton-to-address-leadership-luncheon-at-public-policy-conference> ) · September 30 – Potomac, MD: Sec. Clinton fundraises for Maryland gubernatorial candidate Anthony Brown (WaPo <http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/hillary-clinton-to-headline-fundraiser-for-maryland-gubernatorial-hopeful-brown/2014/09/19/3e9b4aea-4057-11e4-b03f-de718edeb92f_story.html> ) · September 30 – Washington, DC: Sec. Clinton fundraises for New Hampshire state Sen. Lou D’Allesandro of Manchester (New Hampshire Journal <http://nhjournal.com/hillary-clinton-to-host-dc-reception-for-long-time-friend-dallesandro/> ) · October 2 – Miami Beach, FL: Sec. Clinton keynotes the real estate CREW Network Convention & Marketplace (CREW Network <http://events.crewnetwork.org/2014convention/>) · October 2 – Miami, FL: Sec. Clinton signs “Hard Choices” at Books and Books (HillaryClintonMemoir.com <http://www.hillaryclintonmemoir.com/miami_book_signing>) · October 2 – Miami, FL: Sec. Clinton fundraises for Charlie Crist ( Politico <http://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/hillary-clinton-charlie-crist-campaign-florida-111229.html> ) · October 6 – Ottawa, Canada: Sec. Clinton speaks at Canada 2020 event (Ottawa Citizen <http://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/hillary-clinton-speaking-in-ottawa-oct-6> ) · October 13 – Las Vegas, NV: Sec. Clinton and Sen. Reid fundraise for the Reid Nevada Fund (Ralston Reports <http://www.ralstonreports.com/blog/hillary-raise-money-state-democrats-reid-next-month> ) · October 13 – Las Vegas, NV: Sec. Clinton keynotes the UNLV Foundation Annual Dinner (UNLV <http://www.unlv.edu/event/unlv-foundation-annual-dinner?delta=0>) · October 14 – San Francisco, CA: Sec. Clinton keynotes salesforce.com Dreamforce conference (salesforce.com <http://www.salesforce.com/dreamforce/DF14/highlights.jsp#tuesday>) · October 28 – San Francisco, CA: Sec. Clinton fundraises for House Democratic women candidates with Nancy Pelosi (Politico <http://www.politico.com/story/2014/08/hillary-clinton-nancy-pelosi-110387.html?hp=r7> ) · December 4 – Boston, MA: Sec. Clinton speaks at the Massachusetts Conference for Women (MCFW <http://www.maconferenceforwomen.org/speakers/>)