podesta_email_00298.txt

podesta-emails 10,432 words email

P22 D6 D3 P19 V12

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*​**Correct The Record Thursday December 18, 2014 Afternoon Roundup:* *Tweets:* *Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: .@HillaryClinton <https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton> said by investing in children's education, "we are saying that the future is worthwhile"#HRC365 <https://twitter.com/hashtag/HRC365?src=hash> http://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/27/world/a-clinton-and-a-bhutto-share-a-joke-in-pakistan.html … <http://t.co/VYcR1AICqC> [12/18/14, 12:06 p.m. EST <https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/545626105093169153>] *Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: .@HillaryClinton <https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton> implored that we shouldn't "condone & practice torture anywhere in the world" #HRC365 <https://twitter.com/hashtag/HRC365?src=hash> http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/hillary-clinton-pass-laws-forbidding-torture-113631.html#ixzz3MAMHyc9G … <http://t.co/W1fo5ugswI> [12/17/14, 3:51 p.m. EST <https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/545320321893793792>] *Headlines:* *Washington Post blog: Plum Line: “Morning Plum: Obama, unbound, puts his stamp on 2016” <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/12/18/morning-plum-obama-unbound-puts-his-stamp-on-2016/>* “When you step back and look at the degree to which these actions are beginning to frame that contest [the 2016 election], it’s striking.” *New York Times Magazine: “Can Liberal Zionists Count On Hillary Clinton?” <http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/21/magazine/can-liberal-zionists-count-on-hillary-clinton.html?&hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=1>* “The political quandary for liberal Zionists is that, as part of the Jewish majority that will vote for Clinton regardless, they aren’t in a great position to make demands and are reduced to hoping that Clinton secretly agonizes over the issue as much as they do.” *BuzzFeed: “Ted Cruz: ‘I Can Only Laugh’ When Obama, Clinton Discuss Income Inequality” <http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/ted-cruz-i-can-only-laugh-when-obama-clinton-discuss-income#.okm990Wdw>* “Ted Cruz is attacking President Obama and Hillary Clinton on income inequality.” *Washington Post blog: Post Politics: “Rand Paul supports opening up relations with Cuba” <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/12/18/rand-paul-supports-opening-up-relations-with-cuba/>* “On the Democratic side, presumed frontrunner Hillary Clinton said she supports Obama's decision.” *The Hill blog: Ballot Box: “Dems blame 2014 drubbing on failed economic message” <http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/polls/227540-dems-lack-of-economic-message-led-to-campaign-losses>* "The analysis found that Democrats focused too much on 'piecemeal policy proposals' like the minimum wage and equal pay for women, which 'struck voters as falling well short of the level of change necessary to set our country and our economy back on track.'" *NBC News: “Why 2016 Will Be a Battle Between the Grassroots and the Donors” <http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/why-2016-will-be-battle-between-grassroots-donors-n270401>* “Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, has the long-standing support of wealthy Democrats, gathered between her and Bill Clinton over more than two decades in politics.” *New York Times: “As 2016 Nears, Hillary Clinton Keeps in Mind Mistakes of 2008 Campaign” <http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/19/us/politics/as-2016-nears-hillary-rodham-clinton-keeps-eye-on-mistakes-of-2008-campaign.html?_r=0>* “Little by little, Mrs. Clinton is taking steps that suggest she has learned from the mistakes, both tactical and personal, of her failed candidacy.” *Washington Post blog: The Fix: “The Associated Press just did something very smart” <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/12/18/the-associated-press-just-did-something-very-smart/>* “Given how drastically over-covered Hillary Clinton's expected presidential campaign will be -- particularly given the small chance she will face a genuinely competitive primary -- having more people in these state capitols to mine the records of the various governors running for the big office is a smart investment.” *Politico: “Clinton aide met with Warren-aligned liberal group” <http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/hillary-clinton-elizabeth-warren-progressive-change-campaign-committee-113675.html>* “On Thursday, PCCC founder Adam Green confirmed that he had met with a Clinton aide in the last few weeks, but declined to identify the aide or describe what was discussed.” *Articles:* *Washington Post blog: Plum Line: “Morning Plum: Obama, unbound, puts his stamp on 2016” <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/12/18/morning-plum-obama-unbound-puts-his-stamp-on-2016/>* By Greg Sargent December 18, 2014, 9:22 a.m. EST For years, progressives have sharply criticized President Obama for shaping major decisions around the idea that scaling back his ambitions would ultimately secure the GOP cooperation he had long sought. But the GOP takeover of Congress has effectively freed Obama from that illusion, leaving him little choice other than to be as aggressive and ambitious as possible in unilaterally pursuing his agenda wherever he can. This is now setting in motion a series of arguments that will shape the next race for the presidency. In a very good piece, the New York Times’ Michael Shear reports that Obama’s decision to pursue normalized relations with Cuba is only the latest in a pattern that may characterize his last two years in office: “The announcement…follows similar decisions by Mr. Obama in recent weeks to defy Republicans on immigration, climate change policy, the regulation of the Internet and negotiations with Iran… “Mr. Obama’s unilateral action on Cuba is part of a pattern that will define the end of his presidency. Frustrated by congressional inaction and Republican efforts to block legislation, the president has increasingly pushed the limits of his executive authority in domestic and international policy making — an approach that anticipates, and largely dismisses, angry responses from his critics… “Mr. Obama is returning to the original case he made as a presidential candidate, casting himself as a transformational leader who is eager to discard old conventions of politics and policy in ways that appeal to the sensibilities of younger people. Although the midterm elections last month were a victory for Republicans, who took control of the Senate and added to their House majority, the results seem to have only accelerated the president’s use of regulatory, diplomatic and executive authority.” Republicans like to say all of this unilateral action defies the will of the people as expressed in the last election. If that is so, then Republicans will surely be glad to hear that much of what Obama is setting in motion may be litigated in another electoral contest — the 2016 presidential race. When you step back and look at the degree to which these actions are beginning to frame that contest, it’s striking. Hillary Clinton has now endorsed Obama’s move on Cuba. GOP presidential hopefuls are lining up against it. She has vowed to protect Obama’s actions on climate “at all costs,” a stance that could take on added significance if a global climate treaty is negotiated next year. Potential GOP presidential candidates will likely vow to undo those actions and line up against U.S. participation in such a treaty. Clinton has come out in support of Obama’s action to shield millions from deportation. GOP presidential hopefuls have lined up against it, effectively reaffirming the party’s commitment to deporting as many low-level offenders and longtime residents as possible. And so on. As Shear’s piece notes, all these actions appear geared to “the sensibilities of younger people.” But it goes beyond this. They are geared to the priorities of many of the voter groups that are increasingly key to Democratic victories in national elections: millennials, nonwhite voters, and college educated whites, especially women. The Cuba shift may appeal to young voters, particularly younger Cubans in the key swing state of Florida. The move on deportations could sharpen the contrast between the parties in ways that enhance the Democratic advantage among Latinos. The moves on climate could appeal to millennials and socially liberal upscale whites. The common thread uniting all of these is a Democratic gamble that such groups will be swayed by an agenda that is forward-looking and more accepting of evolving demographic, international and scientific realities, and will see the GOP as increasingly trapped in the past. One big unknown is whether the next Democratic nominee can get out the Obama coalition in the numbers he did. But it increasingly looks like a good deal more of the Obama agenda than expected — in the form of all these unilateral actions — may be on the ballot in 2016 to appeal to these voter groups. Republicans delighted in arguing that Obama’s policies were soundly rejected in the last election. But we’re now playing on a presidential year field, and Obama’s new approach appears to be only getting started. *New York Times Magazine: “Can Liberal Zionists Count On Hillary Clinton?” <http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/21/magazine/can-liberal-zionists-count-on-hillary-clinton.html?&hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=1>* By Jason Horowitz December 17, 2014 Daniel Zemel first visited Israel fresh off his bar mitzvah, in 1966. A bookish Jewish kid from Chicago, Zemel had a love for Israel inherited from his grandfather, Rabbi Solomon Goldman, a friend of Albert Einstein’s who was president from 1938 to 1940 of the then left-leaning Zionist Organization of America. With the other members of his Jewish education group, the 13-year-old Zemel spent two weeks in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa. He lunched in cafeterias with the kibbutzniks he idolized, ate frozen treats on the beach and climbed a lookout tower, peering into Jerusalem’s still forbidden Old City. A year later, Zemel was ecstatic when Israeli forces captured everything he had surveyed and beyond, including the Temple Mount, the West Bank and Gaza, in the Six-Day War with Egypt, Syria and Jordan. Over the decades, as Israel matured and began to wrestle with the occupation, Zemel did, too. He visited Israel again and again, as a college student, a rabbinical student and an assistant rabbi in Minnesota. In 1983, Zemel became the head rabbi of Temple Micah, in the Northwest section of Washington. In the constellation of liberal American synagogues, there are a handful that stand out for their political engagement and the influence of their members — Leo Baeck Temple in Los Angeles, Congregation Beth Elohim in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and KAM Isaiah Israel on Barack Obama’s old block in Chicago. But none have more connections to Capitol Hill. In the fall, Zemel, a contemplative 62-year-old with horn-rimmed glasses, a bushy mustache and a bald dome from which his skullcap incessantly slips, stood before his congregation in a state of unrest. It was the start of the Jewish New Year, and he had decided to express his anguish over Israel in the form of a sermon about the direction his beloved country had taken. All summer, during the war in Gaza, Zemel and many of the members of his progressive congregation had been racked with worry. In his book-lined office, decorated with an Israeli flag and a poster of Yoda holding a Hebrew bible, emails from congregants had been regularly popping up on Zemel’s computer screen, railing about Israelis “killing children.” Zemel sat with congregants as they wept on his couch. The entire year 5774, in fact, was a trying one for Zemel and other liberal Zionists, who increasingly find themselves torn between their liberalism and Zionism and stranded in the disappearing middle between the extremes of a polarized American Jewish community. Micah’s liberal Zionists remained wedded to a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians and estranged from the policies of a right-wing Israeli government, along with the reflexively Israel-can-do-no-wrong sentiment on Capitol Hill. But they also felt alienated by Jewish groups to their left, some of which chanted, “Stop the murder, stop the hate, Israel is a racist state.” Zemel, fighting a nagging cold, looked out at the robust crowd on Rosh Hashana. He knew that the people gathered before him — and the people they knew — could help determine United States policy toward Israel. Some of them even had a direct line to Hillary Clinton, the early favorite to be the Democrats’ nominee for president in 2016. Sara Ehrman, who is 95 and a veteran of Jewish-American politics, was a mentor to Clinton; she sat next to Maria Echaveste, a former official in Bill Clinton’s administration and a convert to Judaism whom President Obama nominated to become ambassador to Mexico. Al From, an architect of the Democratic resurgence of the 1990s and adviser to Bill Clinton, sat across the aisle. Arrayed around them sat newspaper, magazine and television journalists in a congregation that included David Gregory, a former host of “Meet the Press”; Jake Tapper, a CNN anchor; and Dana Bash, a Washington correspondent for CNN and the former wife of Jeremy Bash, who was a national-security official in the Obama administration. Another member of the congregation is Alan Cooperman, director of religion research at the Pew Research Center, which a year before published a landmark portrait of Jewish Americans that showed, among other things, that less than a third of young Jews said “caring about Israel” was essential to their Jewish identity. Zemel adjusted his skullcap. “Tonight we celebrate the creation of the world,” he said. “But in this season we also take a look at ourselves: We acknowledge our past, our errors, who we are. What better time to look in the same way at the only Jewish country in the world? The events of this summer actually only strengthened my decision to speak about Israel and American Jewry’s ongoing and evolving relationship with that mystifying, infuriating yet enchanting place.” As the sermon progressed, Zemel became more impassioned. He recounted the story of the reprisal murder in July of a Palestinian teenager from East Jerusalem by Israeli extremists. “I am so ashamed,” he shouted. He bemoaned the growing ultranationalism in Israel by saying it had “dragged through the mud” what he called “the greatest ethical tradition in history.” Heads nodded in the pews. “In many segments of American Jewry,” Zemel said, “one is free to disagree with the president of the United States, but the prime minister of Israel is sacrosanct. How patently absurd!” Zemel’s criticism of the current Israeli government pivoted to a discussion of how the Holocaust and that summer’s flare-ups of anti-Semitism in Europe reminded them all that Israel was existentially necessary. “We must love Israel even harder,” he concluded, quoting from the Israeli national anthem. “Od lo avda tikvateinu. We have not yet lost our hope.” For Zemel and his faithfully Democratic congregation, that hope and anxiety has come to rest most squarely on Hillary Clinton. This has happened at the same time that Clinton has staked out a firmly hawkish, pro-Israel position on Gaza and Israeli security. In August, many liberals were discouraged after reading a Clinton interview with Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic. In it, she struck a tone on Israel that was markedly more hard-line than that of the Obama administration, generally avoiding empathy with Palestinian losses and asserting, “If I were the prime minister of Israel, you’re damn right I would expect to have control over security” on the West Bank. Asked about her tough talk, liberal Zionists tend to blame the requirements of American presidential-campaign politics. A vast majority of Jews care far more about social issues and the economy than they do about the issue of Israel and will always vote for the Democratic candidate. “Democrats who are Jewish will turn out in droves in support of her,” Haim Saban, a media mogul and major Clinton-campaign financier told me. And the Jewish donors? “Without a doubt.” But Clinton knows that there is a wealthy and influential sliver of more-moderate Democratic Jews for whom Israel is a priority. They are less conservative than the G.O.P.'s top Jewish donors, like Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino owner, but feel protective enough of Israel that they could plausibly support a Republican if they sensed anything less than complete support from a Democrat. The political arithmetic for Clinton is easy — knowing you can take the larger liberal Jewish vote for granted, you support Israel’s right-wing government to keep moderates from bolting. The political quandary for liberal Zionists is that, as part of the Jewish majority that will vote for Clinton regardless, they aren’t in a great position to make demands and are reduced to hoping that Clinton secretly agonizes over the issue as much as they do. Saban, the major Clinton-campaign financier, told me that Clinton was pained by the consequences of Israel’s actions, just not publicly. “I can tell you that privately she has expressed empathy for the Palestinians,” he told me. “She has.” Victor Kovner, a Democratic bundler who has a Chuck Close painting of Hillary Clinton hanging in his New York office, assures fellow liberal Jews that Clinton is on their side. “She is running for president, this isn’t true-self time,” he said. He suggested that Bill Clinton had demonstrated a much more nuanced view. But other Clinton supporters have no patience for hand-wringing liberal Zionists, especially because there is little daylight between them and Clinton on actual policy. “What do they want her to do?” said Ann Lewis, a senior adviser on Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign who is involved with Jewish issues. The standard line for Hillary Clinton, who declined to be interviewed for this article, is that she has been a consistent voice for Israel and for peace over the last quarter-century. But other Clinton intimates, including those in Temple Micah, say they have watched her position shift by degrees over the decades. Ehrman, for one, recalled an early iteration of Hillary Clinton as a promising liberal voice on Israel. Ehrman first met Clinton during George McGovern’s 1972 presidential campaign in Texas. Back in Washington, Ehrman hosted Clinton, who had landed a job on the Watergate committee, in her apartment for a year, and the two became close. Ehrman later drove Clinton to Fayetteville, Ark., telling her all the way that she was making a mistake by giving up a promising career to marry the “country lawyer” Bill Clinton. In the early 1980s, Ehrman became political-education director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee — or Aipac — the country’s most potent pro-Israel lobbying group. When the Clintons came to Washington as president and first lady, Ehrman became deputy political director of the Democratic National Committee. “I did all the Jewish stuff around the White House,” Ehrman said. That work culminated in organizing the Oslo Accords ceremony, at which Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin shook hands with the Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat on the south lawn of the White House, sealing an agreement between Jews and Palestinians to end their conflict. On the morning of the signing ceremony, Hillary Clinton called Ehrman with a special reward. “ 'I want you to stand at the front door of the diplomatic entrance, the main entrance, and I want you to see them coming in,' ” Ehrman recalled her saying. The event was a high point of liberal Zionism’s harmony with Washington politics. “It was totally, totally amazing,” said Zemel, who also attended the event. Clinton’s interest in the issue did not end there. In May 1998, speaking via satellite to young Arabs and Israelis gathered in Switzerland for a conference, she became one of the first people associated with the Clinton administration to call for a two-state solution. “I think that it will be in the long-term interest of the Middle East for Palestine to be a state,” she said, adding that “the territory that the Palestinians currently inhabit, and whatever additional territory they will obtain through the peace negotiations,” should be considered “a functioning modern state.” The White House, seemingly uncomfortable with her statement, clarified that she was expressing a personal view. Her willingness to embrace the Palestinians soon caused another problem. In 1999, Ehrman accompanied Hillary Clinton on a trip to Ramallah, during which Clinton listened to Suha Arafat, the wife of the Palestinian Authority leader Yasir Arafat, deliver a speech in Arabic accusing the Israeli government of gassing Palestinian women and children. At the conclusion of the remarks, Clinton embraced Suha Arafat and offered a customary peck on the cheek. The moment news of the kiss hit the wires, a high-ranking Clinton administration official placed an angry call to the cellphone of Rob Malley, a Middle East adviser to the president, who was traveling with the first lady, demanding that he fix the problem. But the damage to Hillary Clinton was done. The next day, some New York Jewish leaders seized on the incident to discredit Hillary Clinton’s candidacy for the United States Senate, which was unofficially well underway. The New York Post ran a front-page headline reading “Shame on Hillary.” It was around this time that she enrolled in political Hebrew School. Under the tutelage of the senior New York senator, Chuck Schumer, she became extremely adept at winning the trust of audiences who held an absolute pro-Israel position. Schumer did, however, need to assure attendees at one campaign fund-raiser that “she will look to me to see how to vote” on Jewish issues. Clinton was elected to the Senate in 2000 and struck a tone that was in sync with the Bush administration, which had aligned itself with the Israeli right. In 2007, she went further than the administration when she released a position paper calling for “an undivided Jerusalem” as the capital of Israel. In 2008, as a presidential candidate, she warned Tehran that America would “totally obliterate” Iran if it attacked Israel. By this time, Clinton was an Aipac favorite, and Aipac had changed from the time that Ehrman had worked there. Founded in 1954 to strengthen the U.S.-Israel relationship regardless of political ideology, the lobby has become increasingly conservative in its politics and Orthodox in its membership, while developing an unparalleled network of donors around the country. Its financial power, demonstrated at annual megaconferences that bring together presidential candidates and congressional power brokers, has translated into legislative might. Aipac-backed bills — on, for example, support for the Israeli military or sanctions against Iran — usually pass unanimously in Congress. Many liberal Jews, alienated by Aipac over the years, were encouraged when Barack Obama ran against Clinton in the 2008 presidential primary. They appreciated that he took a more nuanced position when it came to supporting Israel, one that better reflected the political debate within Israel and among American Jews. They saw him as the rare presidential candidate who spoke their language and who seemed willing to push Israel toward peace. They expressed relief when he said that you could be committed to Israel while criticizing the policies of the right-wing government. “I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt an unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that you’re opposed to Israel, that you’re anti-Israel,” he said. “And that can’t be the measure of our friendship with Israel.” Once elected, Obama seemed to understand that he needed someone to lend him credibility with the Israeli government and its American defenders, a tough friend of Israel who could muscle the country away from settlements and toward a peace agreement. An aide to Obama called Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish American Organizations, and asked him to call Hillary Clinton to see if she would be “agreeable” to being named secretary of state. Early in her tenure as secretary, she was harshly critical of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the country’s increasingly conservative culture, surprising and appalling Aipac and many of her supporters in New York. She excoriated Israel’s settlement growth and the “antidemocratic” tendencies of its right wing and also the practice, in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, of gender discrimination “reminiscent of Rosa Parks.” As Clinton pressured Israel to make peace from the State Department, the Obama administration looked to J Street, a new and progressive Jewish lobby, to give members of Congress financial backing and credibility on Israel so that they could support the president without fear of being cash-starved by Aipac or called anti-Israel. J Street boasts of helping Obama defeat an Aipac-backed bill that would have scuttled the administration’s Iran nuclear talks. For the most part, though, unquestioning support for Israel has remained dominant in Washington. Even before she left the administration, Clinton essentially shed any pretense that she was still playing the role of impartial arbiter. As Israel flouted her own government’s demand that it not build more settlements in East Jerusalem, Clinton spoke so effusively about Netanyahu at a December 2012 conference that political observers considered the speech tantamount to a presidential announcement. Since then, Clinton has further distanced herself from her job as secretary of state, making light of her role as Netanyahu’s disciplinarian for Obama and calling herself the president’s “designated yeller.” This explanation of Clinton’s earlier rebukes of Israel is already gospel among her pro-Israel supporters. Lewis, a backer of the independent super PAC Ready for Hillary, told me that Clinton “was not in the lead on making policy.” Clinton’s return to campaign form has left liberal Zionists with little choice other than rationalization. “I sense that the people who advise Hillary Clinton on Jewish politics came of age in an era when the rules of the game were different,” Jeremy Ben-Ami, the founder and president of J Street, told me, suggesting that the time of reflexive support for Israel, regardless of their government’s policies, had ended. When I asked if he could persuade Clinton that such a position was no longer tenable, he answered, not so convincingly, “We definitely need to try.” Other liberal Zionists are hoping that Bill Clinton could be a more sympathetic voice within a Clinton White House. After Zemel’s Rosh Hashana sermon, in which he talked about the need for “Jewish genius” to solve the problem in Israel, Al From told me, “Bill Clinton has this little bit of genius.” Zemel concurred. “I want Hillary,” he said. “So I can get a second round with Bill.” Over the summer and fall, many of Micah’s congregants and other influential liberal Zionists around Washington aired their discomfort with Clinton on Facebook and in op-ed pages and journals. But they were made even more uneasy by the specter of an increasingly loud Jewish left wing that is openly hostile to Israel and advocates punishing it economically. At a Shabbat service in August, Zemel’s 22-year-old daughter, Ronit, a senior at Macalester College in St. Paul, sat in the front row of Micah’s sanctuary. She listened to her father say, “What is needed to make peace between the peoples of these two lands is probably more than humans can summon,” which is from “My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel,” a history of the country’s ethical struggle since its independence, by Ari Shavit, a columnist for the left-leaning Israeli paper Haaretz. In a few days Zemel’s daughter would head back to school, where she had served as co-chairwoman of the student wing of J Street, known as J Street U. The idea of going back to campus, she told me, gave her “the worst feeling ever.” She felt besieged by pro-Palestinian groups advocating boycott, divestment and sanctions, or B.D.S., modeled after the boycott movement that helped end South African apartheid policies. “I’m more ashamed of Israel now,” she said. “But I am viewing it from a place of love and caring, and I know that they are not. So I’m very scared.” Shavit expressed a similar concern. In November, he visited Temple Micah, and speaking as a “liberal to liberals” he worried about young American Jews losing their Jewish identity and drifting away from Israel. Chief among the fears of liberal Zionists were groups like Jewish Voice for Peace, which in June helped provide a Jewish seal of approval for the Presbyterian Church to divest from companies seen as profiting from Israeli occupation of the West Bank. Rebecca Vilkomerson, the executive director of Jewish Voice for Peace, said that as a result of the war, 60,000 new supporters signed the group’s online petitions or open letters in liberal Jewish publications. Vilkomerson (whose sister, an entertainment writer, is a friend of mine) said she felt no sympathy for the concerns of the liberal Zionist agonistes, whom she considered toothless and intellectually dishonest in their attempts to reconcile their liberal values with Israel’s right-wing government. She reserved special indignation for what she referred to as “PEPs,” or politicians who were “progressive except for Palestine.” Vilkomerson pointed to a Pew poll taken during the summer, which showed that the core constituencies of the Democratic electorate, people under 30, African-Americans and Hispanics, blamed Israel more than Hamas for the war. She was also encouraged by the angry response of some delegates at the 2012 Democratic National Convention who booed an amendment to the party platform that would recognize Jerusalem as the present and future capital of Israel. If the left wing makes the case to Clinton and her Democratic successors that the political calculus on Israel is changing, then, Vilkomerson predicted, they will be forced to recalibrate their position. Hillary Clinton, she said, “is totally politically calculating.” While Lewis says that Clinton should “take seriously” the increasingly intense conversation about the appropriate support for Israel, Clinton, at least for now, is not budging. After all, Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts senator often mentioned as a more liberal alternative to Clinton, has taken much the same position. “I would not argue that this is something to worry about,” Lewis told me. In November, Zemel took 30 of his congregants on the synagogue’s annual trip to Israel. It’s exactly the sort of pilgrimage that Zionists consider the most effective means of strengthening a connection to Judaism and, as a result, of increasing American Jewish support for Israel. But Zemel and his delegation saw signs in the region that troubled them. A third Intifada seemed possible in East Jerusalem, where Muslims and Jews clashed over holy places. Palestinian extremists ran over Israeli commuters and stabbed worshiping rabbis. Right-wing Israeli government ministers promoted the spread of settlements and proclaimed the death of the two-state solution. In November, they also proposed a bill that seemed to dilute Israel’s commitment to democracy by explicitly declaring the country a Jewish state. Netanyahu forced the justice minister, Tzipi Livni, a favorite of American liberal Zionists, out of his government. “One is torn,” Zemel told me from Tel Aviv. “I can’t imagine not wanting to come to Israel every chance I get. But what would happen if an Israeli government were to decide, ‘O.K., we’re going to declare the entire West Bank to be part of Greater Israel and we’re not going to grant the Palestinians full citizenship.’ How could I then come to visit this country? But how could I not come? I just can’t imagine it.” Zemel always felt Israel should be able to chart its own course, without the United States or any other nation forcing its hand. But as the tour progressed and the group encountered stun grenades and concrete blocks in Jerusalem, Zemel said he began to believe that Israel needed an emergency intervention from the United States. “If a person is killing themselves,” he told me. “You save them from themselves.” But there is a sinking feeling among many liberal Zionists that Washington’s opportunity for intervention has passed. The Obama administration’s efforts to broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace have collapsed and its attention has turned to terrorist groups like ISIS and the curbing of Iran’s nuclear program. European nations, frustrated with what they consider America’s unwillingness to force Israel to get out of the West Bank and embrace the two-state solution, have begun to recognize Palestine. Clinton has shown little inclination to risk political damage by reprising her old role as a friend and a critic of Israel. At a Brookings Institution forum in Washington on Dec. 5, Clinton addressed an audience of American Jews and Israeli officials, including Livni. She offered platitudes about the two-state solution and studiously avoided any of her past criticism of Israel. On her way out, as she shook hands and gave hugs, I asked Livni, who is trying to oust Netanyahu in elections in March, if America’s liberal Jews should have any expectation that a new, more progressive Israeli government could form. “It’s not only their hope,” she said. “It’s our hope.” Zemel was discouraged by Clinton’s remarks. “She didn’t say anything,” he complained. But he, too, clung to the idea that she had a private view that coincided with his own. “I hope,” he said. It’s a theme that Zemel often returns to when talking about Israel. On Yom Kippur, the holiest day in Judaism, he told a Micah congregant who was depressed about Israel’s rightward lurch that Jews were “a people of endless patience” who “view things in the long term.” At the breaking of the fast at his home that evening, he showed off a 19th century text that belonged to his grandfather, when he led the (at the time) liberal Zionist Organization of America — which is now a right-wing group financed in part by Adelson. Despite everything, Zemel remained optimistic, telling me that the song “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” was a Zionist anthem. “There’s no place like home? What could be more Jewish?” *BuzzFeed: “Ted Cruz: ‘I Can Only Laugh’ When Obama, Clinton Discuss Income Inequality” <http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/ted-cruz-i-can-only-laugh-when-obama-clinton-discuss-income#.okm990Wdw>* By Andrew Kaczynski December 18, 2014, 1:31 p.m. EST [Subtitle:] “And income inequality — you know, I have to admit, I can only laugh any time President Obama or Hillary Clinton talk about income inequality, because it’s increased dramatically under their administration.” Ted Cruz is attacking President Obama and Hillary Clinton on income inequality. “Over the last six years of the Obama presidency, the rich have gotten richer,” Cruz said Thursday on the Laura Ingraham Show. “The top one percent today earn a higher share of our income than any year since 1928. And income inequality — you know, I have to admit, I can only laugh any time President Obama or Hillary Clinton talk about income inequality, because it’s increased dramatically under their administration. And the working men and women are getting hammered. There are 92 million Americans right now not working — we have the lowest labor force participation since 1978.” President Obama has often discussed closing the gap between the rich and the poor in the United States, making inequality the theme of a December 2013 speech on economic mobility. “The combined trends of increased inequality and decreasing mobility pose a fundamental threat to the American Dream, our way of life, and what we stand for around the globe. And it is not simply a moral claim that I’m making here. There are practical consequences to rising inequality and reduced mobility.” Clinton likewise made income inequality the theme of a speech at the New America Foundation in May of this year. “Now, these are the kinds of daily struggles of millions and millions of Americans. Those fighting to get into the middle class and those fighting to stay there. And it was something of a wakeup call when it was recently reported that Canadian middle-class incomes are now higher than in the United States. They are working fewer hours for more pay than Americans are, enjoying a stronger safety net, living longer on average, and facing less income inequality.” *Washington Post blog: Post Politics: “Rand Paul supports opening up relations with Cuba” <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/12/18/rand-paul-supports-opening-up-relations-with-cuba/>* By Sean Sullivan December 18, 2014, 1:20 p.m. EST Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) says he supports opening up relations with Cuba, a position that that puts him at odds with much of the would-be Republican presidential field. “The 50-year embargo just hasn’t worked,” Paul told Tom Roten of WVHU in Huntington, West Virginia on Thursday, according to the Associated Press. "If the goal is regime change, it sure doesn’t seem to be working and probably it punishes the people more than the regime because the regime can blame the embargo for hardship." He added: “In the end, I think opening up Cuba is probably a good idea." President Obama announced Wednesday that the United States would reopen its embassy in Havana and ease restrictions on travel and commerce with Cuba. Other potential White House hopefuls have spoken out against Obama's decision. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) took issue with it. So did former Florida governor Jeb Bush (R). New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) has not weighed in. On the Democratic side, presumed frontrunner Hillary Clinton said she supports Obama's decision. *The Hill blog: Ballot Box: “Dems blame 2014 drubbing on failed economic message” <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/12/18/rand-paul-supports-opening-up-relations-with-cuba/>* By Jonathan Easley December 18, 2014, 10:13 a.m. EST The economy is far and away the most important issue to voters, and Democrats’ failure to make a compelling argument on that front sunk them in the midterms, the party's analysis of the 2014 election cycle found. “This data underscores a deeper problem and is an admonishment to Democrats to use the coming months to fashion, hone, and then campaign on an economic plan,” the analysis, authored by Democratic pollster Celinda Lake, reads in part. “If Democrats fail on this front – even in 2016 with a broader, more diverse, and more progressive electorate – they could well face an election outcome not altogether different from what they just experienced last month.” The George Washington University Battleground Poll, which served as a basis for the Democratic analysis, found that a plurality, 29 percent, believe the economy is the most important issue facing the new Congress. That’s a nearly two-to-one advantage over immigration, the next closest issue. A strong majority, 77 percent, said they’re at least somewhat worried about current economic conditions. Voters in the Middle Class are the most pessimistic than other groups on the direction of the economy. “Two years into Obama’s second term, the American public is worried and highly pessimistic about the state of the economy and the prospects of improvement for the next generation,” said Christopher Arterton, the director of the GW poll. “When the new Congress convenes in January, voters want the politicians in Washington to address this issue above all else.” The analysis found that Democrats’ focused too much on “piecemeal policy proposals” like the minimum wage and equal pay for women, which “struck voters as falling well short of the level of change necessary to set our country and our economy back on track.” Some Democrats are already taking this message to heart. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said last month that Democrats blew it when they came into power in 2008 by spending all of their political capital on healthcare instead of measures to help the Middle Class. And this week, groups on the left launched an effort to draft Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) for president, believing her message of economic populism is what’s missing in the Democratic Party. “Tell me who is ahead on the economy in 2016 and I’ll tell you who is going to be president,” Lake said at a Christian Science Monitor event on Thursday. Some political watchers are doubtful that Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton, with her close ties to Wall Street and lucrative public speaking gigs, is well-suited to be the party’s standard bearer on that front. But Lake argued that if Democrats can fashion the right message, polling shows voters are on board with the core tenet of liberalism: that the government exists “to help Americans overcome challenges that would otherwise be insurmountable.” “The error of the Democratic Party may not be in standing for an active federal government, but instead failing to articulate that role with specificity and in ways that relate directly to both the country’s and individual voters’ needs and priorities,” Lake wrote. Fifty-two percent of voters in the GW poll said the government should do more to solve problems and meet the needs of people, against 48 percent who said the best thing the government can do for the economy is to not meddle in the markets. “Far from running away from their vision of government, Democrats should embrace it and –without getting lost in abstract discussions of process – make their case for a government that is active, engaged, and accountable in its efforts to put ordinary people first and to restore the promise of the American Dream,” the analysis said. “Once Republicans take control of both Houses of Congress in the New Year, the pressure on Democrats to unify and offer a bold economic plan for the country will only increase.” Republicans swept into power in the midterm elections, picking up 13 seats in the House and gaining their largest majority since World War II, while picking up a solid majority in the Senate. *NBC News: “Why 2016 Will Be a Battle Between the Grassroots and the Donors” <http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/why-2016-will-be-battle-between-grassroots-donors-n270401>* By Leigh Ann Caldwell December 18, 2014, 10:36 a.m. EST While the majority of Americans aren't yet paying attention to a presidential race, the chase for precious financial support is already well underway. Donors -- that active subset of the American citizenship -- are watching developments closely and actively working to ensure that their candidate, or cause, comes out on top. The problem is that major disagreement exists between the moneyed class that is critical to give a candidate the resources needed for a national campaign and the activists that are more far more numerous and active in each party's primary process. And it's a bridge that candidates are going to have to work hard to close. On the Democratic side, the grassroots has been energized by the populist message of Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who insists she has no plans to jump in the race. Candidate or not, the liberal group MoveOn.org Political Action has pledged to spend $1 million to begin organizing activists in the first two critical nominating states in Warren's name. Another progressive group, Democracy For America, has also pledged $250,000 to the effort. On Wednesday the group held a high-profile meeting, recruiting volunteers to open offices and put the infrastructure in place for a potential Warren race. They plan to do the same in New Hampshire in early January. Warren has sparked the excitement of a critical component of the Democratic Party's activists with her anti-Wall Street crusade and support for the working class. But $1.2 million is far from the tens of millions Warren would need to run a presidential primary campaign. And her distaste for Wall Street has bought her few friends among the high-dollar moneyed class who could fund a presidential run. In addition, her supporters might be rabid, but they still have a lot of work to do to convince casual Democratic voters. In a new NBC News poll, only 37 percent of Democrats back Warren. Even though Democracy For America's members support a Warren run, it's leader, former Vermont Governor and presidential candidate Howard Dean, said he would like to see a Hillary Clinton presidency. Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, has the long-standing support of wealthy Democrats, gathered between her and Bill Clinton over more than two decades in politics. This would be the fourth presidential campaign for a Clinton, giving them a deep rolodex of donors and tremendous name recognition, evident in the NBC poll that found 82 percent of Democrats approve of Clinton. And her more moderate stance on regulation and the economy doesn't scare the financial industry. "If it turns out to be Jeb versus Hillary we would love that and either outcome would be fine," a Republican-leaning Wall Street lawyer told Politico in April. "It's Rand Paul or Ted Cruz versus someone like Elizabeth Warren that would be everybody's worst nightmare." Victoria Kaplan, field director for Run Warren Run, which is part of MoveOn Action, said that Warren has proven to be a prolific fundraiser and that if she decided to jump in, she'd have "significant support." "Washington DC insiders like to think they know what it takes to be president," Kaplan added. Warren has raised a significant amount of money, bringing in more than $42 million for her inaugural Senate race in 2012. But she was running against a Republican in one of the most high profile races in the country. The competition for funds against Clinton would be much different. One of Warren's biggest contributors was EMILY's List, whose president has been mentioned for the role of Clinton's campaign manager. The gap between the donors and the grassroots is just as exposed on the Republican side, too. Now that former Florida Governor Jeb Bush has inched closer to a presidential run by "exploring" the presidency, donors are thrilled. David Beightol called Bush talented and said he's the only one - other than Mitt Romney - who knows what it takes to run a presidential campaign as both his brother and father have done it. "He's the guy with the talent … and I think he'll win," Beightol said. Donors want electability and they think a moderate candidate has a better chance of winning the general election. Numerous articles have been written about donors hoping to "clear the field" here and here. Meanwhile, the grassroots of the party is not so excited about a potential Bush candidacy. Outspoken syndicated radio host based in Iowa, Steve Deace, put out an advisory saying Bush will "never" be president because of conservatives' dissatisfaction with the former governor. According to a new NBC News poll released Wednesday, only 31 percent of Republicans could support a Bush presidency. Putting the Bush name aside, which receives mixed reviews in Republican circles, activists are skeptical of his support of comprehensive immigration reform and education standards known as Common Core. Bush himself even said he wouldn't move to the right just to obtain the nomination. Unlike donors, conservative activists don't buy the notion of electability. "We have been sold a bill of goods about electability and moderation. The last time I checked with President Romney and President McCain, that didn't work," Iowa leader of social conservatives Bob Van der Plaats said. The grassroots are more pumped about a potential run by a social conservative like former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee or former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum. Some in the base are charged over the possibility of a bid by Kentucky Senator Rand Paul or tea party favorite Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. Then there's neurosurgeon Ben Carson whose direct and sometimes brazen remarks electrify the base. Can a candidate with the support of donors and not the base win a primary? Or vice versa? Republican donor and bundler Beightol insists that conservative activists will grow to like Bush when they let him explain his positions. "Once they hear him speak about those two things (Common Core and immigration), he'll be fine," Beightol predicted. A Republican strategist challenged the idea "that big money interest is trying to marshal all the support." He pointed to grassroots candidate Rick Santorum's unexpected win in the Iowa caucuses in 2012 over the well-financed establishment favorite Mitt Romney. While Santorum gave Romney a solid run, igniting social conservatives and outperforming most political watchers, in the end, Romney won that nomination. While Santorum had the support of one sugar daddy, entrepreneur Foster Friess who financed most of his campaign, Romney raised $60 million more than Santorum during the primary. Candice Nelson, director of the Campaign Management Institute at American University, said the role of money is significant. "If you have a donor base, you have the resources to get your message out and to build a grassroots campaign," Nelson added. "You need money to do everything else." Romney's primary win, despite luke-warm feelings from the Republican base about the candidate, was not an anomaly. In presidential primaries dating back to at least 1992, the candidate with the most money won. For instance, in 2008, Republican nominee John McCain, another moderate that conservatives were not thrilled about - who even ran out of money at one point in the primary - had raised $36 million by the time his closest competitor, Huckabee, who dropped out of the race in early March. Huckabee amassed only about $16 million, according the Center for Responsive Politics. On the Democratic side, then-candidate Barack Obama outraised Hillary Clinton in the long-drawn out primary that didn't end until June. Notably, Obama was extremely successful at turning his grassroots support into a donor base while also, eventually, appealing to the high-donor class. In 2004, John Kerry outraised Howard Dean, mostly by giving himself loans from his vast fortune. And in 2000, Al Gore had more money than Bill Bradley and George Bush far outraised John McCain. The pattern continues: Republican Bob Dole outraised Pat Buchanan in 1996 and Bill Clinton outraised Jerry Brown and Paul Tsongas in 1992. In most presidential races since 1972, however, the era of unlimited donations to third party political groups didn't exist. Kathy Kiely, managing director of the Sunlight Foundation said, that now with the advent of unlimited spending, big donors are able to deepen the divide between what the grassroots wants and what the donors want. "Prior to the emergence of super PACs, you had to have the ability to raise a lot of money in small amounts. You had to be able to get a very broad base of support and mobilize that support over the long haul," Kiely said. With unlimited spending, the gap between donors and voters might be more difficult to close. *New York Times: “As 2016 Nears, Hillary Clinton Keeps in Mind Mistakes of 2008 Campaign” <http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/19/us/politics/as-2016-nears-hillary-rodham-clinton-keeps-eye-on-mistakes-of-2008-campaign.html?_r=0>* By Amy Chozick December 18, 2014 During the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries, Hillary Rodham Clinton emphasized her strength and experience over her softer, more relatable side. Today, she gushes about having “that grandmother glow.” As she lost the nomination to President Obama, Mrs. Clinton was accused of being wooden and overly shielded by staff members. Last month, she mingled casually at an Upper West Side apartment, greeting donors and shunning a podium and rope line. And in 2008, Mrs. Clinton’s best asset, her husband, Bill Clinton, became an albatross. Today, the former president has a tough-minded chief of staff from Mrs. Clinton’s world who tries to keep close control over his events — and his occasional off-script remarks. Little by little, Mrs. Clinton is taking steps that suggest she has learned from the mistakes, both tactical and personal, of her failed candidacy. After more than six years of pundits dissecting what went wrong in 2008, her circle of advisers is beginning to draft a blueprint for a different kind of campaign. And although Mrs. Clinton has since bolstered her public image while serving as secretary of state, her next campaign will in part be assessed by her ability to avoid the errors of the last one. “Was it the best managed campaign? Of course not, they lost,” the Democratic strategist Donna Brazile said of 2008. “But what lessons will they apply to the future if she decides to run?” Some things have clearly changed: Those close to Mrs. Clinton now embrace a view that her gender can be more of an asset than a liability. But familiar hazards remain, especially the air of inevitability that seems to surround the Clinton camp, along with the lack of a broader rationale for her candidacy. “Inevitability is not a message,” said Terry Shumaker, a prominent New Hampshire Democrat and former United States ambassador. “It’s not something you can run on,” he added. These topics are being quietly discussed at private dinners with donors, at strategy talks hosted by an outside “super PAC” and in casual conversation as Mrs. Clinton greets friends at holiday parties and a Clinton Foundation fund-raiser in New York. “If she runs, it will be different,” said Mrs. Clinton’s spokesman, Nick Merrill. Last month, at a gathering hosted by Ready for Hillary, a super PAC intended to build grass-roots support for a Clinton candidacy, strategists explained to donors over lunch and in presentations that Mrs. Clinton would need to run in 2016 the way she did after she began to struggle in the 2008 primary season. By the time the delegate tallies favored Mr. Obama, Mrs. Clinton began to show a vulnerable, less scripted and entitled side. She adopted a message focused on lifting the middle class, and she connected with women and white working-class voters over kitchen table issues. She won primaries in Ohio and Pennsylvania. “I always found it remarkable that working-class women could connect to her life despite the fact that this is somebody who operated in the highest circles in America,” said Geoff Garin, a pollster who succeeded Mark Penn as the campaign’s chief strategist in 2008. Mrs. Clinton is keeping a quiet schedule over the next several weeks. She is holding frequent meetings to listen directly to the type of strategic advice that during her last campaign was filtered through a tiny cadre of loyal but sparring advisers. Most of those advisers, including Mr. Penn, still have ties to the Clintons, which makes some of the more than a dozen supporters interviewed for this article wonder whether the personnel problems and infighting that plagued the last campaign could really be resolved in another one. Ready for Hillary, which since its inception has tried to signal that things must be done differently in 2016, counts former White House aides like Harold M. Ickes, Craig T. Smith and Ann Lewis as advisers. But it also includes Jeremy Bird and Mitch Stewart, Obama organizers whose presence Mr. Ickes called “Exhibit A of new ways of doing things.” Obama operatives like Buffy Wicks and Jim Messina have been brought on to run another pro-Clinton super PAC, Priorities USA Action. “Inner circles change over time depending on the nature of the enterprise,” Mr. Ickes said. “There are always people with their noses out of joint,” he added, but the Clintons “are good at picking people.” Super PACs are ostensibly banned from collaboration with candidates, and Ready for Hillary does not constitute Mrs. Clinton’s innermost circle. The group, run by a mix of young devotees and older loyalists, will dissolve if she declares her candidacy. But its efforts in the long pre-campaign period, particularly in the approach to data and outreach to young college students, are likely to influence how the official campaign would function. The group has also helped Mrs. Clinton keep well-meaning, but distracting, supporters at bay. It is a strategy that Mr. Obama adopted in 2007 to make sure that supporters felt useful and included without allowing the candidate to become overwhelmed with advice, as Mrs. Clinton did in 2008. Mr. Bird called the approach “respect, empower, include” and said, “It’s a consistent challenge all campaigns have.” This is perhaps a bigger challenge for Mrs. Clinton, given that she and her husband have built an extraordinary network of friends, donors and advisers over their decades in public life, all of whom will be invested in trying to get them back to the White House. “She will be very careful to make sure there are clear lines of authority and that the people in charge are not in charge because they are old cronies, but because they’re the smartest people to run the campaign,” said Richard Socarides, a former White House aide. In 2008, the smartest person on Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, her husband, became a liability. Mr. Clinton enraged black voters by comparing Mr. Obama’s victory in the South Carolina primary to the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson’s 1984 and 1988 victories in the state and called Mr. Obama’s antiwar position “the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen.” Since then, Mr. Clinton has regained his status as the party’s most powerful surrogate, as demonstrated in a blockbuster speech at the 2012 Democratic National Convention. But the former president is also famously defensive, especially when his legacy and his wife are under attack, both of which would happen in a 2016 campaign. Mr. Clinton’s chief of staff, Tina Flournoy, who is close to Mrs. Clinton, is trying to keep a careful watch on the former president’s events while closely collaborating with his wife’s office, said several people with knowledge of Ms. Flournoy’s approach who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preserve their relationships with Mr. Clinton. Ultimately, though, topics that his office would like to avoid, namely 2016 and any criticism of the current administration, come up. For example, last month in Little Rock, Ark., a Politico reporter, Mike Allen, lobbed a couple of unexpected questions at Mr. Clinton after he delivered prepared remarks at the “Playbook Cocktails with Bill Clinton” event. Mr. Clinton made news by questioning whether Mr. Obama’s delay on an immigration overhaul affected the weak turnout of Latinos in the midterm elections. Mr. Clinton’s team appeared livid with the organizers about the unanticipated questions. "I had misunderstood the parameters, and I’m very sorry about that,” Mr. Allen said. A spokesman for Mr. Clinton declined to comment. People close to Mrs. Clinton say she smartly adjusts and moves forward after making errors — whether her heavy-handed approach to overhauling health care as first lady or her remark to ABC News in June that she and her husband were “dead broke” when they left the White House. Or, as Mrs. Clinton liked to say in the 2008 campaign, when she warned voters not to be swept up by Mr. Obama’s promise to bring hope and change to Washington: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” *Washington Post blog: The Fix: “The Associated Press just did something very smart” <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/12/18/the-associated-press-just-did-something-very-smart/>* By Chris Cillizza December 18, 2014, 1:17 p.m. EST Here's an announcement from the AP that you probably missed today: “Building on The Associated Press’ unmatched presence in all 50 U.S. statehouses, we are adding to our competitive advantage by creating a team of state government specialists. “As announced today to the AP staff, the specialists will collaborate with statehouse reporters, as well as on their own projects and stories focused on government accountability and strong explanatory reporting. Their over-arching goal will be ‘to show how state government is impacting the lives of people across the country,’ said Brian Carovillano, managing editor for U.S. news.” This is a very, very good idea. As I have written many times in this space, one of the undertold-but-massively-important stories of the shrinkage of mainstream media organizations over the last decade is the disappearance of really good state capitol coverage. Many state and regional newspapers who took as their prime mission covering the machinations -- politically and from a policy perspective -- of each of the state capitols have been forced to make deep cuts in their budgets for that sort of reporting. And, for the most part -- and the WaPo may well be an exception in the Jeff Bezos era -- major national news organizations haven't been able to adequately fill that void. The result? Not surprisingly, less coverage -- and, as importantly, fewer reporters with deep institutional knowledge -- of state capitols. That's particularly bad given how much is happening -- particularly when it comes to policy incubation -- at the state level of late, and how much it affects the national policy debate. The AP never really left state capitol coverage. (They were all over Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback's problems in the state -- and with his state legislature -- over the last few years.) But, adding an entirely new team to elevate to do deeper explanatory and investigative work in state capitols shows that the AP understands just how much they matter not only to states but to the federal government. And that's not even mentioning the fact that at least eight governors (or former governors) -- Mike Huckabee, Rick Perry, Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Chris Christie, John Kasich and Bobby Jindal for Republicans, Martin O'Malley for Democrats -- are in some stage of considering a run for president in 2016. Given how drastically over-covered Hillary Clinton's expected presidential campaign will be -- particularly given the small chance she will face a genuinely competitive primary -- having more people in these state capitols to mine the records of the various governors running for the big office is a smart investment. Then there is the intangible value of having reporting tentacles in a state. The Post provides a great example in its Virginia coverage. Roz Helderman's time spent in Richmond was absolutely in integral to her series of stories that led to the conviction of Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell on 11 counts of corruption. The Post's commitment to Virginia also meant that T. Rees Shapiro was perfectly positioned to raise questions about Rolling Stone's story of a sexual assault at the University of Virginia or scramble dozens of reporters to the mass shooting at Virginia Tech in the middle of the last decade. Or that the Post can be all over the absolutely remarkable/appalling story of state Del. Joe Morrissey. In our own small way, we here at The Fix have done what we can to preserve the importance of state capitol reporting with our annual list of the best state-based political reporters. (We last did this in 2013 and plan to update our list next year.) And the Post announced just today a partnership with the Texas Tribune, one of the best state-reporting models -- ok, the best model -- in the country. State-level political journalism has taken a huge hit over the last 10 years. Let's hope the AP's move is the leading edge of a journalistic reinvestment in the states. *Politico: “Clinton aide met with Warren-aligned liberal group” <http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/hillary-clinton-elizabeth-warren-progressive-change-campaign-committee-113675.html>* By Maggie Haberman December 18, 2014, 11:42 a.m. EST A Hillary Clinton adviser recently met with the head of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, the liberal issues group most closely affiliated with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, both sides confirmed. The meeting is the first sign that Clinton’s team is trying to build a bridge with those who are actively supporting Warren, whom many on the left want to see challenge Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016. MSNBC first reported that the meeting might take place. On Thursday, PCCC founder Adam Green confirmed that he had met with a Clinton aide in the last few weeks, but declined to identify the aide or describe what was discussed. Although Green’s group has been tied to Warren, whose progressive stands have earned her adulation but who insists she’s not running for president, the PCCC has not joined the “Draft Warren” efforts being led by MoveOn.org. MoveOn, which has a wide membership that began during the Bill Clinton impeachment days and morphed into anti-war activism during George W. Bush’s presidency, has stepped up with a $1 million down payment for the draft effort. Another group, Ready for Warren, has struggled mightily with fundraising after being disavowed by the Massachusetts senator. The Howard Dean-founded Democracy for America also is spending $250,000 on the draft effort, which had an Iowa kick-off on Wednesday evening. Although it has stayed out of the draft effort, Green’s group is pushing forward with a focus on Warren’s message of economic populism. Her stances gained new potency last week as she fought against congressional approval of the “cromnibus” bill and a provision that benefited big banks. “Our unique role is, we’re trying to impact the playing field,” Green said. A Clinton spokesman acknowledged the meeting but declined comment and would not provide details. Clinton, a former secretary of state and former senator, has not commented in-depth about the cromnibus bill. But earlier this week, she gave a very liberal-leaning speech on police relations with the black community.