Correct The Record Wednesday August 27, 2014 Morning Roundup

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*[image: Inline image 1]* *Correct The Record Wednesday August 27, 2014 Morning Roundup:* *Headlines:* *Time: “Pro-Clinton Group Touts Her Record on Women” <http://time.com/3182146/hillary-clinton-womens-equality-day/>* “The group Correct the Record released a two-page document entitled ‘Breaking Glass: Women’s Economic Empowerment.’” *Politico: “Mitt Romney: ‘Circumstances can change’” <http://www.politico.com/story/2014/08/mitt-romney-circumstances-can-change-110368.html>* "'Had I believed I would actually be best positioned to beat Hillary Clinton, then I would be running,' Romney said." *Atlanta Journal Constitution blog: Political Insider with Jim Galloway: “Marco Rubio in ATL: On Hillary, ISIL and ‘dream’ kids”’ <http://politics.blog.ajc.com/2014/08/26/marco-rubio-in-atl-on-hillary-isil-and-dream-kids/>* Sen. Marco Rubio, “The problem is Hillary is that she wasn’t the leader of a think tank. She was secretary of state for four of the last six years. And many of these issues are not new. ISIL’s gains have been coming for years.” *New York Times: “ISIS Conspiracy Theories Include One That It’s an American Plot” <http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/27/world/middleeast/isis-conspiracy-theories-include-a-purported-american-plot.html?_r=0>* “According to the theory, which appears to have started in Egypt and spread rapidly across the region, ISIS was created by the United States as part of a plot orchestrated by the former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton to replace the region’s autocratic rulers with more pliant Islamist allies.” *Yahoo! Travel: “Discovery: a Clothing Shop Inspired by Hillary Clinton in Kosovo (of All Places)” <https://www.yahoo.com/travel/discovery-a-clothing-shop-inspired-by-hillary-clinton-95896259937.html>* “The Hillary clothing shop is an homage to the former secretary of state, senator, first lady, and potential presidential candidate, selling mainly skirt and pantsuits inspired by Mrs. Clinton.” *Washington Examiner: “The newest campaign sideshow: People dressed as animals” <http://washingtonexaminer.com/the-newest-campaign-sideshow-people-dressed-as-animals/article/2552474>* “The squirrel’s great triumph came when Clinton — perhaps eager to showcase the diplomacy she learned as secretary of state — hand-delivered a signed copy of her book to the squirrel prior to a televised town hall with CNN.” *Articles:* *Time: “Pro-Clinton Group Touts Her Record on Women” <http://time.com/3182146/hillary-clinton-womens-equality-day/>* By Jay Newton-Small August 26, 2014 [Subtitle:] Hillary Clinton’s shadow campaign emphasizes her empowerment of women A group dedicated to defending and promoting Hillary Clinton’s record ahead of a possible 2016 presidential bid used Women’s Equality Day to tout her record of promoting women Tuesday. The group Correct the Record released a two-page document entitled “Breaking Glass: Women’s Economic Empowerment.” The document, given exclusively to TIME, looks at Clinton’s work to promote women’s and girls’ issues as Secretary of State. The issue was Clinton’s top policy priority. The push came after her failed 2008 presidential bid, during which she didn’t highlight the historic nature of her candidacy until the end of the campaign, famously saying only in her concession speech that her bid to be the first female president represented “18 million cracks in the glass ceiling” for the 18 million votes she’d received in the primaries. Many Clinton advisers who’d worked on the campaign have said in retrospect that they wished they’d emphasized the historic opportunity she had to be the first female president earlier. Clinton lost the women’s vote in 16 state and territorial primaries to Barack Obama. Already this time, Ready for Hillary, another arm of Clinton’s shadow campaign, has focused on outreach to female voters as a priority. Correct the Record’s promotion of Clinton’s record also speaks to that push, highlighting the work that she’s done to further women and children globally. The group notes that Clinton created the office of Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues and raised women’s issues at all international economic forums. She launched the Equal Futures Partnership to advance women in politics and the private sector. Along with Asian Partners she pushed through the San Francisco Declaration, an agreement to realize women’s economic potential. With help from Middle Eastern countries she launched the Strategic Dialogue with Civil Society, which brought together and empowered activists in the region to work on women’s economic and political. In Latin America and the Caribbean she launched WEAmericas to help women grow small businesses. In Africa, she created the African Women’s Entrepreneurship Program to help train women qualify for the African Growth and Opportunity Act, a trade agreement that gives privileged trade status to certain African countries and businesses. And she directed the Invest for the Future program in Southern and Eastern Europe and Eurasia to focus on women’s entrepreneurship. “Hillary Clinton championed such unprecedented and impassioned work at the State Department to advance women’s entrepreneurship and empowerment that it would take an entire book to fully chronicle her efforts,” said Adrienne Watson, a spokeswoman for the group. “Correct The Record put together this ‘Breaking Glass’ record analysis to highlight Clinton’s many successes, including several multilateral partnerships and programs which raised the profile of women’s issues and resulted in greater economic engagement of women around the world.” *Politico: “Mitt Romney: ‘Circumstances can change’” <http://www.politico.com/story/2014/08/mitt-romney-circumstances-can-change-110368.html>* By Lucy McCalmont August 26, 2014, 7:43 p.m. EDT Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has repeatedly said he is not planning to run for president in 2016 but acknowledged Tuesday that “circumstances can change.” “Circumstances can change, but I’m just not going to let my head go there,” Romney said during an interview on the nationally syndicated radio program “The Hugh Hewitt Show.” “I had the chance of running,” the 2012 Republican presidential nominee told Hewitt. “I didn’t win. Someone else has a better chance than I do. And that’s what we believe, and that’s why I’m not running.” Romney referenced a scene from the movie “Dumb and Dumber,” when pressed about running again for the GOP nomination, saying the chance he’d run is “one of a million.” “Let’s say all the guys that were running all came together and said, ‘Hey, we’ve decided we can’t do it, you must do it.’ That’s the one of a million we’re thinking about,” Romney said. Romney’s former running mate, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, is one person who has said he wishes Romney would run again. “I sure wish he would,” Ryan said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “I think he’d make a phenomenal president. He has the intellect, the honor, the character and the temperament to be a fantastic president. … But he keeps saying that he’s not going to run.” On Tuesday, Romney continued to bat away a bid, saying a possible GOP contender “not defined yet” and “perhaps … from the next generation” could take on Hillary Clinton if she becomes the Democratic nominee. “Had I believed I would actually be best positioned to beat Hillary Clinton, then I would be running,” Romney said. *Atlanta Journal Constitution blog: Political Insider with Jim Galloway: “Marco Rubio in ATL: On Hillary, ISIL and ‘dream’ kids”’ <http://politics.blog.ajc.com/2014/08/26/marco-rubio-in-atl-on-hillary-isil-and-dream-kids/>* By Jim Galloway August 26, 2014, 4:55 p.m. EDT U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., a likely prospect for the 2016 presidential contest, was in Atlanta on Tuesday. The visit was essentially a private one, but he gave us a shout before noon to explain. He’s got a political action committee – doesn’t everyone these days? – called Reclaim America, which is dedicated to establishing a Republican majority in the U.S. Senate. “We’ve already spent about $500,000 on TV ads in Arkansas and Iowa, and we want to extend to at least another state or two,” Rubio said. The question is whether David Perdue’s Republican bid for the U.S. Senate is an appropriate place to spend the cash. “One of the things we’re doing is getting an assessment of how that’s going here – considering whether the PAC becomes involved in a state like this,” Rubio said. “We feel positive about the direction of the race, and we feel they have a very good candidate.” Rubio wouldn’t say so, but it’s likely that he’s looking for the place where his help would mean the most to a new member of the Senate. So not playing in Georgia wouldn’t be a vote of no-confidence, but an acknowledgment that Perdue has the situation under control. IOUs are very valuable up Washington way. Rubio is currently in the process of rebuilding his 2016 prospects after a Senate immigration reform initiative, which he backed, crashed and burned last year. He has emerged as a harsh critic of the Obama administration and its reaction to the collapse of Iraq and the rise of the Islamic State in the Levant, a jihadist attempt to establish a caliphate in what is now both Iraq and Syria. Rubio is calling for an expansion of U.S. airstrikes into Syria: “I’ve been talking about this now for eight weeks. Nine weeks, actually. A lot of things now the president is reportedly considering are things I called for nine weeks ago. They always seem to be a month or two behind when they should be involved. “It’s pretty simple. I believe ISIL is a direct threat to the United States. A direct threat to our national security. There are thousands of European passport holders among their ranks, potentially hundreds of Americans among their ranks… “I believe ISIL, left on their current path, will expand operations not just into Iraq, but will consolidate their gains and make a move on Jordan and on Lebanon, and potentially Turkey as well. And eventually move against Israel at some point in the future. “They intend to drive us out of the region by terrorizing us here at home. So what I called for weeks ago – and it appears to be what the president is considering now – and that is sustained air assaults against transport lines, their supply chains, their command-and-control centers. That includes expanding it to their sites in Syria – where they are headquartered, where they now control an entire province.” The Florida senator had some sharp comments for Hillary Clinton, a potential 2016 rival who has been putting air between herself and President Obama’s foreign policy. You’ll also notice a slap at fellow Republican Rand Paul below: “The problem is Hillary is that she wasn’t the leader of a think tank. She was secretary of state for four of the last six years. And many of these issues are not new. ISIL’s gains have been coming for years. “As I specifically warned during the debates, including against members of my own party, on what to do in Syria – I specifically warned that unless we identified, trained, equipped and capacitated moderate rebels in Syria, the vacuum that was being left behind by this rebellion was going to be filled by jihadists. “[Clinton] was there at this administration as this was going on….That happened on her watch, while she was the secretary of state. So she can go back now and say whatever she wants – but she was there, and didn’t voice any concern about it publicly at the time.” One last topic. On Monday, Rubio was in Anderson, S.C., at a Faith and Freedom barbecue, where he was heckled by a group of young people who identified themselves as “dream” kids – brought here by illegal immigrant parents who are not trying to achieve permanent legal status here. They derided what they called his abandonment of the immigration issue. Of the incident, Rubio said: “They’re getting terrible advice. It’s one thing to say, ‘We came here as children, we didn’t even know we were undocumented, our parents made a terrible mistake – but we’ve grown up here, we love America and we want to be a part of America….It’s another thing to say, ‘We insist on our rights.’ It’s one thing to appeal to America’s morality – there is no right to come here illegally…. “That being said, I am sympathetic to their cause. And I think as much as anyone in the Republican party, I’ve tried to do more than anyone else to address it. But the way they’re asking us to address it is completely unrealistic…. “If we can address illegal immigration, I think the American people are willing to be extremely generous and reasonable about their plight.” You might remember last week’s column about another Marco, a bright, 16-year-old student at DeKalb Early College Academy, a “dream” kid, who was now being required to pay nearly $5,000 every 16 weeks for an early start at college. We asked Rubio if Marco and other dream kids like him had anything to fear from a Republican-controlled U.S. Senate and House, which is entirely possible in November. The Marco from Florida said no, and elaborated: “Of all the group, I think they’re the ones that generate the most sympathy among the American public. And the American public will be willing to do something about it – I believe that. But not until illegal immigration is under control. I’ve learned that the hard way in the last year and a half.” *New York Times: “ISIS Conspiracy Theories Include One That It’s an American Plot” <http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/27/world/middleeast/isis-conspiracy-theories-include-a-purported-american-plot.html?_r=0>* By Robert Mackey August 26, 2014 The sudden rise of the militant group known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has prompted a serious effort to make sense of the group’s appeal in the Arab world, the Syrian columnist Hassan Hassan wrote last week. “Since ISIS took over large swaths of Iraq, in particular, Arabic media outlets of all types have produced reports about the nature of the group and the source of its ideology,” Mr. Hassan wrote in The Guardian. “There is a collective soul-searching in the region, coming from everyone from ordinary people to clerics and intellectuals.” For instance, the Lebanese scholar Ziad Majed wrote on his blog that at least six factors from the recent history of the Middle East helped give birth to the militant movement, including “despotism in the most heinous form that has plagued the region,” as well as “the American invasion of Iraq in 2003,” and “a profound crisis, deeply rooted in the thinking of some Islamist groups seeking to escape from their terrible failure to confront the challenges of the present toward a delusional model ostensibly taken from the seventh century.” That sort of introspection is not for everyone, of course, so a popular conspiracy theory has spread online that offers an easier answer to the riddle of where ISIS came from: Washington. According to the theory, which appears to have started in Egypt and spread rapidly across the region, ISIS was created by the United States as part of a plot orchestrated by the former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton to replace the region’s autocratic rulers with more pliant Islamist allies. The evidence cited to back up this claim sounds unimpeachable: passages from Mrs. Clinton’s new memoir in which she describes how a plan to bolster the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt was foiled at the last moment when the Egyptian military seized power on July 5, 2013, and deployed submarines and fighter jets to block an American invasion. If that plot sounds like the stuff of fiction, that’s because it is. The passages described by supporters of the Egyptian military on Facebook as quotes from Mrs. Clinton’s memoir were entirely fabricated and do not appear anywhere in the text of her book, “Hard Choices.” The fictional plot was reported as fact by Egyptian, Tunisian, Palestinian, Jordanian and Lebanese news organizations. As the Egyptian blogger who writes as Zeinobia explained, Egypt’s new culture minister, Gaber Asfour, cited a version of the theory in televised remarks in which he said that he had learned from Mrs. Clinton’s book “that the Americans decided to support and create ISIS” to undermine the military-backed government that deposed the elected Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi, last summer. Although some writers, like the Jordanian journalist Lina Ejeilat and the Egyptian scholar Manar el-Shorbagy, tried to debunk the conspiracy theory after actually reading Mrs. Clinton’s memoir, the rumor that it contained an admission of American support for ISIS spread so far that Lebanon’s foreign minister, Gebran Bassil, boasted on Twitter that he had demanded an explanation from David Hale, the American ambassador in Beirut. Hours after the foreign minister’s tweet, the United States Embassy in Lebanon posted a statement on Facebook denying that there was any substance to the rumors. Though Mrs. Clinton declined to comment on the fake quotes attributed to her, one section of her memoir does describe her efforts during a visit to Egypt in 2012 to debunk a similar conspiracy theory: Shortly after the election of Mr. Morsi, opponents of the Muslim Brotherhood demonstrated loudly outside Mrs. Clinton’s hotel, holding signs that accused her of a secret pact with the Brotherhood. The former secretary of state explains that she tried to reassure members of Egypt’s Coptic Christian community, during discussions at the United States Embassy in Cairo. “In our meeting, one of the more agitated participants brought up an especially outrageous canard,” Mrs. Clinton writes. “He accused my trusted aide Huma Abedin, who is Muslim, of being a secret agent of the Muslim Brotherhood.” As Mrs. Clinton explains, this conspiracy theory “had been circulated by some unusually irresponsible and demagogic right-wing political and media personalities in the United States, including members of Congress,” and had spread to Egypt via the Internet ahead of her visit. “I wasn’t going to let that stand and told him in no uncertain terms how wrong he was,” Mrs. Clinton recalls in her book. “After a few minutes of conversation the embarrassed accuser apologized and asked why a member of the U.S. Congress would make such an assertion if it wasn’t true. I laughed and said that unfortunately plenty of falsehoods are circulated in Congress." *Yahoo! Travel: “Discovery: a Clothing Shop Inspired by Hillary Clinton in Kosovo (of All Places)” <https://www.yahoo.com/travel/discovery-a-clothing-shop-inspired-by-hillary-clinton-95896259937.html>* By Jo Piazza August 27, 2014 Drive down Bill Clinton Boulevard in Pristina, Kosovo’s capital, and you would be hard-pressed to miss the gleaming, 10-foot-tall statue of the former president of the United States waving. It’s an impressive monument to honor Clinton for his help during the struggle with the former government of Yugoslavia in the Kosovo War. And just around the corner is another kind of monument that may be even more impressive — a shop dedicated to Clinton’s wife, Hillary Clinton. The Hillary clothing shop is an homage to the former secretary of state, senator, first lady, and potential presidential candidate, selling mainly skirt and pantsuits inspired by Mrs. Clinton. Guests from all over Kosovo and the rest of the Balkans region flock to the shop. "We respect her name and her personality here," said store owner Besian Morina. "Our clothes are modeled after her own fashion. The store was honored in 2012, when Hillary Clinton herself visited the shop. They presented her with one of their navy suits, one of the most popular items in the store, second only to the bright red ones. Two photos of Hillary hang proudly above the store’s dressing rooms. "Since she visited here, we are even more popular and we have been able to expand into another room," Morina said. "We thank her very much for that." *Washington Examiner: “The newest campaign sideshow: People dressed as animals” <http://washingtonexaminer.com/the-newest-campaign-sideshow-people-dressed-as-animals/article/2552474>* By Rebecca Berg August 27, 2014, 5:00 a.m. EDT The biggest newsmaker in New Hampshire politics right now isn’t any elected official or candidate. It’s a guy in a chicken suit. Last week, New Hampshire’s only network news affiliate, WMUR, showed up in Loudon, N.H., to cover Sen. Jeanne Shaheen and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announcing millions of dollars in new grants for farmers, which could help some New Hampshire businesses. Shaheen, who is locked in a tight race with Republican Scott Brown, surely hoped the photo-op with Vilsack would be a newsmaking event to help her re-election campaign. But a chicken mascot, which belongs to the New Hampshire Republican Party, was also making its return to the campaign trail, a few days after a junior staffer wearing the suit at an event with Shaheen was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. In Loudon, the chicken led the story. “This chicken continues to stalk Sen. Jeanne Shaheen,” Reid Lamberty, WMUR’s reporter on the ground, said. “And its message remains the same.” The mascot, as the reporter noted, has toted signs critical of Shaheen’s choice to forego town halls. But the chicken’s real effect has been to drive attention away from Shaheen and other Democrats, even as the New Hampshire Democratic Party has attacked its “juvenile antics.” “The chicken is destroying [Shaheen’s] press coverage,” said Ryan Williams, a Republican consultant who has advised Brown’s campaign. “Every time she goes somewhere, the chicken is there.” If politics is often something of a circus, campaigns are taking the dynamic to a new level in this election cycle, sending mascots, some with only a loose theme, to follow and harangue opposing candidates on the trail. Similar gimmicks have been used before — but with social media as an incentive and accelerant, the tactic seems to have peaked. Earlier this month at the Iowa State Fair, an annual event steeped in politics, a man dressed as a chicken invoked a Republican attack on Rep. Bruce Braley, the Democratic candidate for Senate, for a dispute he had with neighbors over their chickens. Meanwhile, Democrats sent two walking, talking ears of corn to criticize Republican Joni Ernst for her position on ethanol subsidies. And in Louisiana, after ethical questions arose about Sen. Mary Landrieu’s payments for campaign travel, Republicans made headlines when they wore airline-themed “Air Mary” costumes to confront Landrieu as she arrived at an event. “My wife embroidered the logos on the costumes, we found some willing interns and we went from there,” said Jason Doré, executive director of the Louisiana Republican Party. “We wanted to bring attention to an important issue through humor, and I think we succeeded.” The theatrical ambush was captured on tape by a tracker for the pro-Republican opposition research group America Rising, which subsequently posted the video to YouTube. “There's an element of throwing the other campaign off its game,” said Tim Miller, executive director for the group’s PAC, of the Louisiana GOP’s costumed-ambush strategy. “Campaigns that are obsessed with and distracted by their costumed followers sometimes make decisions that are more out of annoyance than an attempt to win an election.” Gimmicks can also be catnip for the media, creating frenzied press coverage for a campaign or party out of nothing. In advance of Hillary Clinton’s book tour this summer, to promote her memoir Hard Choices, staffers at the Republican National Committee brainstormed how they might break through the coming wall of news coverage about Clinton. “And we realized, we've got a squirrel costume,” said Sean Spicer, RNC communications director — himself a two-time mascot, as the Easter Bunny at the annual White House Easter Egg Roll. The squirrel was left over from an anti-ACORN push in 2008 and didn’t relate to Clinton or her book tour in any way, but that didn’t matter. The RNC decked out the squirrel in a shirt emblazoned with the tagline, “Another Clinton in the White House is Nuts,” and sent an intern to Clinton’s events wearing the costume. “It cost us the price of a T-shirt and bumper stickers and got us hundreds of thousands of dollars in paid media,” Spicer said. One news outlet even interviewed the squirrel. The squirrel’s great triumph came when Clinton — perhaps eager to showcase the diplomacy she learned as secretary of state — hand-delivered a signed copy of her book to the squirrel prior to a televised town hall with CNN. The squirrel and other mascots this election cycle are no trailblazers, however. New Hampshire even has a precedent for law-breaking fowl: A man dressed as a duck in support of then-Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H., was arrested in 2008 outside of a debate and charged with disorderly conduct. But Nevada might be the state with the most impressive recent history of mascots in politics. There, Democrats have at various times deployed “Yucca Man,” a duck and an oil barrel named “Slick” to score political points and press coverage. The idea for the state party’s most enduring and influential mascot, a chicken, was hatched in 2010 when a Republican candidate for Senate, Sue Lowden, suggested bartering for health care with chickens. Hoping to capitalize on the line, Democrats bought a chicken suit and began sending staffers to Lowden’s events in costume. “That became a month-long story that she never recovered from,” said Justin Barasky, now a spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, who was the first person to wear the chicken suit as a staffer for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s re-election campaign. The chicken received so much press and became so popular among Nevada Democrats that they have used it in at least five races and messaging campaigns since, most recently dressing it as a millionaire in the contest for lieutenant governor. But the Nevada Democratic chicken, unlike its distant Republican cousin in New Hampshire, never ran into any legal trouble. “That's another difference between Democrats and Republicans,” Barasky said. “Our chicken was always very respectful.” *Calendar:* *Sec. Clinton's upcoming appearances as reported online. Not an official schedule.* · August 28 – San Francisco, CA: Sec. Clinton keynotes Nexenta’s OpenSDx Summit (BusinessWire <http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20140702005709/en/Secretary-State-Hillary-Rodham-Clinton-Deliver-Keynote#.U7QoafldV8E> ) · September 4 – Las Vegas, NV: Sec. Clinton speaks at the National Clean Energy Summit (Solar Novis Today <http://www.solarnovus.com/hillary-rodham-clinto-to-deliver-keynote-at-national-clean-energy-summit-7-0_N7646.html> ) · September 9 – Washington, DC: Sec. Clinton fundraises for the DSCC at her Washington home (DSCC <https://d1ly3598e1hx6r.cloudfront.net/sites/dscc/files/uploads/9.9.14%20HRC%20Dinner.pdf> ) · September 14 – Indianola, IA: Sec. Clinton headlines Sen. Harkin’s Steak Fry (LA Times <http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/politicsnow/la-pn-tom-harkin-clinton-steak-fry-20140818-story.html> ) · October ? – San Francisco, CA: Sec. Clinton fundraises for House Democratic women candidates with Nancy Pelosi (The Hill <http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/house-races/215410-clinton-to-fundraise-with-pelosi-in-october> ) · October 2 – Miami Beach, FL: Sec. Clinton keynotes the CREW Network Convention & Marketplace (CREW Network <http://events.crewnetwork.org/2014convention/>) · October 13 – Las Vegas, NV: Sec. Clinton keynotes the UNLV Foundation Annual Dinner (UNLV <http://www.unlv.edu/event/unlv-foundation-annual-dinner?delta=0>) · October 14 – San Francisco, CA: Sec. Clinton keynotes salesforce.com Dreamforce conference (salesforce.com <http://www.salesforce.com/dreamforce/DF14/highlights.jsp#tuesday>) · December 4 – Boston, MA: Sec. Clinton speaks at the Massachusetts Conference for Women (MCFW <http://www.maconferenceforwomen.org/speakers/>)