Correct The Record Thursday November 20, 2014 Afternoon Roundup

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*​**Correct The Record Thursday November 20, 2014 Afternoon Roundup:* *Tweets:* *Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: .@HillaryClinton <https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton> visited more countries than any other Secretary of State #HRC365 <https://twitter.com/hashtag/HRC365?src=hash> http://map.correctrecord.org/ <http://t.co/enGHrjXSoH>[11/19/14, 5:01 p.m. EST <https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/535191092052779008>] *Headlines:* *MSNBC: “Hillary Clinton’s supporters meet in New York” <http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/hillary-clintons-shadow-campaign-meets-plot-run>* “Top officials and donors likely to be involved in a potential Hillary Clinton presidential run will gather in New York City Friday for a meeting of the pro-Clinton super PAC Ready for Hillary.” *New York Daily News: “Hillary, Chelsea help nearly triple Clinton Foundation donations” <http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/hillary-chelsea-double-clinton-foundation-donations-article-1.2017544>* [Subtitle:] “After the William J. Clinton Foundation changed its name to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, millions more dollars started pouring in.” *Salon: “Hillary Clinton draws her first 2016 challenger” <http://www.salon.com/2014/11/20/hillary_clinton_draws_her_first_2016_challenger/>* “Elizabeth Warren he is not.” *Washington Post blog: The Fix: “Jim Webb’s potential 2016 candidacy will not keep Hillary up at night” <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/11/20/jim-webbs-potential-2016-candidacy-will-not-keep-hillary-up-at-night/>* “In 2016, it's not clear that his national security credentials will seem similarly useful, especially if he's going up against a former secretary of state named Hillary Clinton.” *U.S. News & World Report blog: The Run 2016: “What Would Hillary Do?" <http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/run-2016/2014/11/20/hillary-clintons-potential-platform-for-a-presidential-run>* “There are almost as many ideas floating around for Clinton to consider as there are people offering them up, and most of them are interconnected. Here’s a look at her potential platform.” *Salon: “EXCLUSIVE: Rand Paul sounds off to Salon on race, 2016, Hillary and Republicans” <http://www.salon.com/2014/11/20/exclusive_rand_paul_sounds_off_to_salon_on_race_2016_hillary_and_republicans/>* Sen. Rand Paul: “You know, I think there’s been a history in, probably in both parties, of trying to go for what’s safe, you know. So, on the Democrat side you could make the same argument for Hillary Clinton. You may not get a lot of new ideas, you may not get a lot of innovation, you may get really a rehashing of old things, old policies, but she’ll be the safe bet, she’s well-known, she has universal name recognition.” *Articles:* *MSNBC: “Hillary Clinton’s supporters meet in New York” <http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/hillary-clintons-shadow-campaign-meets-plot-run>* By Alex Seitz-Wald November 19, 2014, 11:04 p.m. EST Top officials and donors likely to be involved in a potential Hillary Clinton presidential run will gather in New York City Friday for a meeting of the pro-Clinton super PAC Ready for Hillary. The group’s national finance council will meet behind closed doors at a Times Square hotel all day for a program that will feature panels of top Democratic strategists, along with speeches from elected officials who are supporting the former secretary of state. In addition to former Clinton aides like Craig Smith and Harold Ickies, and Obama field guru Mitch Stewart — all of whom have already been deeply involved with Ready for Hillary — the meeting will also feature other strategists who might be involved in an official campaign. That includes outgoing Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Executive Director Guy Cecil, California Democratic strategist Ace Smith, Emily’s List President Stephanie Schriock, and former Clinton aide and msnbc host Karen Finney. Paul Begala and James Carville, the dynamic duo who worked on Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign, will also be on hand. Ready for Hillary, which started in January of 2013, has been working to build a list of grassroots supporters and gather endorsements of Clinton. Other super PACs backing Hillary Clinton will also be represented. David Brock, who founded the pro-Clinton rapid response group Correct the Record will speak at the event. Priorities USA, the high-dollar super PAC that ran devastating ads against Mitt Romney, has now pledged support for Clinton. The group will be represented at Friday’s gathering by executive director Buffy Wicks and fundraiser Jonathan Mantz. Chris Lehane, a Clinton White House aide who now advises Democratic mega-donor Tom Steyer will participate in a panel as well. Also Obama Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, a former governor of the key early presidential state of Iowam will speak about why he’s “ready for Hillary.” The meeting will also include dozens of major donors to the super PAC. While the super PAC is likely to wind down its operations soon, the people present Friday will likely all be involved in a Clinton presidential run, thus the meeting may help lay some framework for a coming campaign. *New York Daily News: “Hillary, Chelsea help nearly triple Clinton Foundation donations” <http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/hillary-chelsea-double-clinton-foundation-donations-article-1.2017544>* By Leslie Larson November 20, 2014, 11:23 a.m. EST [Subtitle:] After the William J. Clinton Foundation changed its name to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, millions more dollars started pouring in. Hillary and Chelsea Clinton are the family’s million dollar babies. Changing the name of the William J. Clinton Foundation to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation in 2013 helped boost donations by $93 million. Tax documents for the non-profit show that combined contributions and grants grew from $51.5 million in 2012 to $144.4 million in 2013, according to a review by The Associated Press. Itemizations for the 2013 records show that nine donors gave a total of $64 million — including four who each gave $9.9 million or more. One person donated $15 million. The names of all nine were blacked out on the IRS form; tax-exempt groups don't have to list their donors. The Clinton Foundation does reveal who gives it money but not by specific amounts. According to data from the foundation website, 12 of last year's donors were among groups and individuals who have given $5 million or more since 1997. The foundation's chief financial officer, Andrew Kessel, credited the money spike to the foundation’s merger with Bill Clinton’s other charitable project, the Clinton Global Initiative. "We are incredibly proud of our work helping people live their best life stories," he said. "With an even stronger financial situation in 2013, the Clinton Foundation is positioned to broaden its impact across the globe." *Salon: “Hillary Clinton draws her first 2016 challenger” <http://www.salon.com/2014/11/20/hillary_clinton_draws_her_first_2016_challenger/>* By Luke Brinker November 20, 2014, 9:45 a.m. EST [Subtitle:] Former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb announces presidential exploratory committee Former Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia on Thursday announced that he’s forming a presidential exploratory committee, becoming the first prominent Democrat to make a formal foray into the 2016 contest. Webb, a Marine combat veteran who served as President Ronald Reagan’s Navy secretary, left the Republican Party in disgust over the Iraq War. Narrowly defeating GOP Sen. George Allen in 2006, Webb arrived in the Senate as a leading Democratic voice on foreign policy and national security issues. But frustrated with the slow pace of Senate life, Webb left the chamber after just a single term, although he vowed to remain involved in the national debate. At the time, few expected that a Webb presidential bid lay in store, but the former senator believes that his appeal to white, working class voters and his foreign policy expertise offer him unique advantages in a field likely to include former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who’s seen as the prohibitive Democratic frontrunner. Tapping into progressive angst that Clinton opts for cautious centrism over bold leadership, Webb has indicated that he’ll pitch himself as a leader who rejects small-bore politics. “There is a big tendency among a lot of Democratic leaders to feed some raw meat to the public on smaller issues that excite them, like the minimum wage, but don’t really address the larger problem,” Webb recently told The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza. “A lot of the Democratic leaders who don’t want to scare away their financial supporters will say we’re going to raise the minimum wage, we’re going do these little things, when in reality we need to say we’re going to fundamentally change the tax code so that you will believe our system is fair.” Similarly, in his exploratory committee announcement, Webb said, “A strong majority of Americans agree that we are at a serious crossroads. In my view the solutions are not simply political, but those of leadership. I learned long ago on the battlefields of Vietnam that in a crisis, there is no substitute for clear-eyed leadership.” “We need bold leadership that can tap into this talent, for the good of the country. We need people who will put the well-being of all of our citizens ahead of any special interest group, and who understand how to manage our complex federal system of government,” he added. In accordance with his effort to portray himself as a bold leader and policy innovator, Webb said that he was ahead of the curve on income inequality, an issue that has galvanized the progressive base of the Democratic Party; foreign policy; and criminal justice reform. “In 2007, I gave the response to President Bush’s State of the Union address. I put economic fairness for our working people and small business owners at the front of my response, noting the immense and ever-growing disparities in income between corporate executives and those who do the hard work. When I graduated from college the average corporate CEO made twenty times what his workers made,” Webb said. “Today that number is greater than 300 times. The inequalities between top and bottom in our country are greater than at any time in the last hundred years. And the disparities between those at the very top and the rest of our society have only grown larger since the economic crash of late 2008 and early 2009.” In addition, Webb noted that he advocated a greater role for Asia in U.S. foreign policy well before the Obama administration, with Clinton as secretary of state, announced its much-ballyhooed “pivot to Asia.” Notably, Webb offered a not-so-thinly-veiled jib at Clinton, whose election many fear would entrench dynastic politics in the U.S. “Our Constitution established a government not to protect the dominance of an aristocratic elite, but under the principle that there should be no permanent aristocracy, that every single American should have equal protection under the law, and a fair opportunity to achieve at the very highest levels while at the same time reducing ill-considered foreign ventures that have drained trillions from our economy and in some cases brought instability instead of deterrence,” Webb said. Among those “ill-considered foreign ventures” Webb opposes is the U.S. intervention in Libya, which Clinton enthusiastically backed during her State Department tenure. Speaking of Syria and Libya with Lizza, Webb said, “I was saying in hearings at the time, What is going to replace it? What is going to replace the Assad regime? These are tribal countries. Where are all these weapons systems that Qaddafi had? Probably in Syria. Can you get to the airport at Tripoli today? Probably not. It was an enormous destabilizing impact with the Arab Spring.” While Webb will position himself to Clinton’s left, he has engendered suspicion among many liberals throughout his career. In 2008, when Webb was reportedly under consideration to serve as then-Sen. Barack Obama’s running mate, The New Republic’s Richard Just assailed Webb’s worldview as “fundamentally illiberal” and “downright creepy,” citing Webb’s chest-thumping Scots-Irish nationalism, past opposition to women serving in combat (expressed in an article titled “Women Can’t Fight”), and his apologism for the Confederacy. Elizabeth Warren he is not. *Washington Post blog: The Fix: “Jim Webb’s potential 2016 candidacy will not keep Hillary up at night” <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/11/20/jim-webbs-potential-2016-candidacy-will-not-keep-hillary-up-at-night/>* By Philip Bump November 20, 2014, 10:03 a.m. EST The on-paper version of former Virginia senator Jim Webb checks a lot of the boxes on the "Does this person look presidential?" checklist (available by the metric ton at any major news outlet). A decorated Vietnam veteran and secretary of the Navy under Ronald Reagan, Webb, as a Democrat, unseated an incumbent Republican senator in the swing state of Virginia. And he has a good head of hair and a charming touch of drawl in his voice as he announces his candidacy and pitches a return to the political center. "Is it possible," he asks, "that our next President could actually lay out a vision for the country, and create an environment where leaders from both parties and from all philosophies would feel compelled to work together for the good of the country, despite all of the money and political pressure that now demands they disagree?" His answer, you will be surprised to learn, is: Yes. Webb's got some bona fides on a "centrist" pitch. When he was in the Senate, according to analysis from GovTrack.us, he was among the Democrats furthest to the right ideologically in his Congress. The Democratic Party's newly embraced panic over the votes of working-class whites is a drum Webb began beating in 2010, as Bloomberg's Dave Weigel noted on Thursday. But Webb is also much more inexperienced in electoral politics than you might think. All of the references above to his being a former senator skip over the fact that he served one term, from 2006 to 2012, choosing not to run again. And when he won in 2006, it was by the skin of his teeth; or, perhaps more accurately, by someone else's skin entirely. Sen. George Allen's weird reference to a Democratic tracker, who was an Indian American, was one of the first scandals to go Internet-video-viral. And yet Webb still only barely beat Allen (R-Va.), by just over 9,000 votes out of 2.3 million cast -- in 2006, a strong Democratic wave election. Democrats won the House by an eight-percentage-point margin. Webb couldn't manage a one-point margin against the "macaca" guy. What's more, Webb actually underperformed with the constituencies that he was tut-tutting about in 2010, relative to the national totals. He won voters with incomes under $50,000 by eight points, according to exit polls; Democratic House candidates nationally won them by 12. Webb actually lost among voters who made less than $100,000 and won those making more, the inverse of the rest of his party. If Webb wants to argue that he knows how to lure working-class voters, he can't point to numbers to make that case. Webb was a great candidate for Democrats in Virginia in 2006. The state was just transitioning from more-Republican to more-Democratic than the nation as a whole in presidential elections, meaning that it wasn't a sure thing for either party to win. Webb could critique George W. Bush on the unpopular Iraq War from the space of being a veteran and a former Reagan military official. (Regardless, he did worse than national Democrats among voters who thought Iraq was an important issue.) That was helpful in 2006. In 2016, it's not clear that his national security credentials will seem similarly useful, especially if he's going up against a former secretary of state named Hillary Clinton. If nothing else, Webb's candidacy is evocative of another former presidential contender: Wesley Clark. Clark became a bit of a darling when a possible candidacy first emerged. A former Army general, he seemed well-poised to lead the party's efforts to position itself as able to fix the problems with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He checked off a lot of boxes on that checklist, too, but his campaign never really got off the ground. There are other reasons for skepticism -- that we assumed in September might prevent Webb from making this announcement at all. (The word "Confederacy" makes an appearance, which is not one of the things most Democrats look for in a candidate.) We have come to the point at which we say, "you never know," which is the last box on the "How to write about 2016" checklist (also available in bulk). And you don't ever know. But maybe if we could look at more than one election that Webb barely won, we'd be able to know a bit better. *U.S. News & World Report blog: The Run 2016: “What Would Hillary Do?" <http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/run-2016/2014/11/20/hillary-clintons-potential-platform-for-a-presidential-run>* By David Catanese November 20, 2014, 12:01 a.m. EST [Subtitle:] Democrats say addressing the country’s wage gap should top Clinton's platform if she runs for president. She’s a groundbreaking political figure and worldwide celebrity who carries one of the most venerable names in American politics. But before Hillary Clinton can announce another pursuit of the presidency, she must fuse together an agenda that goes deeper than her singular potential to shatter the glass ceiling and move to the Oval Office. As Clinton learned the hard way in 2008, running on political inevitability is fraught with risk. Given she would arguably enter a 2016 White House race as an even stronger front-runner, it behooves her to outline a concrete vision of how she would address the country’s most vexing problems. The tension between her centrist instincts and an emboldened liberal wing of the Democratic Party makes this task more complicated, but no less crucial. President Barack Obama’s persisting unpopularity and Democrats’ unsettling losses in this year’s midterm elections only heighten the expectations for what’s next. “It’s going to be important for Hillary because she’s been around a long time,” says Al From, a former adviser to President Bill Clinton and founder of the moderate Democratic Leadership Council. “She needs a rationale for her candidacy.” There are almost as many ideas floating around for Clinton to consider as there are people offering them up, and most of them are interconnected. Here’s a look at her potential platform. *The Wage Gap* Despite the array of ideas, there’s almost unanimity among Democratic policy experts and politicians that at the top of any Clinton campaign agenda should be a way to confront the country’s widening wage gap. Spurred by a relentless drumbeat from progressive hero Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Clinton almost surely will have to address rising economic inequality at the outset of a potential campaign. Median incomes have remained flat over the past 10 years. Simply acknowledging this bluntly and directly could go a long way with progressives itching for a more populist approach to an uneven recovery. “The first thing is to recognize the nature of the problem. This is not simply an issue of inequality. Inequality was increasing in the 1980s and 1990s when everyone’s incomes were rising. What’s happening in this period is the higher incomes are rising rapidly, but nobody else is making progress,” says Rob Shapiro, the principal economic adviser to Bill Clinton during his first White House campaign. “I think this is why every election is a wave election. Politicians haven’t done anything to help with the biggest problem facing households: Why very substantial productivity gains hasn’t translated into broad income progress.” Jared Bernstein, who formerly served as Vice President Joe Biden’s chief economic policy adviser, recommends “a policy architecture which re-connects economic growth and more broadly shared prosperity.” The political goal would be to convince middle-wage, working Americans they have a realistic chance of claiming their fair share of the pie. There are several policy tools Clinton could choose from to address this. *Job Training* One that holds potential for garnering support across political factions is a nationwide job-training program. It’s a refrain heard across the country: There are jobs available, but employers struggle to find skilled workers to fill them. Former Gov. Michael Dukakis, the 1988 Democratic nominee for president, says he knows of a long-term care facility in southeastern Massachusetts – the state he led – that can’t fill 300 open positions because of a skills deficit. He says Clinton could reach out to employers across the country to craft a carefully designed survey that identifies their needs, and then marry the findings with a program providing specific training in designated areas, such as health care. “They aren’t jobs that require college degrees; they don’t even require associate degrees. But they require intensive training: three months, four months, five months, six months,” Dukakis says. “These are health care-related jobs. They’re damn good jobs that carry benefits, average about $75,000 a year. They’re middle-skill jobs.” *College Affordability* Almost as essential to addressing the country’s skills gap is making sure the next generation can enter the workforce without having to dig out from under a massive amount of debt. As a new grandmother, Clinton could comfortably deliver a personal pitch that making college more affordable should become a national priority. It’s not an issue that dominates cable talk shows, but Warren, D-Mass., has given it pizazz over the last year by drafting legislation saying college loans should be issued at the same low interest rates that Wall Street banks receive. That may be a bridge too far for Clinton, but other left-leaning policy wonks see rising student debt as significant enough of an economic emergency that they’re floating dramatic solutions. “The cost of a college education is totally out of control,” Shapiro says. “I think we need to move to a system of free tuition for anyone who is accepted to a public college or university in their home state.” Shapiro says that cost could be covered by simply replacing it with the millions of dollars in grants and loans divvied out annually. Dukakis’ approach of advocating for direct loans to students isn’t as radical, but his point is the same: “Get the banks out of this,” he says. Clinton may borrow from Warren’s policy framework on this issue, even if she’s not willing to adopt all of its pillars together. *An Infrastructure Stimulus* Clinton also could feel pressure to go back to the well for another stimulus package, Obama’s first domestic achievement during his presidency. The $787 billion infusion of government funds didn’t stop a gradual uptick in unemployment, but without it, the Great Recession could have been much worse, according to liberals. Some left-leaning economists now are rekindling the idea that when the private market underperforms in job creation, it’s the government’s role to temporarily try to make up the difference. “A pretty deep dive into infrastructure investment would be smart on a pretty wide variety of levels,” Bernstein says. Former House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., says extending high-speed Internet capacity to rural areas could help reinvigorate small-town America. At the time of a 2012 Federal Communications Commission report, about 6 percent of the country’s population lived in areas without benchmark fixed broadband service. “A lot of young people can start their businesses with technology, but they can’t do it without speed and capacity. Getting them information infrastructure is critical. A large chunk of that generation is being left behind,” Gephardt says. It’s hard to see Clinton floating a stimulus anywhere near the size of the 2009 legislation, but a more targeted package focused on rail, roads, bridges and technology could be an idea she carefully considers to produce an economic jolt. *Taxes* As in almost every election for Democrats, some of the most politically dicey questions Clinton will face relate to tax policy. Will she run hard against the GOP claim that taxes and regulations are a burden on economic growth? Will she propose any rate cuts at a time when entitlement reform also will be a core part of the debate? Will she go big and propose an overhaul of the entire tax system? Even some moderate Democrats are floating the elimination of the burdensome payroll tax in order to incentivize employers to hire more workers. “It’s a regressive tax. I think we ought to eliminate it and replace it with a green tax,” From says. Steve Rosenthal, a Democratic operative with close ties to labor, says Clinton should grant tax breaks to companies that agree to keep their CEOs’ pay only 100 times greater than that of their median workers’ salaries. The breaks would reward corporations who take the wage gap seriously. But Shapiro thinks any tax policy adjustment is more politically perilous now, because it likely draws a candidate into the debate over Social Security and Medicare cuts. “In the old Clinton days, you could get away without doing much with entitlements – you can’t do that anymore. So it’s a little tougher politically,” he says. Bernstein argues that any type of tax reform should be revenue neutral or draw more money into the government’s kettle in order to be fiscally prudent for the future. This wide array of opinions demonstrates the deep fissures that lay even within the Democratic establishment regarding taxes, not to mention the traditional divide with Republicans. But if Clinton runs, the initial vision she sets will test whether she can balance the desires of ascendant liberals in her party with the needs of the cautious centrists keeping an eye on catering to that nonideological swing voter. “I don’t think she will take this strident anti-business populism, but I think there will be a populist notion to the message,” From says. “Democrats are cross-pressured because of their connections to Wall Street. They’ve been reluctant to go too far out on these issues,” Rosenthal acknowledges. “It’s difficult.” *Salon: “EXCLUSIVE: Rand Paul sounds off to Salon on race, 2016, Hillary and Republicans” <http://www.salon.com/2014/11/20/exclusive_rand_paul_sounds_off_to_salon_on_race_2016_hillary_and_republicans/>* By Phillip Bailey November 20, 2014, 7:00 a.m. EST [Subtitle:] GOP senator tells Salon about his potential White House bid, the GOP establishment and race in America With an eye on a potential 2016 bid for the White House, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul continues to test whether his libertarian-leaning message can attract new voters to the Republican Party. His appearance on liberal commentator Bill Maher’s HBO talk show last Friday (along with this interview) helped fuel the notion that unlike most other key figures from either major party, Paul is willing to talk with audiences who may not be disposed to agree with him. Of course, there are plenty who scoff at the idea of a Tea Party icon being the face of a sweeping coalition. Skepticism has been especially fierce — including at this site — when Paul has attempted to reach out to African-American voters, with critics noting Paul’s disapproval (as a Senate candidate four years ago) of a key provision of the 1964 Civil Right Act barring discrimination among private business. On the other hand, for a younger generation of voters feeling ignored by Democrats, Paul’s present-day position on U.S. drug laws and criminal justice reforms have appeal: *Perv Gotti* @Vishizz_A_Creep: Feel how you wanna feel about it but I'd vote Rand Paul over Hillary Clinton... [11/14/14, 10:24 p.m. EST <https://twitter.com/Vishizz_A_Creep/status/533460488886419456>] *Nice Look Nikki* @PrettyNikki33: Rand Paul on Bill Maher's show making sense [11/14/14, 10:17 p.m. EST <https://twitter.com/PrettyNikki33/status/533458827870339074>] The senator, who has been referred to as the “most interesting man in Washington,” seems intent on testing whether a candidate who has openly courted the fringe of American politics can successfully attract wider support in this current political climate. Paul talked to Salon this week about this attempt to broaden his appeal, particularly to non-white and young voters, why his party establishment still seems to have Romney fever, and whether he’d give up his Senate seat to seek the White House in 2016. Our conversation follows, lightly condensed and edited. *Your appearance on Bill Maher’s show last week suggests you intend to court liberals and independents if you run for president. How can a proud member of the Tea Party really achieve this?* You know, I think there is a great deal of possibility for any candidate who can get out of either party, that doesn’t neatly fit in either party’s mold. So I think if you had a Democrat unusual enough to get through the primary system but to appeal to people outside of the Democrat mold, they could do well. Same goes for a Republican. And I’ll often tell people that a plurality of Americans now no longer consider themselves either Republicans or Democrats, so if you’re a Republican and wanted to get Bill Maher’s vote, it’s probably a difficult sell, but the fact that he’s open and willing because he’s frustrated with both sides, I think is emblematic of a lot of people, particularly young people. I don’t think they’re wedded to one party or the other, and so I think the biggest obstacle to somebody coming out that could attract people from the middle is getting through the primary system, because you’ve got to get through a primary system that, on both sides, you know, sort of demands ideological purity, and then if someone is outside of those bounds, it’s more difficult to get through the primary system. But if you do, I’m convinced — and basically the pitch I give to people is, look, you want somebody that reaches beyond the bounds of the Republican Party because that’s how you win general elections. So I think there’s an argument to be made even in a primary that you want somebody who can reach beyond the typical boundaries of party. And frankly for us as the Republican Party, I think the demographics of the country are such that if the trend lines of our lack of ability to get African-American votes and our decreasing ability to get Hispanic votes, if those trend lines continue, I think we won’t be able to win presidential elections, period. So I’m doing a lot of things, I’m doing, not only because I think the issues are right and I believe them, but I also believe in the electoral success that whoever runs or whoever is our nominee for president will have to be someone who disrupts the normal demographic voting patterns. *You made a pretty bold statement, for a Republican, about the situation in Ferguson, speaking out against the militarization of police. Since then, what are your thoughts about how state and local authorities are handling the situation?* You know, I think there still needs to be legislation, because I think the whole surplus military defense being given to the police is a bad idea. You know, we had a hearing about a month ago on this in Homeland Security, and I asked, frankly, I believe the guy who was the head of FEMA at the time, I said, you know, what do police need with 12,000 bayonets? And he didn’t have a very good answer. [Laughs] He said we’re studying it, and it’s like, how much studying do you need to do to find out that the police don’t need bayonets? And he kind of acknowledged it, but it’s a problem with government, it’s like if you’re in charge of this, wouldn’t you just tomorrow or today make the decision we’re no longer going to give out bayonets? *When it comes to race, how do you explain to potential new supporters some past controversies – like your comments on the Civil Rights Act and a former aide’s neo-Confederate past — that you know Democrats and others will bring up should you seek the White House?* Well, I think that I simply point to my record. I don’t think there has been anybody who has been a bigger defender of minority rights in the Congress than myself, and that’s not saying others aren’t trying as well. But I think you can see a history and a litany of bills that I’ve put forward to not only restore voting rights, but to try to prevent people from the tragedy of losing their employability through felony convictions and other things. People will always do things for partisan purposes, and I think some of that drummed up in the beginning for partisan purposes when I was running for office. But no, I don’t think there’s anything out there that people are going to say, “Oh, look at this, this means that you’re a racist,” or something, and I think if they do, they probably pigeonhole themselves as being unreasonable by making that kind of comment. *A number of Beltway publications such as Time magazine have dubbed you the most interesting person in D.C. But others have covered your flirtation with fringe theories such as the National Weather Service buying ammunition and the UN seizing firearms. How do you explain those earlier statements for voters willing to give you a shot but potentially concerned by these ideas?* You know, I think the over-militarization of local police forces is also true of the over-militarization of the federal government, so I don’t really run and hide from the comment that I think there are 48 federal agencies that have SWAT teams. So, for example, in my book, “Government Bullies,” we write about a SWAT team being sent to an organic food store outside of L.A. This is the USDA, so the Department of Agriculture has a SWAT team, and they went out there to confiscate unpasteurized milk. You have a crowd of people who, for one reason or another, like to drink it straight from the cow and think it’s better for them, but to me it’s sort of their business what they want to do. But we actually do have a SWAT team for the USDA. Fish and Forest, the US Fish and Forestry … what is it called … Anyway, they’ve got a SWAT team. They went into Gibson Guitar basically with a SWAT team based on a regulation in India that they said they were in violation of the regulation in India. So, yeah, I do think the government is over-militarized and we’ve over-criminalized things, not just in the drug war, but in everything. I mean, we write in the book of a guy who was putting … elevating … raising the elevation with fill dirt, clean dirt, and he was put in jail for conspiracy to violate the Clean Water Act for 10 years, and he’s still in prison. So we’ve gone overboard, not only on the war on drugs, but on the over-criminalization that things, that even if you think they ought to be illegal, ought to be civil fines. And I think actually if you comply with the civil fine, or whatever, you ought to be able to … you shouldn’t have like criminal sentences. I think that’s crazy for a lot of this stuff. *Looking at 2016, Kentucky law forbids a candidate’s name from appearing on the ballot more than once (e.g., running for president and Senate at the same time). Given that Democrats in the state House maintain control of that chamber, how do you expect to get around the law if you do indeed run for president?* Well, we’re definitely running for reelection for the U.S. Senate and we’ll actually have an announcement on that probably next week, but we will run for reelection. On the other, there are various possibilities that have been discussed in the media on how to do it. There’s a possibility that the Republican Party could choose to have a convention, in which case there would not be a primary ballot to be on twice, and that would overcome, really, I think, the problem there. But some of that discussion is ongoing and some of it hasn’t been finalized. *Which do you favor?* Well, I think making the playing field equal for people across the United States. That’s one reason why we think there’s a constitutional question here. Should people who live in Minnesota get the chance to vote for one of their favorite sons or daughters twice, and people in Kentucky not? So I think eligibility for office has to be uniform across the states. There was a term limits case many years ago, and even though I favor term limits, I think they made the right decision, that Washington state could not restrict their congressman to three terms and Kentucky have no limit on terms. The Constitution set the requirements for eligibility for office that states can’t modify for federal office; they can modify for state office, but I think that’s actually a case that could be won, but it’s also just a fairness issue. You know, there’s two dozen people who have run for both offices, both presidency and a local office in their state, and I think people, if they were presented with the idea of fairness, would say, you know what, why would we punish someone who’s from our state versus someone who’s from Connecticut or Wisconsin or Texas? *Fellow Republican Sen. Marco Rubio faces a similar situation in Florida, and suggested he would not seek reelection if he ran for president. Under any scenario would you be willing to give up your Senate seat for a White House bid?* I think every individual’s got to make up their own mind, and I don’t have any comment on what his decision is, because I don’t think it’s really clear what his decision is from that, but you know, that’ll be something that he has to determine over time. But I think there have been a number of people that have been on the ballot more than once and there is a fairness issue that we shouldn’t allow some states to do it and other states not to. And I really think the court will side with that as well, because the court has consistently upheld that federal elections, the eligibility for office, you know, the Congress … the Constitution actually sets how old you are and exactly who can be eligible for both Senate and for Congress, those are federal rules, not state rules, so I think there will be a tough time with the law and that. But we’d probably just as soon not get involved with that law, and still have a decision-making process, whether or not we’re going forward with it. So we’ll address that probably in the spring. *As you consider running for president in 2016, big GOP donors and elites have responded by desperately pushing Mitt Romney and other establishment types to get in the race. Are you disturbed by the fact that elites in your party are reacting this way?* You know, I think there’s been a history in, probably in both parties, of trying to go for what’s safe, you know. So, on the Democrat side you could make the same argument for Hillary Clinton. You may not get a lot of new ideas, you may not get a lot of innovation, you may get really a rehashing of old things, old policies, but she’ll be the safe bet, she’s well-known, she has universal name recognition. The same can happen on the Republican side, but I think there’s an argument on our side, at least, that safe hasn’t won. We tried safe the last couple of times, meaning the, sort of the establishment. I don’t have anything against Romney, I like Romney, I supported him, but we need someone that goes beyond safe to try to attract new constituencies. And so whether I’m that person or not is yet to be determined, but I think, I fully and strongly believe, and I think a lot of people who support the party believe that we will have to reach out to new constituencies, whether that’s African-Americans, Hispanics, young people, women, you name it. We’re going to have to reach out to new constituencies.