podesta_email_00633.txt

podesta-emails 5,480 words email

D6 P17 P22 V11 V9

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Happy Weekend. Tennessee Williams said, "Time is the longest distance between two places." True. But, that distance can feel shorter, sometimes, because we communicate in real time, across any geographic distance... Immediacy for its own sake. Time is also a blessing, a gift, and its August; the dog days. Live this time in the moment, with family and friends. Forward! Let's go get 'em... *Correct The Record Friday August 15, 2014 Afternoon Roundup:* *Tweets:* *Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: In the Senate, @HillaryClinton <https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton> fought to expand gay rights and protect LGBT people from abuse and discrimination. http://www.advocate.com/commentary/2014/08/14/op-ed-hillary-ready-us … <http://t.co/DxmCRZGr0O> [8/15/14, 9:05 a.m. EDT <https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/500267036417986560>] *Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: .@HillaryClinton <https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton> passed bill protecting wildlife, promoting sound water management in Great Lakes #HRC365 <https://twitter.com/hashtag/HRC365?src=hash> https://beta.congress.gov/bill/110th-congress/senate-joint-resolution/45/cosponsors … <https://t.co/cmkgXueSF2> [8/14/14, 9:58 p.m. EDT <https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/500099209270657024>] *Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: "Hillary has always stood with ... the entire LGBT community. And she always will." @AllidaBlack <https://twitter.com/allidablack> in @TheAdvocateMag <https://twitter.com/TheAdvocateMag> http://www.advocate.com/commentary/2014/08/14/op-ed-hillary-ready-us … <http://t.co/DxmCRZGr0O> [8/14/14, 6:01 p.m. EDT <https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/500039505517490177>] *Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: .@HillaryClinton <https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton>’s actions establish her as one of the "most visible and heartfelt supporters of the LGBT community.” http://www.advocate.com/commentary/2014/08/14/op-ed-hillary-ready-us … <http://t.co/DxmCRZGr0O> [8/14/14, 5:15 p.m. EDT <https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/500027946338623490>] *Headlines:* *New Republic: “Here's Another Sign That Hillary Clinton's the New Boss in Town” <http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119097/david-brocks-crew-gig-another-sign-hillarys-new-dem-boss>* “Brock now controls not only CREW, but also the Democrat-backing nonprofits and Super PACS Media Matters, American Bridge, American Independent Institute, and Correct the Record.” *Washington Post opinion: Aaron David Miller: “If Hillary Clinton had won in 2008, what would her foreign policy have looked like?” <http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/if-hillary-clinton-had-won-in-2008-what-would-her-foreign-policy-have-looked-like/2014/08/15/93f0d16a-2313-11e4-86ca-6f03cbd15c1a_story.html>* “Clinton could never have become Obama’s top diplomat and functioned so well in that job had they not been largely on the same page in terms of how they saw the world and what America should do about it. They both are transactors, not ideological transformers — smart, pragmatic centrists largely coloring inside the lines in a world of long shots and bad options. In other words, there’s no need for them to ‘hug it out’ on foreign policy.” *Politico Magazine: “Is Hillary Too Hawkish to Win in 2016?” <http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/08/is-hillary-too-hawkish-to-win-in-2016-110054.html#.U-41afldV8E>* “Today, the friction between the Clinton and Obama camps has attracted most of the recent media attention. But while Clinton and Obama have their differences, they only represent different strains within the liberal interventionist school.” *Talking Points Memo: “The Clintons Might Already Be Wooing A 2016 Veep Candidate” <http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/hillary-clinton-julian-castro-vice-presidential-candidate>* “President Bill Clinton invited incoming Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro to dine at the Clinton's private D.C. home last week, the Washington Post reported, making it impossible for the media to ignore the 2016 implications.” *CBS News: “Hillary Clinton's lead over potential 2016 GOP foes shrinks: Poll” <http://www.cbsnews.com/news/hillary-clintons-lead-over-potential-2016-gop-foes-shrinks-poll/>* “In the new survey, the former secretary of state outpaces Gov. Chris Christie, R-N.J., by seven points, 48 to 41 percent. In April. though, McClatchy found her ahead of Christie by 11 points, 53 to 42 percent. And in February, the gap between the two was a yawning 21 percent.” *Articles:* *New Republic: “Here's Another Sign That Hillary Clinton's the New Boss in Town” <http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119097/david-brocks-crew-gig-another-sign-hillarys-new-dem-boss>* By Jason Zengerle August 14, 2014 Wednesday night, Politico’s Ken Vogel broke the news that David Brock, right-wing-hitman-turned-Hillary-Clinton-bodyguard, is taking over the government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (CREW). That means Brock now controls not only CREW, but also the Democrat-backing nonprofits and Super PACS Media Matters, American Bridge, American Independent Institute, and Correct the Record. It’s a veritable empire of liberal third-party groups! All of which prompted Vogel to write on Twitter, immediately after his CREW scoop came out, that Brock is now the Democrats’ version of Karl Rove. It’s a title Brock has been gunning for since at least 2010, when, in the wake of the Republican rout in the midterm elections, he announced his plans to start American Bridge. Brock, who at the time only counted Media Matters as a jewel in his crown, initially positioned American Bridge as the liberal analogue to Rove’s American Crossroads group, the outside conservative group that played such a key role in the GOP’s 2010 efforts. In Brock’s vision, American Bridge would be a behemoth that raised and spent millions of dollars, primarily on television ads, to benefit Barack Obama and other Democratic candidates in 2012. As he boasted to The New York Times at the time: “My donor base already constitutes the major individual players who have historically given hundreds of millions of dollars to these types of efforts…. They just need to be asked, and I have no doubt they will step up at this critical time.” But then a strange thing happened. Brock’s donors didn’t step up. Although they were happy to continue to fork over money to Media Matters, they didn’t want to contribute to American Bridge. This was partly because they primarily viewed Brock as a media watchdog, not a political strategist. (After all, they’d come to know him as the repentant right-wing hit man.) But it had more to do with the fact that Obama’s political operation—which, in the wake of the 2010 elections, put out word that it now welcomed Democratic independent-expenditure groups—didn’t want Brock, who during the 2008 Democratic primaries had been one of Hillary Clinton’s most diehard supporters, to be in charge of the I.E. effort. As one Obama-affiliated Democratic strategist told me at the time, “Do you think David Plouffe and David Axelrod are going to let David Brock go out and build an empire to explain Barack Obama’s policies and worldview to voters?” In the end, American Bridge was scaled back to be an opposition-research outfit, while Priorities USA, helmed by former Obama aide Bill Burton, became the leading Democratic Super PAC for the cycle. But now, whatever qualms the Obama people might have about Brock are irrelevant. They’re not making the decisions for 2016; the Clinton people are. And the Clintons love David Brock. Although there are people in Hillary’s orbit who remain wary of him, Hillary and Bill themselves are big fans. Brock tells a great story of visiting the former president in his Harlem office back in 2002 and noticing an entire cabinet filled with copies of Brock’s book Blinded by the Right, which Clinton was famous for pushing on friends. And so Brock’s ascension to Rove-like status can be taken as yet another sign that, as today’s Times puts it, “Obama is fast becoming the past, not the future, for donors, activists and Democratic strategists.” It’s Hillary Clinton’s—and, by extension, David Brock’s—world now; the rest of the Democratic Party is just living in it. *Washington Post opinion: Aaron David Miller: “If Hillary Clinton had won in 2008, what would her foreign policy have looked like?” <http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/if-hillary-clinton-had-won-in-2008-what-would-her-foreign-policy-have-looked-like/2014/08/15/93f0d16a-2313-11e4-86ca-6f03cbd15c1a_story.html>* By Aaron David Miller, a vice president at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, has served as a Middle East adviser for Republican and Democratic secretaries of state. He is the author of the forthcoming “The End of Greatness: Why America Can’t Have (and Doesn’t Want) Another Great President” Hillary Rodham Clinton seems hung up on smart and stupid. During her term as secretary of state, Clinton talked a lot about “smart power” — elevating diplomacy and development alongside military might. Now, she is distancing herself from the foreign policy of the president she served, telling the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg that “great nations need organizing principles, and ‘Don’t do stupid stuff’ is not an organizing principle.” But what if she had been the one in the Oval Office since 2009? How different would her foreign policy be from President Obama’s? These questions are clearly more than a thought experiment. If she runs in 2016, potentially the first secretary of state since James Buchanan to ascend to the White House, voters will want to know the answers. There would certainly be stylistic differences between Clinton and Obama. Even on the campaign trail, Clinton seemed more passionate about foreign policy than Obama, more enthusiastic about creating relationships with world leaders and playing the politics of diplomacy. She is more sensitive to America’s image as an indispensable power. And though she’s no reckless warrior, she is perhaps more inclined to consider using force under carefully tailored circumstances. But on substance, Clinton’s policies would probably not have diverged fundamentally from the ones the president pursued while she was his secretary of state or those he has embraced subsequently. Indeed, Clinton could never have become Obama’s top diplomat and functioned so well in that job had they not been largely on the same page in terms of how they saw the world and what America should do about it. They both are transactors, not ideological transformers — smart, pragmatic centrists largely coloring inside the lines in a world of long shots and bad options. In other words, there’s no need for them to “hug it out” on foreign policy. *Iran* Obama and Clinton were never the Bobbsey twins when it came to Iran. Clinton has pressed for tough sanctions since she was a senator from New York. During the presidential debates, she jumped on candidate Obama’s idea to engage with the Iranians without preconditions. She says in her memoir “Hard Choices” that she regretted the president’s refusal to take a harder line with the mullahs in response to their crackdown on the Green Revolution in 2009. And in the Atlantic interview, she was adamantly against the idea that Iran has a right to enrich uranium: “The preference would be no enrichment. The potential fallback position would be such little enrichment that they could not break out.” The U.S. team currently negotiating with Tehran has conceded some enrichment as a practical matter, with limits to be negotiated. But if Clinton had been president, she probably would have struck the same deal and followed a similar approach, first seeking an interim accord and then testing the possibilities through another year of negotiations before getting to a final agreement. After all, it was she who set the current talks in motion. She and Obama had agreed on a dual-track strategy of pressure and engagement. That meant sustained and tougher sanctions, with the door left open for diplomacy. After the sultan of Oman offered Clinton a back channel for secret bilateral diplomacy, it was her State Department, specifically Bill Burns and Jake Sullivan, that staffed it on the U.S. side. A President Clinton, understanding that the alternative to a deal might be war — either an Israeli military strike or even a U.S. one — would probably have gone to great lengths to make sure that every possibility had been explored before resorting to force. Negotiators get attached to their negotiations and don’t want to fail. And so Clinton would have probably authorized the same concessions to Iran as the current negotiating team has. *Arab-Israeli peace* Clinton, perhaps with 2016 in mind, has been less critical than Obama of Israeli policies, especially the military response to Hamas. And unlike Obama, she has long-established relationships with the players in the peace process. I accompanied her, when she was first lady, to Leah Rabin’s funeral and watched her charm and magnetic impact on Israelis regardless of party. She also has a better sense than Obama of how to deal with Benjamin Netanyahu — learned in part from watching her husband. “Who’s the f---ing superpower here?” President Bill Clinton exploded to aides after his initial encounter with the Israeli prime minister. And still, Bill Clinton reached two agreements with the Likud leader. A President Hillary Clinton might have tried harder than Obama has to cement a bond with Netanyahu. And there might not have been so much broken crockery in the U.S.-Israeli relationship. Still, it’s hard to imagine that Clinton would have taken a different course in pursuing a two-state solution — or achieved different results. Given the lack of trust between Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the wide gaps on the core issues and the impossibility of pursuing a more modest interim deal, the only option available was the one Obama authorized John Kerry to take: try to mediate a “framework agreement” that leaves many of the details on core issues such as Jerusalem unresolved. And even then, failure was virtually guaranteed. How would Clinton have handled the latest confrontation in Gaza? In 2012 she played an important role in facilitating a cease-fire there, though it was then-Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi who delivered Hamas. More than likely, this time around she would have found herself — like Kerry — without a win. She might have had more influence over Netanyahu. But with Hamas willing to continue the fight, the odds of a U.S.-brokered success would still have been low. (It’s also worth noting on Egypt that as secretary of state, Clinton was wary of Obama’s efforts to force Hosni Mubarak out too quickly. But in the wake of Morsi’s disastrous presidency, as president she would have almost certainly backed the Obama/Kerry decision to improve relations with the new Egyptian president, the former supreme military commander.) *Russia and Ukraine* Clinton has a reputation for being tough on Russia. Indeed, Putin accused her of orchestrating the 2012 demonstrations against him. And yet, it’s hard to believe that, as president, the pragmatic Clinton would have initially pursued something other than a reset policy. U.S. relations with Russia were at rock bottom after the Georgia war and the preceding squabbles over Kosovo, missile defense and NATO expansion. With the ascendance of the seemingly forthcoming Dmitry Medvedev, any American president would have tried to identify issues on which the United States and Russia might cooperate — and would have shown resolve if the Russians pushed back on others. As president, Clinton might have pivoted sooner to a hard line when it became clear in 2011 that the reset had run its course. She told the New York Times’ John Harwood as much. But it’s unlikely that would have made much difference. None of the recommendations on Russia contained in her parting memo to Obama — including rejecting Putin’s invitation to a presidential summit and avoiding flattering him with high-level attention — would have changed Putin’s strategy. He simply has more cards and the will to play them. As for Ukraine, put Clinton in Obama’s shoes during the past several months of Putin’s adventurism in Crimea and his meddling in eastern Ukraine, and it’s hard to see what she might have done differently to impose greater costs on Russia, let alone to counter and reverse Putin’s support for pro-Russia separatists. Military force isn’t an option. So Clinton, like Obama, would have fallen back on some package of steps, including marshaling the Europeans, nonlethal military assistance to Ukraine, tough rhetoric and sustained sanctions. *Syria* In the Atlantic interview, Clinton asserted that the “failure to help build up a credible fighting force [in opposition to Bashar al-Assad] left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled.” Clinton called Obama on Tuesday to say that she didn’t mean to attack his policies. But the two have long had differences in how to approach the Syrian civil war. As early as 2012, Clinton wanted to do more to weaken Assad. But more — training and equipping carefully vetted elements of a dysfunctional and divided opposition — wasn’t all that far from what Obama eventually came to accept in 2013. To change the balance on the battlefield, a President Clinton would have had to win backing for a more comprehensive military strategy involving not just arming rebels but also creating no-fly zones and authorizing direct U.S. military strikes against Syrian regime targets. It’s by no means clear that she would have gone that far, let alone whether the risk-averse Pentagon would have supported it. On the question of chemical weapons, Clinton’s policies would probably have been very much in line with Obama’s. As secretary of state, she echoed Obama’s red line. And although she had stepped down by the time of the Assad regime’s August 2013 attack that killed 1,400 people, she publicly supported Obama’s decision to seek a congressional vote before launching a strike. If she’d been president, she might have been more reluctant to go to Congress and more skeptical that a deal brokered by the Russians would successfully eliminate Syria’s chemicals. But as Clinton rightly describes in her memoir, Syria was a “wicked problem.” I’m not at all sure that as president she would have done much better in trying to deal with it, let alone resolve it. This is not in any way to undermine her talents and capacities when it comes to foreign policy. It is, however, to underscore a critical point these days when it comes to America’s role in the world. To paraphrase Marx, men and women make history. But they rarely do so as they please. No matter how determined she may have been to assert U.S. leadership or to push her concept of smart power, the cruel and unforgiving nature of the world would have imposed the same severe constraints. Not every problem today has a solution that is amenable to U.S. military or diplomatic power — or to Clinton magic. *Politico Magazine: “Is Hillary Too Hawkish to Win in 2016?” <http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/08/is-hillary-too-hawkish-to-win-in-2016-110054.html#.U-41afldV8E>* By Bill Scher August 15, 2014 [Subtitle:] Or is Rand Paul too dovish? Hillary Clinton, after her wide-ranging foreign policy interview with The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg roiled both the White House and the anti-war left, reached out to President Barack Obama to tamp down speculation of a rift between the two. She may have hugged it out with the president, but she has not done the same with the anti-war left. Clinton does not seem terribly concerned with MoveOn.org scolding her to “think long and hard before embracing the same policies advocated by right-wing war hawks.” Or with The Nation slamming her for “hawkish, even neoconservative-influenced views.” Or with The New Republic warning that her “blunder” could open the door to a strong primary challenge. Her lack of interest in winning over these critics suggests this is a fight she is comfortable waging—and is not worried about losing. If so, then 2016 might feature an unusually grand bipartisan foreign policy debate, with an interventionist Clinton squaring off with her party’s dovish wing, while the isolationist-leaning Sen. Rand Paul sparks a parallel debate with the militaristic hawks that have long dominated the Republican Party. In some ways, the discussion recalls the one that occurred in each party three quarters of a century ago before World War II, with Clinton cast as the interventionist Franklin Roosevelt facing down cautious Democrats and Paul playing the part of the isolationist Robert Taft, who took on Wendell Willkie, a more internationalist Republican rival, in the fight for the 1940 GOP nomination. Taft lost that battle to Willkie, moving the country away from its post-World War I isolationism and freeing up Roosevelt to take the controversial step of compulsory military service without jeopardizing his campaign for an unprecedented third term. Today, the friction between the Clinton and Obama camps has attracted most of the recent media attention. But while Clinton and Obama have their differences, they only represent different strains within the liberal interventionist school. Syria, for instance, may highlight Obama’s relative reluctance to use force, and Iran may indicate the limits of Clinton’s confidence in diplomacy. But their views converged on the Libyan intervention and presumably the recent strikes in Iraq, because they both believe America should play a leading role on the world stage expanding freedom and protecting human rights beyond our borders. And they believe that role can include the use of military force, even though liberal interventionists don’t turn to it as quickly or as unilaterally as their neoconservative counterparts. Neither takes the view that America should generally stay out of other nations’ affairs, an increasingly prevalent view across the partisan spectrum. As the Pew Research Center found in its December poll, “Majorities or pluralities of Republicans (52%), Democrats (46%) and independents (55%) think the U.S. does too much to try to help solve world problems, and agree that the U.S. should mind its own business internationally (53%, 46% and 55%, respectively).” The distance between Clinton and these poll numbers is probably far bigger than the distance between her and Obama. Yet Clinton’s interview blows past such poll-driven concerns and practically dares a fellow Democrat to try to seize an opening on her foreign policy left. That may seem like a foolish risk for a frontrunner to take so soon in the campaign season, but her remarks are only a “blunder” if she can’t defend them from attacks by a yet-to-materialize primary challenger. She may sense she has history on her side, as Democratic interventionists have usually held the upper hand over their intraparty opponents despite the party’s anti-war reputation. In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson won a major legislative battle over military preparedness with William Jennings Bryan, his former secretary of state-turned-isolationist antagonist, allowing Wilson to lead a unified party in his successful re-election campaign. In 1946, President Harry Truman took the dramatic step of firing Commerce Secretary Henry Wallace, FDR’s former vice president, after Wallace delivered a high-profile speech breaking with Truman’s anti-communist foreign policy. Truman was reluctant, worried that he would cause a party split. But the fear was unfounded as Wallace’s third-party challenge fizzled two years later. More recently, President Bill Clinton’s bombing campaigns in Bosnia and Iraq passed without causing a rift with the left, nor did Obama’s first-term intervention in Libya and protracted involvement in Afghanistan complicate his re-nomination for a second term. In fact, when the foreign policy objective is in the compassionate global interest, and not raw national interest, a considerable portion of the left is routinely willing to shelve its reluctance to use the military. But is Hillary Clinton going against a current tide of rising isolationist sentiment? Not necessarily in her own party. The “blunder” argument from the New Republic’s Noam Scheiber is based on the notion that “opposition among Democrats to overseas interventions, particularly in the Middle East, remains so strong and raw” and “polling overwhelmingly shows the country, not just Democratic voters, to be weary of foreign-policy interventionism.” There may, however, be more to the polling numbers than the top line. True, the Pew numbers showing support for America “mind[ing] its own business” are at a striking 50-year high. But the recent spike is driven almost solely by Republicans and independents (a group that leaned right of the political center in 2012), not Democrats. The percent of Republicans and independents that want America to mind its business more than doubled from 2002 to 2013. Among Democrats, the number ticked up only six points, remaining under 50 percent. In other words, foreign policy attitudes among Democrats haven’t changed much. Absolutely—there was and is a significant anti-intervention wing. It’s just not necessarily dominant. Nor is it as rigid as you might think: Some intervention skeptics will likely give a deeply respected Democrat such as Hillary Clinton ample latitude in explaining the nuances of her positions. If she chooses to take the intra-party foreign policy debate head-on, following the path of Wilson, FDR and Truman, she could earn a firmer mandate. Meanwhile, the massive and abrupt shift in attitude among Republicans presents an opening for Senator Paul to revisit a debate on Republican foreign policy principles that hasn’t been seriously engaged since the interventionist General Dwight D. Eisenhower swiped the 1952 presidential nomination from—once again—the isolationist Taft, then known as “Mr. Republican.” Paul would probably bristle at the comparison to Taft, but he has been pushing his party to rethink its worldview, though rapidly moving events have complicated his task. In February, a few days before Russia forcibly seized control of Crimea, Paul told the Washington Post, “Some on our side are so stuck in the Cold War era that they want to tweak Russia all the time and I don’t think that is a good idea.” Soon after Crimea, Paul’s tone shifted, urging sanctions and other measures intended to hurt Russia economically, such as building the Keystone pipeline. In June, Paul wrote an oped for the Wall Street Journal titled, “America Shouldn’t Choose Sides in Iraq’s Civil War,” one week after Islamic State militants took over key Iraqi cities. Paul chastised Obama’s favoring of the Syrian rebels, saying it “indirectly aided al Qaeda and ISIS [the Islamic State] in Syria—the very group some now propose to counter with U.S. troops [in Iraq].” And he questioned the value of airstrikes, though stopping short of ruling them out: “What would airstrikes accomplish? We know that Iran is aiding the Iraqi government against ISIS. Do we want to, in effect, become Iran’s air force?” That sparked an op-ed skirmish with potential 2016 rival Gov. Rick Perry, who replied in the Washington Post: “Paul’s brand of isolationism (or whatever term he prefers) would compound the threat of terrorism even further.” Paul gleefully engaged, taking to Politico Magazinelast month to tweak Perry’s call for ground forces in Iraq: “[In 2012] Perry urged the United States to return troops to Iraq to act as a balance against Iran … Does Perry now believe that we should send U.S. troops back into Iraq to fight the Iranians—or to help Iran fight ISIS?” But after Obama launched airstrikes against the Islamic State last week, Paul refrained from criticizing the move, saying on Monday he has “mixed feelings about it” while reiterating his claim that the United States “protected” ISIS in Syria. Now, instead of debating the merits of the military action, he is focusing on another one of his foreign policy principles: asserting Congress’ authority to declare war under the Constitution and demanding a vote. Paul’s hesitancy to criticize Obama over Iraq tracks the latest Fox News poll, which found that 65 percent of Americans support the air strikes, including 73 percent of Republicans, a stunning turnaround from the disastrous polling that greeted Obama’s September 2013 threat to strike Syria. These numbers should hearten Hillary and make Paul pause. America’s isolationist moment may be just that—a moment—if voters conclude that specific global threats and humanitarian crises require an American response. Moreover, the rapid rise of Republican isolationism in the Pew poll may prove to be a knee-jerk reaction against Obama, not a fundamental shift away from the hawkish foreign policy that has defined the party for 70 years. Of course, the uncertainty of future events cuts both ways. For example, Clinton’s vocal skepticism of a nuclear deal with Iran may look myopic if such a deal is struck and helps reduce tensions throughout the Middle East. If military operations in Iraq drag on and test American voters’ patience, Paul remains better positioned than any other Republican to take advantage. The festering crisis of Syria could develop in a myriad of different ways – the fight with the Islamic State could expand and enmesh Obama into the Syrian civil war, a friendlier Iran could push the Assad government toward a settlement – and however Syria looks in 2016 will be stacked against Clinton and Paul’s past statements. The volatile nature of foreign policy, along with its lack of direct impact on voters’ wallets, often prompts presidential aspirants to de-emphasize the subject. That is one reason why the provocative remarks by Clinton and Paul are so unusual. The other reason is that for decades neither party has had a presidential frontrunner challenging its own fundamental foreign policy principles. For one party to pursue such a debate risks driving the losing faction into the arms of the other (Sen. John McCain has already hinted he may prefer Clinton to Paul; Ralph Nader vice-versa). For both parties to pursue it simultaneously raises the possibility of a partisan realignment, with Democrats claiming Ronald Reagan’s mantle of “Peace Through Strength” and Republicans adopting George McGovern’s call of “Come Home, America.” That might seem strange to imagine. But Democrats’ comfort with military action in pursuit of liberal ends has long been part of their history. And if military action is increasingly perceived as intertwined with liberal ends, and government incompetence, the Republican Party may reconnect with its isolationist past. That didn’t work out so well for Robert Taft. But Rand Paul can hope that Rick Perry is no Wendell Willkie, and Hillary Clinton is no General Eisenhower. *Talking Points Memo: “The Clintons Might Already Be Wooing A 2016 Veep Candidate” <http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/hillary-clinton-julian-castro-vice-presidential-candidate>* By Dylan Scott August 15, 2014, 9:31 a.m. EDT President Bill Clinton invited incoming Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro to dine at the Clinton's private D.C. home last week, the Washington Post reported, making it impossible for the media to ignore the 2016 implications. Castro, former San Antonio mayor and 2012 Democratic National Convention keynote speaker, was nominated by President Barack Obama to head HUD in May. The New York Times noted at the time that he "has often been mentioned as a potential vice-presidential candidate for the Democrats." The move to HUD was thought to help bolster Castro's national profile. The veep speculation is mostly a matter of connecting the dots. Castro is a young (39) and charismatic Hispanic politician, as is his twin brother Joaquin, a freshman Texas congressman. Now Bill Clinton is inviting Castro over for dinner so they can get to know each other better and Hillary Clinton also spoke with a close Castro friend at a private lunch in March about Castro's political aspirations, according to the Post. Even anonymous sources close to situation are stoking the fire. “The Clintons are keeping the Castros very close to them," a confidante told the Post. Official spokespeople, of course, dismissed the 2016 conjecture. “Secretary Castro and former president Clinton had a discussion about ways the agency can expand on the partnership with the Clinton Climate Initiative to make public housing more energy-efficient,” HUD spokeswoman Betsaida Alcantara told the Post. "They didn't talk about 2016," a Clinton aide said. *CBS News: “Hillary Clinton's lead over potential 2016 GOP foes shrinks: Poll” <http://www.cbsnews.com/news/hillary-clintons-lead-over-potential-2016-gop-foes-shrinks-poll/>* By Jake Miller August 15, 2014, 11:15 a.m. EDT The good news for Hillary Clinton in a new McClatchy-Marist poll is that she's still ahead of all of her potential Republican challengers. The bad news is that her lead has shrunk - and quickly - as her book tour and other public events have carried her back into the center of the political fray. In the new survey, the former secretary of state outpaces Gov. Chris Christie, R-N.J., by seven points, 48 to 41 percent. In April. though, McClatchy found her ahead of Christie by 11 points, 53 to 42 percent. And in February, the gap between the two was a yawning 21 percent. Against former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Clinton holds on to a seven point lead, 48 to 41 percent. In April, she was ahead of Bush by 16 points, 55 to 39 percent. And matched against Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., Clinton earns 48 percent to Paul's 42 percent, but in April, she bested Paul by 14 points, 54 to 40 percent. Lee Miringoff, the director of Marist's polling institute, blamed Clinton's flagging numbers on the increased publicity generated by her tour promoting her memoir "Hard Choices," along with a few gaffes she committed along the way. Critics pounced in June when Clinton said she and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, left the White House in 2001 "dead broke." While the Clintons did leave the White House with a pile of legal debt, they quickly earned millions from book deals and speaking fees. Clinton later expressed regret for the comments, calling them "inartful." "Misstatements, starting with we left the White House broke, aren't headline grabbers, but they're noticeable," Miringoff, said, according to McClatchy. "With Hillary Clinton, there's no preseason. She needs a Super Bowl-like performance from start to finish." Before any of the Republicans can take the fight to Clinton, though, they have to emerge from their own scrum - and according to this new poll, that's going to be no small feat. Bush and Christie lead the pack at 13 percent apiece, with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz close behind at 10 percent. The others are mired in single digits, with Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., at 9 percent, Paul and Gov. Rick Perry, R-Texas, at 7 percent, and Gov. Scott Walker, R-Wis., at 4 percent. Twenty-three percent are undecided.