Correct The Record Wednesday November 12, 2014 Morning Roundup

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*​**Correct The Record Wednesday November 12, 2014 Morning Roundup:* *Headlines:* *MSNBC: “Clinton camp to meet with progressive critics” <http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/hillary-clinton-camp-meet-progressive-critics>* “Adam Green, the co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, one of the groups most closely associated with the so-called ‘Warren wing of the Democratic Party,’ said his organization reached out to Clinton’s camp before the election and that a meeting was coming ‘very soon.’” *The Hill: “Hillary Clinton in no hurry to announce 2016 plans” <http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/223801-hillary-clinton-in-no-hurry-to-announce-2016-plans>* “Democratic midterm thumping, Clinton is likely to stick to the timeline of making her plans known early next year.” *Washington Post: PostPartisan: “The central challenge for Hillary Clinton and Democrats in 2016” <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2014/11/11/the-central-challenge-for-hillary-clinton-and-democrats-in-2016/>* “Here, then, is the central challenge for Hillary Clinton and Democrats in 2016: Convince enough voters that they have a credible plan to raise incomes for the middle class through jump starting economic growth.” *Washington Post blog: Plum Line: “Why a Bernie Sanders presidential candidacy is good for Democrats — and for Hillary Clinton” <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/11/11/why-a-bernie-sanders-presidential-candidacy-is-good-for-democrats-and-for-hillary-clinton/>* “By critiquing her from the left, he [Sen. Sanders] could pull her [Sec. Clinton] in his direction in order to satisfy primary voters, which on many issues would wind up being to her advantage.” *Politico Magazine: “Why Wall Street Loves Hillary” <http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/11/why-wall-street-loves-hillary-112782.html#.VGNLdvldWSp>* [Subtitle:] “She's trying to sound populist, but the banks are ready to shower her campaign with cash.” *MSNBC: “Potential Hillary Clinton challengers gear up for fight” <http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/potential-hillary-clinton-challengers-gear-fight>* “Hillary Clinton’s allies may think the likely presidential candidate is stronger now than she was before last week’s midterm elections, but that hasn’t stopped her potential challengers from moving ahead with their own plans.” *The New Republic: “Hillary's Going to Have a Primary After All, and She Should Be Grateful” <http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120237/facing-hillary-clinton-jim-webb-bernie-sanders-and-martin-omalley>* “It is appearing more and more likely, however, that Clinton will face primary opponents. In fact, three potential candidates—Senator Bernie Sanders, former Senator Jim Webb and Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley—have all signaled they will seek the Democratic nomination.” *The Hill blog: Ballot Box: “Bill Clinton: Hillary 'happy as a clam' even without run” <http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/223655-bill-clinton-hillary-happy-as-a-clam-even-without-run>* “When DeGeneres joked that Clinton was going to make a ‘big announcement’ about his wife, Clinton replied, ‘She's the happiest grandmother.’” *Mediaite: “Fox’s Cavuto Hammers Rand Paul for ‘Condescending Swipe’ at Hillary’s Age” <http://www.mediaite.com/tv/foxs-cavuto-hammers-rand-paul-for-condescending-swipe-at-hillarys-age/>* “And just to stick the knife in a little further, Cavuto invoked Paul’s father, who happens to be a couple of years older than Clinton.” *Politico Magazine: “Wave? What Wave?” <http://www.politico.com/story/2014/11/nancy-pelosi-112799.html>* "Many expect her to serve until at least Obama leaves office in 2017 — in part to defend the 2010 Affordable Care Act from a Republican-led Congress. Pelosi adamantly declined to say what she would do if Hillary Clinton won the White House in 2016..." *Articles:* *MSNBC: “Clinton camp to meet with progressive critics” <http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/hillary-clinton-camp-meet-progressive-critics>* By Alex Seitz-Wald November 11, 2014, 10:00 p.m. EST Hillary’s critics on the left may finally have the opportunity they’ve been waiting for. Adam Green, the co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, one of the groups most closely associated with the so-called “Warren wing of the Democratic Party,” said his organization reached out to Clinton’s camp before the election and that a meeting was coming “very soon.” He declined to name the Clinton advisers with whom he’s been in contact, saying discussions have so far been limited to “conversations about having conversations.” “We want to keep as open a line of communication with Hillary Clinton and her team as possible,” he told msnbc. The meeting will hopefully be a precursor to a larger summit with more progressive leaders and Clinton herself. “The more the merrier,” Green said. “Individual meetings are useful, but progressive movement-wide meetings would be really smart for her.” Their message is that Clinton should adopt the kind of economic inequality issues championed by Warren, both for substantive and political reasons. “This is the path to victory in the primary and general election,” Green and co-founder Stephanie Taylor wrote in an op-ed in The Hill. Other liberal groups, which have sometimes been critical of Clinton, are also interested in a chance to bend Clinton’s ear on these issues. MoveOn.org, which has 8 million members and traces it roots to defending Bill Clinton during his impeachment trial, said that while noting is planned at the moment, they anticipate some kind of interaction with Clinton. “We would be open and expecting a meeting and interactions with anybody looking for the Democratic nomination,” said a source at the group. MoveOn and others say it will be especially important for Clinton to engage with their members, who number in the millions and include some of the most active Democratic grassroots volunteers and supporters. “We’re looking forward to meeting with her team,” said Neil Sroka of Democracy for America, which grew out of Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign. It’s important that Clinton “find ways to connect with the grassroots progressives our organizations represent,” he added, calling them the “foot soldiers” of the party. Clinton plans an unofficial “listening tour” after the election, according to The New York Times, but Green says his group’s outreach pre-dated the elections by several months. Activists involved with several other labor and progressive groups said they have not yet been contacted by Clinton’s team. One suspected the tour will be confined to “known likely friends,” rather than people skeptical of Clinton. Still, they acknowledged it’s early yet. Dean’s DFA has gotten a jump on 2016 by trying to take the temperatures of its more than 1 million members. Last week, it launched an internal poll that, “demonstrates our commitment to making sure the fight for the Democratic nomination is a contest, not a coronation,” Sroka said. The poll is still ongoing, but this week, the group sent a series of emails to supporters making “the progressive case” for several different candidates, including Clinton. “Hillary Clinton is a brawler, willing to take Republicans head on and expose their lies. Can you imagine watching Hillary demolish Ted Cruz or Rand Paul in a debate? It would be epic,” the Clinton email notes. It also praises her experience and political strength, concluding: With “the mistakes of her 2008 presidential campaign in her rearview mirror, Hillary Clinton appears to be ready to win the White House.” The other emails tout the progressive bona fides for Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders. There’s also an email for, curiously, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich. On a DFA conference call in February, Reich said, “I think that there will be a lot of people – Elizabeth Warren, others, maybe even me – who will toss our hats in the ring.” Progressives are encouraged by Clinton’s recent rhetoric on the stump for Democratic midterm candidates, especially the speech she gave while appearing with Warren in Massachusetts on behalf of failed Democratic gubernatorial candidate Martha Coakley. “It’s clear that she’s listening,” Sroka said. *The Hill: “Hillary Clinton in no hurry to announce 2016 plans” <http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/223801-hillary-clinton-in-no-hurry-to-announce-2016-plans>* By Amie Parnes November 12, 2014, 6:00 a.m. EST Hillary Clinton is in no rush to announce that she’s running for president. Sources in Clinton World say while there’s been some chatter about an earlier-than-expected announcement, given the Democratic midterm thumping, Clinton is likely to stick to the timeline of making her plans known early next year. “She’s not going to get in early. Period. End of sentence,” said one Clinton ally. “She’s not ready. She hasn’t fully decided that’s what she wants to do.” Clinton formally launched her first White House bid on Jan. 20, 2007, with a statement on her website that said, “I’m in.” And the expectation has been that she would follow a similar plan, at least on the timing of an announcement, if she chooses to run for the presidency again. But suggestions that she should move up her plans have become more common in recent weeks — particularly after the midterms. Those arguing that Clinton should get in sooner rather than later say an earlier bid would help her fundraising and organizing. It would also provide some, much-needed energy to a party still reeling from an electoral disaster. “It would be a good reminder that we’ll see them on the playing field in two years,” said one Democratic strategist. “To be continued.” It could also downplay the storyline that Clinton is too cautious and is taking cues from old playbooks. David Plouffe, who ran President Obama’s 2008 campaign, recently advised her to stop playing coy and push the go button as soon as possible, according to a report in Politico. And Clinton herself offered remarks last month during a Q-and-A in Ottawa that left some wondering if she was readjusting her timeline. “I’ve been dodging this question now for a year and a half or more,” she said at an event hosted by a Canadian think tank. “I’m going to keep dodging it, certainly until the midterm elections are over. I’m thinking hard about it. But I’m not going to really bear down and think hard about it in a way you make a decision until after these elections.” Hillaryland sources say Clinton — who recently celebrated the birth of her granddaughter — is currently in “listening mode,” as one put it. After campaigning with Democratic candidates, she wants some downtime to really mull the decision inside and out. “I don’t see any reason to announce anytime in the next two months,” said one Clinton insider. “Frankly, I’m thinking, ‘Take your time.’ ” These sources maintain she will likely make a decision about her next steps sometime over the holidays. Should she choose to run, she could then form an exploratory committee, allowing her to have a soft launch of sorts. The committee would in turn send a clear message of her intent without a huge announcement or quick ramp-up of a large team, allowing her to remain somewhat low-key for the time being. Voters could suffer from an early dose of Clinton fatigue, argue those saying Clinton should not get in early. And once a campaign begins on the early side, there’s “more time for negative coverage to set in and doubts in the media,” said Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. The longtime Clinton adviser maintained that the election results don’t and shouldn’t affect the general timeline of an announcement. For one thing, the aide pointed out, there is plenty of action already taking place to eat up the political oxygen including the debate between mainstream Republicans and Tea Partyers in addition to the string of would-be presidential candidates on the GOP side. Furthermore, the source added, issue-oriented debates on immigration reform and other issues are also taking up space in the political stratosphere. But most of all, Clinton — who spent the bulk of the year on a book tour, giving speeches and then stumping for Democrats — needs more time. “The timeline is what it is,” one longtime Clinton ally said. “And I don’t see that changing.” *Washington Post: PostPartisan: “The central challenge for Hillary Clinton and Democrats in 2016” <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2014/11/11/the-central-challenge-for-hillary-clinton-and-democrats-in-2016/>* By Carter Eskew November 11, 2014, 12:33 p.m. EST David Leonhardt has an essential article today for those who wish to understand the recent volatility in electoral outcomes generally, and the misfortune of Democrats specifically. The key driver of these outcomes, according to Leonhardt, is stagnant middle-class incomes. The average American worker, who is lucky enough to have a job, makes $3,600 less today in inflation-adjusted wages than he did in 2001. That is an extraordinary fact, and one that overshadows all other aspects of our politics. It is why Obama and Democrats not only fail to receive any credit for a decline in the unemployment rate, but also are currently seen as weaker than Republicans on what was always their strength: running the economy for the benefit of the middle-class. It is why the “war on women,” climate change, health care, and Social Security, Democratic go-to issues, cut so little this year, and seem exhausted for the foreseeable future. It’s not just the economy, stupid; it’s the fact that people are working the same and making less, moron. Here, then, is the central challenge for Hillary Clinton and Democrats in 2016: Convince enough voters that they have a credible plan to raise incomes for the middle class through jump starting economic growth. It won’t be easy, as Leonhardt makes clear. Democratic ideas for the economy, investment in infrastructure and education, to cite two favorites, take years to pay dividends. A faster way to prime the pump, Leonhardt suggests, would be to cut taxes on the middle class, offset by an increase in rates for the wealthy, which echoes, to some degree, the platforms Bill Clinton and Barack Obama campaigned on in 1992 and in 2008, respectively. For Mrs. Clinton, of course, economic growth and raising stagnant wages must be the sine qua non of her candidacy. It’s time to bring the “laser beam” that Bill Clinton promised in 1992 out of storage and refocus it on the economy. Politically, all else is distraction. *Washington Post blog: Plum Line: “Why a Bernie Sanders presidential candidacy is good for Democrats — and for Hillary Clinton” <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/11/11/why-a-bernie-sanders-presidential-candidacy-is-good-for-democrats-and-for-hillary-clinton/>* By Paul Waldman November 11, 2014, 1:44 p.m. EST Ever since people started thinking about the 2016 presidential primaries, the assumption has been that the Republican side will feature a fascinating and bloody donnybrook with no initial frontrunner and as many as a dozen potentially realistic candidacies, while the Democratic contest will be no contest at all, but rather a coronation for Hillary Clinton. But might we finally have a real clash of ideas on the Democratic side? Yes, we might: “Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has spent months fishing for a strategist to guide his potential 2016 presidential campaign. On Monday, he hooked a big one: Tad Devine, one of the Democratic Party’s leading consultants and a former high-level campaign aide to Al Gore, John Kerry, and Michael Dukakis. “‘If he runs, I’m going to help him,’ Devine said in an interview. ‘He is not only a longtime client but a friend. I believe he could deliver an enormously powerful message that the country is waiting to hear right now and do it in a way that succeeds.’ “Devine and Sanders, who first worked together on Sanders’s campaigns in the 1990s, have been huddling in recent weeks, mapping out how the brusque progressive senator could navigate a primary and present a formidable challenge to Hillary Rodham Clinton, the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination.” The height of Devine’s influence may be in the recent past, but he still brings establishment credibility that could lead people in the media to give Sanders more attention. His involvement is also a sign that Sanders isn’t just thinking he’ll get a van and drive around New Hampshire, but instead that he’d mount a serious campaign, no matter how formidable the obstacles to victory. That could mean a genuinely interesting debate about the problems America confronts and how the Democratic party should address them. Sanders says he’ll center his campaign on economic inequality and the struggles of the middle class, and this is what Clinton needs to address as well. That may be the most important message for Democrats of the 2014 election, not to mention Barack Obama’s continuing low approval ratings: Democrats need to figure out how to address persistent economic insecurity, stagnating wages, and the failure of the recovery’s gains to achieve widespread distribution. If you look at most economic measures, the Obama administration seems spectacularly successful. Since the economy stopped hemorrhaging jobs at the end of 2009, it has added 10 million. We’ve now had nine straight months with over 200,000 jobs created, which hadn’t happened since the mid-1990′s. Unemployment is below 6 percent, GDP growth is steady, and the federal deficit is less than half what it was when Obama took office. Yet his approval on the economy is an anemic 40 percent. The reasons why are many and complicated (the most important is that wages are not increasing), but one problem Democrats face is that they don’t have a coherent story to tell on the economy that explains what they’ve done right, connects with people’s current displeasure, and shows a way forward. If by focusing on the economy Sanders forces Clinton to articulate that story and support it with a specific agenda that she could implement if she wins, he will have done her a great service. Of course, he’d say he isn’t running to do Hillary Clinton any favors. But the reality is that he would. By critiquing her from the left, he could pull her in his direction in order to satisfy primary voters, which on many issues would wind up being to her advantage. At the same time, the broader message their debates would communicate to the general electorate is that she’s a moderate. When Republicans try to argue that she’s some wild-eyed Alinskyite radical bent on turning America socialist (just as they did with Obama), she can say, “I ran against an actual socialist in the primaries, and it’s pretty obvious we aren’t the same person.” A strong Sanders candidacy will do something else: make liberal Democrats feel that their opinions and their concerns are getting a fair hearing in the 2016 process. Sanders is an eloquent and unapologetic voice for liberalism. His presence as a real contender on the campaign trail would assure liberals that their party can still be a vehicle for their ideology, even if the candidate who triumphs is the more centrist establishment figure. And that’s something they could use right now. *Politico Magazine: “Why Wall Street Loves Hillary” <http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/11/why-wall-street-loves-hillary-112782.html#.VGNLdvldWSp>* By William D. Cohen November 11, 2014 [Subtitle:] She's trying to sound populist, but the banks are ready to shower her campaign with cash. An odd thing happened last month when, stumping just before the midterms, Hillary Clinton came in close proximity to the woman who has sometimes been described as the conscience of the Democratic Party. Speaking at the Park Plaza Hotel in Boston as she did her part to try to rescue the failing gubernatorial campaign of Martha Coakley in Massachusetts, Clinton paid deference to Senator Elizabeth Warren, the anti-Wall Street firebrand who has accused Clinton of pandering to the big banks, and who was sitting right there listening. “I love watching Elizabeth give it to those who deserve it,” Clinton said to cheers. But then, awkwardly, she appeared to try to out-Warren Warren—and perhaps build a bridge too far to the left—by uttering words she clearly did not believe: “Don’t let anyone tell you that it’s corporations and businesses that create jobs,” Clinton said, erroneously echoing a meme Warren made famous during an August 2011 speech at a home in Andover, Massachusetts. “You know that old theory, trickle-down economics? That has been tried, that has failed. It has failed rather spectacularly.” The right went wild. See? Hillary Clinton has finally shown her hand. After having sat out the financial crisis and all the economic turmoil that has followed in the past six years—and with good reason, since for most of that time she was tending to the nation’s diplomacy as secretary of state—she is proving to be an anti-Wall Street populist too, and as much a socialist as her former boss, President Obama. But here’s the strange thing: Down on Wall Street they don’t believe it for a minute. While the finance industry does genuinely hate Warren, the big bankers love Clinton, and by and large they badly want her to be president. Many of the rich and powerful in the financial industry—among them, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman, Tom Nides, a powerful vice chairman at Morgan Stanley, and the heads of JPMorganChase and Bank of America—consider Clinton a pragmatic problem-solver not prone to populist rhetoric. To them, she’s someone who gets the idea that we all benefit if Wall Street and American business thrive. What about her forays into fiery rhetoric? They dismiss it quickly as political maneuvers. None of them think she really means her populism. Although Hillary Clinton has made no formal announcement of her candidacy, the consensus on Wall Street is that she is running—and running hard—and that her national organization is quickly falling into place behind the scenes. That all makes her attractive. Wall Street, above all, loves a winner, especially one who is not likely to tamper too radically with its vast money pot. According to a wide assortment of bankers and hedge-fund managers I spoke to for this article, Clinton’s rock-solid support on Wall Street is not anything that can be dislodged based on a few seemingly off-the-cuff comments in Boston calculated to protect her left flank. (For the record, she quickly walked them back, saying she had “short-handed” her comments about the failures of trickle-down economics by suggesting, absurdly, that corporations don’t create jobs.) “I think people are very excited about Hillary,” says one Wall Street investment professional with close ties to Washington. “Most people in New York on the finance side view her as being very pragmatic. I think they have confidence that she understands how things work and that she’s not a populist.” The bottom line for Wall Street, says this executive—echoing many others—is that Clinton understands that America’s much-maligned financial industry wants to be part of the solution to the country’s problems. “Everybody who makes money feels a shared responsibility,” he continues. “Everybody sort of looks at her with a lot of optimism because they feel she doesn’t mind making hard decisions. She’ll do what she needs to do, but it’s not a ‘Let me blame you.’ It’s, ‘Hey, here’s what you’ve got to do.’ And I think that’s very different.” During a speech last December at the Conrad Hotel, in New York, her message could not have been more different from Obama’s hot, anti-Wall Street rhetoric: “We all got into this mess together, and we’re all going to have to work together to get out of it.” During the 2012 presidential election, Wall Street felt burned by Obama’s rhetoric and regulatory positions and overwhelmingly supported with their money Republican candidate Mitt Romney, co-founder of private-equity firm Bain Capital. Now, though, there’s a significant momentum back behind the Democratic contest. “The money is already behind her,” the Wall Street money manager says. “I don’t think it’s starting to line up behind her: It’s there for her if she wants it.” The informal head of her informal Wall Street outreach effort for her informal campaign is a finance executive she knows well—and recruited to work for her at the State Department. Tom Nides, 53, the Morgan Stanley executive, knows both New York and Washington intimately. Today he speaks with Clinton regularly and has begun to play the role of gatekeeper on Wall Street to her embryonic campaign. He also has been known to run interference between the Obama administration and the leaders of the Israeli government, in order to try to patch up their dysfunctional relationship. “Tom at the end of the day is the guy—she trusts him, she knows him,” says the Wall Street investment manager. Nides returned to Morgan Stanley in 2013 after two years working for Clinton at the State Department as deputy secretary of state for management and resources. Nides (with whom I once shared a one-week summer rental on Nantucket) epitomizes the revolving door that has long existed between Washington and Wall Street. Born in Duluth, Minnesota, he served in a senior leadership role for a diverse group of Washington politicians, from Representatives Tony Coehlo and Tom Foley to, as chief of staff, Mickey Kantor, Bill Clinton’s U.S. trade representative. He worked at Fannie Mae for six years, ran Joe Lieberman’s 2000 vice-presidential campaign and served a brief stint as CEO of Burson Marsteller, the public relations firm. In 2001, Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack took Nides under his wing. When Mack was named CEO of Credit Suisse, Nides went along with him as chief administrative officer. When Mack returned to Morgan Stanley as CEO in 2005, Nides accompanied him again as chief operating officer and then stayed another year serving in the same role for James Gorman. Then Nides returned to Washington to work for then-Secretary Clinton at the State Department, replacing Jack Lew, who became head of the Office of Management and Budget. Many thought Nides’ time at Morgan Stanley was over, especially with Mack’s retirement at the end of 2011. But Gorman—also a Hillary supporter—surprised people by bringing Nides back to the firm as a vice-chairman. Now Nides is the first stop in New York for many a visiting dignitary and for those ambitious Wall Street types hoping to get access to Clinton. Nides declined to comment on the record, as did other Wall Street executives with whom Clinton is said to confer, among them Blair Effron, one of the three founders of Centerview Partners, an investment banking boutique, and Marc Lasry, the founder of Avenue Capital, a New York hedge fund, who was almost named Obama’s ambassador to France. But Greg Fleming, Nides’ partner at Morgan Stanley and the president of Morgan Stanley Wealth and Investment Management, was pleased to discuss his enthusiastic support for Clinton. He says that the “broad perception” across Wall Street, among both Democrats and Republicans, is that she, “like her husband, will govern from the center, and work to get things done, and be capable of garnering support across different groups, including working with Republicans.” He agreed that, as a former senator from New York, Clinton is trusted by Wall Street and will tackle issues, such as fiscal and tax reform, that have been long neglected thanks to the intractable polarization that rules Washington these days. “She will be trying to govern from the center with a problem-solving bent like her husband,” Fleming says. Beyond that, Hillary Clinton—and the Clintons generally—have always courted Wall Street assiduously and without apology. In June, the biggest donors to the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation met with the Clintons at Goldman Sachs’ headquarters in lower Manhattan for a day-long discussion about the foundation’s goals. Goldman has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Clintons’ foundation, and in October 2013, Hillary Clinton gave two speeches at Goldman. Her usual speaking fee is $200,000, and Goldman is known to be a full payer on the speaking circuit. Goldman is hardly alone—Clinton is popular in the financial industry: In 2013, she also gave speeches to KKR and the Carlyle Group, two private-equity behemoths. Wall Street does not seem to be the slightest bit shy about coming out for Hillary—and are now contributing their money to prove it. While Priorities USA Action, a super PAC dedicated to getting Clinton elected in 2016, does not have any Wall Street banks among its top 50 donors to date, there have been large contributions from wealthy hedge funds, such as Renaissance Technologies, which has donated $4 million (the largest single contribution); D.E. Shaw, which has donated $1.375 million; Khosla Ventures and Soros Fund Management, which have each donated $1 million; and Ripplewood Holdings, a private equity firm, which contributed $400,000. There are many Wall Street financiers who have donated $25,000—by design, the maximum contribution—to the Ready for Hillary superPAC. Goldman is an interesting case study. As in nearly every other way, it has always been careful to hedge its bets where electoral politics is concerned. Historically, although trending Democratic, Goldman employees have managed to give nearly equally to both parties in presidential elections. And a lot of it: Since 1990, Goldman’s employees have given $47 million to political candidates and various political action committees—more than any other single group of company employees. But that calculus changed dramatically in 2008 when Goldman employees gave about $1 million to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, second only to that given to Obama by the employees of the University of California, who donated nearly $1.8 million. By contrast, Goldman employees gave only $235,000 to Senator John McCain, the Republican Party nominee. By 2009 the bloom was off the rose. In an interview with 60 Minutes, Obama not only referred to Wall Street as the “fat cat bankers” but also blamed Wall Street for causing the financial crisis. “People on Wall Street still don’t get it,” he said. In July 2010, just weeks after a much-vilified Goldman agreed to pay a $550 million fine to the Securities and Exchange Commission—then the largest fine ever—to settle charges stemming from Goldman’s underwriting and selling of a synthetic collateralized debt obligation, the details about which the SEC believed Goldman had failed to properly disclose to investors, Obama joked at the White House Correspondents Dinner: “All of the jokes here tonight are brought to you by our friends at Goldman Sachs. So you don’t have to worry—they make money whether you laugh or not.” By 2012, in an historic turnaround, Goldman went full force for Romney. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Goldman employees gave $1.2 million to the Republican National Committee and another $1 million or so to Romney directly. By contrast, Obama received a mere $210,000 from Goldman employees (who also gave $493,000 to the Democratic National Committee). “In the four decades since Congress created the campaign-finance system, no company’s employees have switched sides so abruptly, moving from top supporters of one camp to the top of its rival,” the Wall Street Journal observed. So far this year, Goldman remains a Republican shop. Some 63 percent of the firm’s political contributions, or $1.75 million, has gone to support Republican candidates. That will change if Clinton decides to run. For starters, as the former U.S. senator from New York, she is well known to many of Goldman’s leaders. They have seen her at numerous Goldman events over the years or at fundraisers in the Hamptons. Blankfein ran into the Clintons in August at a party in the Hamptons at Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein’s house, and there are the many pictures of Blankfein smiling broadly at her side during September’s Clinton Global Initiative in New York. A few weeks later, they spent time together at a dinner celebrating the Goldman Sachs “10,000 Women Initiative,” a Goldman-funded training and education program for female entrepreneurs. Many Goldman employees, especially women, are also excited about the historic potential of the 2016 presidential election since Clinton could become the first female president. “They’re not going to reflexively support any woman, but she’s a woman that seems more or less in sync with the way they think about the world,” says another former Clinton administration official who now works on Wall Street. “And she’s successful, and they just like her.” More significant, the 10,000 Women Initiative was designed by Clinton operatives and is being implemented at Goldman by people who still have close ties to her. For instance, Goldman paid Gene Sperling, a longtime Washington insider who was director of the National Economic Council under both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, nearly $900,000 in 2008 for his help in creating the 10,000 Women Initiative. Noa Meyer, who runs the program at Goldman, once wrote speeches for Hillary Clinton when she was First Lady. “The whole idea to spend money on women and women’s education in developing countries came straight out of her playbook,” says someone familiar with the origins of the 10,000 Women Initiative. “The same people who got her interested in that issue are the people who …design[ed] the program.” Of course, the ties between Goldman Sachs and Washington run deep, very deep, and many analysts have argued that the broad deregulatory moves pushed by former Goldman senior partner Robert Rubin—who later became Bill Clinton’s National Economic Council director and then Treasury secretary—were a major part of the process that led to the subprime mortgage disaster. But Rubin was only among the latest in a long line of Goldman executives who went to Washington and helped create the talent-and-ideas nexus that later became derisively known as “Government Sachs.” Sidney Weinberg, the longtime senior partner at Goldman Sachs in the 20th century, was a confidante of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s who enticed him to Washington on several occasions before, during and after World War II. In 1938, Roosevelt offered Weinberg the position of ambassador to the Soviet Union, but Weinberg thought better of it because he did not speak Russian, was a Jew from Brooklyn and didn’t want to leave Goldman. In November 1943, FDR did succeed in enlisting Weinberg to go to the Soviet Union “openly” as a representative of the Office of Strategic Services—the predecessor of the CIA—although what he did there and for how long has been lost to history. In 1968, Henry Fowler joined Goldman Sachs as a partner, and thus became the first former Treasury secretary to spin the revolving door and land a Wall Street job. John Whitehead, who was the co-senior partner of Goldman Sachs in the 1970s and the early 1980s, became deputy secretary of state in the second Reagan Administration, after he retired from the firm. John F. W. Rogers, a former close Reagan advisor, has been the longtime consigliore at Goldman and oversees both the global communications and government relations departments. Rubin, who had befriended Fowler during his time at Goldman and who went on to run Goldman Sachs in the 1980s, along with Steve Friedman, left Goldman in January 1991 to join the Clinton administration. In 1995, he succeeded Lloyd Bentsen as Treasury secretary. Friedman, meanwhile, became chairman of the National Economic Council under George W. Bush, and, of course, Hank Paulson, the former CEO of Goldman, was Bush’s Treasury secretary during the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008. Rubin, apparently, is not content to go gracefully into the good night when it comes to wielding power, and lingering questions about his continued influence inside the Clinton camp are at the center of an issue that is likely to dog Hillary through 2016. From his perches as co-chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations and as a founder of the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution, Rubin—long considered a Washington kingmaker—continues to cast his spell on the Obama administration, which has been, and continues to be, chock full of appointees with close ties to him, including Tim Geithner, Larry Summers, Peter Orszag, Gene Sperling, Jason Furman, Jack Lew, Michael Froman and Sylvia Matthews Burwell. While Rubin’s reach is both unprecedented and stunning, it remains to be seen whether he is able to work his magic and position Blankfein into an important role in a Hillary Clinton administration, should there be one and if he aspires to such a thing. *** All of which raise the most pertinent question of all: rhetoric and fundraising aside, where does Clinton really stand on Wall Street? If she becomes president, is she going to side with the Rubinites—or has she come to realize, as even her husband apparently has, having conceded in remarks that he naively supported too much deregulation, that Wall Street must be carefully watched and kept at arm’s length? She’s been fairly cagey about this issue, eager to assuage both sides. Where Obama blamed Wall Street—not inaccurately—for behavior that caused the 2008 financial crisis and championed new Wall Street regulations like the Volcker Rule and the 2010 Dodd-Frank law that really stick in the craw of money men—all while presiding over a veritable profit boon for the financial industry—Clinton said hardly a word on the topic of Wall Street shenanigans. Her nascent populism has only appeared in the last year or so, as the Elizabeth Warren movement took off. For instance, in a speech at the progressive New America Foundation, she spoke about the dangers of the growing inequality in the country. “Americans are working harder, contributing more than ever to their companies’ bottom lines and to our country’s total economic output, and yet many are still barely getting by, barely holding on, not seeing the rewards that they believe their hard work should have merited,” she said. “And where’s it all going? Well, economists have documented how the share of income and wealth going to those at the very top—not just the top one percent, but the top one-tenth percent or the top-hundredth percent of the population—has risen sharply over the last generation. Some are calling it a throwback to the Gilded Age of the Robber Barons.” She also lamented how government regulators had “neglected their oversight” of Wall Street and “allowed the evolution of an entire shadow banking system that operated without accountability.” Asked about these issues, Clinton’s spokesman Nick Merrill is quick to point out times she has called for more regulation—an eagerness that underscores how the Clinton operation wants to appear populist even as it collects the Wall Street money. Merrill noted that back in March 2008, as a presidential candidate, she called for “much more vigorous government oversight and enforcement of the subprime mortgage market.” He also said that she staked out positions, in the year or so before the financial crisis hit, on reducing or eliminating the carried interest of private equity partners being taxed at capital gains rates; on a financial transaction tax; and on repatriating overseas income by U.S. corporations. In a 2007 press release from her campaign, for example, Clinton declared: “Our tax code should be valuing hard work and helping middle class and working families get ahead. It offends our values as a nation when an investment manager making $50 million can pay a lower tax rate on her earned income than a teacher making $50,000 pays on her income. As president I will reform our tax code to ensure that the carried interest earned by some multi-millionaire Wall Street managers is recognized for what it is: ordinary income that should be taxed at ordinary income tax rates.” Clinton said she would use the funds generated by the tax change—which some have estimated at $4 to $6 billion per year—to invest in middle-class and working families. There’s no question, when and if she decides to run, that she’s going to have an incredible support foundation from Wall Street.” Yet all of these efforts seem at best a combination of campaign trail rhetoric or minor tweaks around the edges—rather than the wholesale change that an Elizabeth Warren-type populist would want to impose on the financial industry. Probably the best answer to the question of what Clinton will do to Wall Street comes from Wall Street’s own support of her. Wall Street executives, bankers and traders have already shown their hand in support of the two Clintons individually as well as of the causes they care about most deeply—money they wouldn’t contribute if they thought her political future would be detrimental to their economic future. And, in return, one thing we know about the Clintons: They value loyalty profoundly. They are unlikely to turn their backs on the banks, especially since it seems highly unlikely that Warren will mount the kind of outsider challenge to Hillary in 2016 that Barack Obama did in 2008. Instead, Clinton will find ways to work with Wall Street on issues it cares about, rather than vilifying it for political gain. Democratic pollster Douglas Schoen says that Hillary’s hope is that she can use supposed slips like the one in Boston to appeal just enough to the liberal wing of the Democratic party to ward off Warren, who offers a “far more resonant message with the Democratic base than Hillary’s.” Without a strong national ground organization and a strong financial network, Warren’s message alone won’t get her very far, but the Clintons want to avoid repeating the mistakes of 2008, when an idealism-based campaign derailed her inevitability campaign. She will also have much of her former opponent’s network behind her again in 2016. Robert Wolf, the former president of UBS’ investment bank who now has his own advisory boutique, 32 Advisors, has long been described as Obama’s BFF (Best Friend in Finance), and although he has little direct involvement with Clinton or her campaign team, he plans to support her fully when the time comes. He is one of the hosts of a December 16 gala in New York City where she will be honored. By his rough calculus, six in 10 Wall Street types are Democrats, three are Republicans and just one is independent. He predicts that the independents, who voted for Obama in 2008 and then defected to Romney in 2012, will return to Clinton in 2016. As he says, “There’s no question, when and if she decides to run, that she’s going to have an incredible support foundation from Wall Street.” As we have all seen repeatedly, Wall Street often gets what Wall Street wants. Will it get a President Hillary Clinton, and will she be the president Wall Street expects? *MSNBC: “Potential Hillary Clinton challengers gear up for fight” <http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/potential-hillary-clinton-challengers-gear-fight>* By Alex Seitz-Wald November 11, 2014, 2:11 p.m. EST Hillary Clinton’s allies may think the likely presidential candidate is stronger now than she was before last week’s midterm elections, but that hasn’t stopped her potential challengers from moving ahead with their own plans. Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, who says he is seriously considering a presidential run as a Democrat, has hired veteran Democratic strategist Tad Devine, while the group trying to draft Sen. Elizabeth Warren is also staffing up. With a career in presidential politics stretching more than three decades, Devine is highly respected in Democratic political circles. His involvement with Sanders will instantly lend credibility to the progressive senator, who has sometimes struggled to be taken seriously as a viable national candidate. “I believe he could deliver an enormously powerful message that the country is waiting to hear right now and do it in a way that succeeds,” Devine told The Washington Post. Devine played senior roles in Al Gore and John Kerry’s presidential campaigns, as well as those of 17 winning Senate races. Sanders and his message of “political revolution” have been well received on recent trips to New Hampshire and Iowa, both key early presidential states. And some Clinton allies fear he could find a following on the left. “In terms of fundraising, there would be real interest in him at the grassroots level,” Devine told the Post. “He knows how to do the organizing that’s required. As a mass media person, I also think he would be a great television candidate. He can connect on that level.” Meanwhile, Ready for Warren announced Monday that it had hired a deputy campaign manager to help run its day-to-day operations. Kate Albright-Hanna, who is also an Emmy-award winning documentary filmmaker, worked with Ready for Warren founder Erica Sagrans on Obama’s 2008 campaign. This year, she served as communications director for Zephyr Teachout, who mounted a surprisingly competitive Democratic primary campaign against New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The group is also in the process of hiring several field directors in key states. Warren has repeatedly said she is not running. At the same time, former Virginia senator Jim Webb, an anti-war moderate, is more seriously considering a run that previously disclosed. “I do believe that I have the leadership and the experience and the sense of history and the kinds of ideas where I could lead this country,” he told The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza for a profile of the Democratic field published Monday. “We’re just going to go out and put things on the table in the next four or five months and see if people support us. And if it looks viable, then we’ll do it.” And then there’s Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, who has the most complete infrastructure in place of anyone not named Clinton, but now to has figure out whether or not to dismantle it after the election. His political action committee dispatched 32 staffers to help Democrats in key states, and now has to decide how many to keep. Many of the staffers were fairly junior, but earned positive reviews from Iowa Democrats. O’Malley was seen as damaged by the loss of lieutenant governor Anthony Brown in last week’s race to replace him in the Maryland statehouse. Clinton still has an enormous lead in early public opinion surveys, and allies think her party’s drubbing last week will encourage Democrats to rally around Clinton and help clarify her message against a Republican Congress. At the same time, many Democrats, especially in early states, say they want to see a vigorous primary campaign. *New Republic: “Hillary's Going to Have a Primary After All, and She Should Be Grateful” <http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120237/facing-hillary-clinton-jim-webb-bernie-sanders-and-martin-omalley>* By Danny Vinik November 11, 2014 With the midterms over, political operatives and professional pundits are quickly turning their attention to the 2016 presidential election. Their interest, though, is unbalanced, focused on the wide-open Republican field. Many don’t expect a competitive Democratic primary. Will anyone even challenge Hillary Clinton? Some Democrats worry Clinton's supposed inevitability will come across as arrogance. “She's an enormously capable candidate and leader,” Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick told CNN in May. “But I do worry about the inevitability thing, because I think it's off-putting to the average voter." It is appearing more and more likely, however, that Clinton will face primary opponents. In fact, three potential candidates—Senator Bernie Sanders, former Senator Jim Webb and Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley—have all signaled they will seek the Democratic nomination. Of the three potential candidates, Sanders seems most serious about running for president. The clearest sign came Tuesday when Tad Devine, a major Democratic consultant who worked closely with Al Gore, John Kerry, and Michael Dukakis, said that he would work with Sanders. “If he runs, I’m going to help him,” Devine told the Washington Post. “He is not only a longtime client but a friend. I believe he could deliver an enormously powerful message that the country is waiting to hear right now and do it in a way that succeeds.” Sanders, who is a socialist, has been a vocal critic of President Obama and the Democratic Party for failing to go after Wall Street and being too close to big-money interests. He believes Clinton is no different, and this has made him consider a presidential run. On Saturday, he appeared on C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers” and talked about a potential campaign as well. "If there is not that support, I will not run,” he said. “I want to run a good campaign and a meaningful campaign and a winning campaign. If I can't do that, I'm not interested in running." Ryan Lizza documents Sanders’s commitment to challenging the Democratic Party in a new piece for The New Yorker focusing on Clinton’s supposed inevitability. Lizza does not assess whether Clinton is actually inevitable. Instead, he describes how O’Malley and Webb, along with Sanders, are both positioning themselves for presidential campaigns. For instance, O’Malley spent time in Iowa campaigning for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jack Hatch. Hatch lost by nearly 22 points, but O’Malley still used the campaign to introduce himself to Iowa voters. On Sunday, the Washington Post reported that O’Malley, whose term is up in January, sent 32 staffers to battleground states across the country during the midterms—another sign he is thinking about 2016. Webb has done the least to prepare for a presidential run, but he is certainly flirting with the idea. “I do believe that I have the leadership and the experience and the sense of history and the kinds of ideas where I could lead this country,” he told Lizza. “We’re just going to go out and put things on the table in the next four or five months and see if people support us. And if it looks viable, then we’ll do it.” He travelled to New Hampshire in October to discuss his memoir, a chance to introduce himself to voters in the pivotal state. All three of these campaigns are in their infancy but there’s a very good chance that at least one—and possibly several—of them will run. Each would likely challenge Clinton from the left on economic issues, attempting to tie her to Wall Street. Webb and Sanders have also been critical of her on foreign policy issues such as the interventions in Libya and Syria. In addition, there’s always the chance that Vice President Joe Biden or Senator Elizabeth Warren enter the race as well. Can any of them derail Clinton as Obama did in 2008? Unlikely. Clinton is even better positioned now to ward off Democratic challengers than she was six years ago. But at the very least, a Sanders, O’Malley, or Webb campaign will force Clinton to defend her record and persuade primary voters that her agenda is best for the country. She may still be the inevitable candidate. But at least she’ll be prepared as well. *The Hill blog: Ballot Box: “Bill Clinton: Hillary 'happy as a clam' even without run” <http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/223655-bill-clinton-hillary-happy-as-a-clam-even-without-run>* By Peter Sullivan November 11, 2014, 1:28 p.m. EST Former President Clinton says that Hillary Clinton would be "happy as a clam" even without running for president in 2016. Appearing on the "Ellen DeGeneres Show" in a segment airing Tuesday, DeGeneres jokingly presented Clinton with two baby's onesies. One said "My grandma's running for president in 2016" and the other read "My grandma's a stay-at-home granny." "If I pick that one, it would be best for the country," Clinton said, pointing at the 2016 onesie. Pointing at the "granny" onesie, he said "If I pick that one, she would be happy as a clam and so would I." "So keep 'em both and give her the right one when she decides," he said. The Clintons' granddaughter, Charlotte, was born in September, and Hillary Clinton has made clear in her speeches since then how much she values being a grandmother. When DeGeneres joked that Clinton was going to make a "big announcement" about his wife, Clinton replied, "She's the happiest grandmother." "I don’t know what Hillary’s going to do, that’s the truth," Clinton said, as he has said before. "If I did I wouldn’t tell you, but I don’t know." Clinton pointed to a program at the Clinton Foundation to encourage parents to read to their children to boost development. "Whatever she wants to do I’m for, she’s the ablest public servant I ever worked with, but I’m more interested, now that I have a granddaughter, than I ever have been in this project she and Chelsea started at our foundation called Too Small to Fail," Clinton said. Despite these comments, Hillary Clinton is seen as all but certain to run. She has campaigned across the country for Democrats, including trips to Iowa and New Hampshire, and there have been several reports of strategy meetings lining up a campaign. *Mediaite: “Fox’s Cavuto Hammers Rand Paul for ‘Condescending Swipe’ at Hillary’s Age” <http://www.mediaite.com/tv/foxs-cavuto-hammers-rand-paul-for-condescending-swipe-at-hillarys-age/>* By Josh Feldman November 11, 2014, 5:36 p.m. EST Fox’s Neil Cavuto scolded Senator Rand Paul today for his “condescending swipe” at Hillary Clinton for maybe being too old to be president. Paul said yesterday that Hillary might not be ready for the “rigorous physical ordeal” of a presidential campaign. Well, Cavuto thought that was a pretty cheap shot, worse than Chris Christie shouting at someone to “shut up.” He pointed out that Ronald Reagan was 69 on inauguration day, as Clinton would be, and no Republican would say he wasn’t up to the job. And just to stick the knife in a little further, Cavuto invoked Paul’s father, who happens to be a couple of years older than Clinton. Cavuto said Paul’s done some “damage with that condescending swipe” and told him to stop “pull[ing] this nonsense.” *Politico Magazine: “Wave? What Wave?” <http://www.politico.com/story/2014/11/nancy-pelosi-112799.html>* By Lauren French and John Bresnahan November 12, 2014, 5:03 a.m. EST [Subtitle:] An exclusive interview with an unbowed Nancy Pelosi. House Democrats ended Election Day controlling fewer seats than they have in nearly 80 years, but Nancy Pelosi isn’t conceding anything. “I do not believe what happened the other night is a wave,” Pelosi said in her sit-down first interview since Democrats lost a dozen House seats to Republicans on Nov. 4. “There was no wave of approval for the Republicans. I wish them congratulations, they won the election, but there was no wave of approval for anybody. There was an ebbing, an ebb tide, for us.” As for whether she would consider stepping down as minority leader, Pelosi said she’s needed now more than ever. “Quite frankly, if we would have won, I would have thought about leaving,” Pelosi declared, a remark that will likely surprise both admirers and detractors. Pelosi’s take on the midterms is this: It wasn’t a Republican wave, her party’s message is fine and while President Barack Obama thinks Democrats need to play better politics, she believes Democrats just need to better engage voters. As Pelosi prepares to run for another term as House minority leader, a position she’s expected to win unchallenged next week, the powerful Californian is unrepentant about a brutal election night. Seated in her Capitol Hill office on Friday, the 74-year-old Pelosi offered her thoughts on the state of her caucus in a Republican-controlled Congress, revealing a leader who is standing by her principles, policies and strategies. From plans to harness her power among fellow Democrats to keep her job as minority leader, to digging in on Obamacare and the party’s economic messaging, Pelosi is setting up her party to fight to take back the House in 2016 on similar grounds as this year, apparently without a dramatic shakeup of the Democratic leadership team. “It’s always time for fresh leadership, but my members have asked me to stay,” she said. “If they want me to stay, I stay. If they don’t want me to stay, I won’t stay.” Some of this is the spin that any party leader uses. Some of it is vintage Pelosi — she shrugs off defeats as lessons learned, and never overplays her victories. She is an experienced enough pol to know that both happen routinely in a political career that has spanned nearly four decades. It’s also a reflection of her own power inside the House Democratic Caucus. She’s built loyalty around her incredible fundraising prowess, raising more money than anyone else for House Democrats — $65 million for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and another $35 million for members this cycle alone, her office said. She hit 750 fundraisers and events in the past two years, spending 200 days on the road this year raising money. Democrats don’t often rebuke her publicly, but since the election, a number of younger members and staffers have begun to say privately it’s time for new blood in leadership to energize the party ahead of the 2016 elections — they don’t want Pelosi gone but want her to cast a wider net within the party for advice. On a conference call with members last Thursday, just two days after the election, Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) said Democrats need to “rethink” their message after a number of young people voted for Sen.-elect Cory Gardner, a Republican, over Sen. Mark Udall, a Democrat. Pelosi cut her off, sources on the call said. Other Democratic aides and insiders have grumbled privately, too, that they want more dramatic moves on the policy and messaging front. “As a party, we need to change,” a senior Democratic aide said. “[Voters] like our policies. All this leftie [talk], the country likes, but somehow the message about us as individual members of the conference isn’t breaking through. There is great unrest.” Pelosi is giving ground that Democrats need to do a better job at bringing young people to the polls — suggesting that Democrats launch an aggressive voter engagement drive for 2016 just one day after the election. “We have to engage people in voting again. Two-thirds of the electorate did not vote in this election the other night,” Pelosi said. “That’s shameful.” Pelosi suggested the new effort has to go far beyond just registering likely Democratic voters — the party needs to provide an “inspiration” to get people to the polls. “It’s not just registration. You can’t just go up to someone and say, ‘Will you register to vote?’ You have to have an inspiration. It’s not just registration, it’s the whole engagement of it,” Pelosi said. On Nov. 4, as the Election Day drubbing for Democrats unfolded, Pelosi gathered with a small group of supporters and staffers at Rep. Chellie Pingree’s (D-Maine) home on Capitol Hill to watch the results. Attendees described the event as “somber” and “downbeat.” Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Steve Israel of New York talked about turnout and the party’s effort to defend all incumbents — unlike when in 2010 the DCCC had to cut off some vulnerable members because of stretched resources. By the time she left the event at 11 p.m., a number of high-profile Democrats in California and New York were in tight — and unexpected — battles for their careers. Flanked by Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), her husband and Democratic staffers, Pelosi went back to the DCCC’s Capitol Hill headquarters. By 1 a.m., when races across the country were still turning against Democrats, Pelosi began drafting a letter to colleagues, asking for their support as minority leader. At the center of her pitch was the voter engagement drive. Pelosi argues that House Democrats aren’t getting enough credit for preventing a total rout. Compared with losses in the Senate, the losses among incumbent House Democrats were better than expected, she says. She also disputes that the White House had a “failure of politics” — a term Obama used after POLITICO’s interview with Pelosi — during the midterm that hurt Democrats. “I don’t think it was a failure of his message; it was the extent of his success. Let’s say it in a more positive way. This president has accomplished many great things,” Pelosi said of the president. “You know there is always an October eclipse. We couldn’t catch a break.” Instead, Pelosi faulted a series of international crises — fighting in Ukraine, the terrorist group ISIL and the deadly outbreak of Ebola — for distracting the media and voters from Democrats’ economic message. Pelosi’s outlook was wildly optimistic running into the homestretch. She insisted in July that Democrats were going to win 25 seats and take back the House. As Congress adjourned in September, Pelosi was still claiming that Democrats had a “60 percent” chance of winning the House, even when all the polls said the exact opposite. “The momentum is coming our way,” Pelosi said at the time. In private, members-only conference calls before Nov. 4, Pelosi was predicting Democrats would break even on Election Day. Pelosi isn’t backing away from the liberal economic message that House Democrats based their campaign on, such as their focus on equal pay for women and an increased minimum wage. Those messages were poll tested, Pelosi said, and did well in districts that weren’t distracted by higher-profile statewide races. “The message that is important for everybody is financial stability … our message was about that,” Pelosi said. “[It was] jump-start the middle class, stop tax breaks that send jobs overseas … [the idea that] when women succeed, America succeeds, equal pay for equal work and investments in education.” Democrats were also hit by an onslaught of outside money, Pelosi said. Even in the minority, the DCCC had a huge fundraising advantage over the GOP, buoyed by Pelosi’s network of deep-pocketed donors. Yet despite outraising the National Republican Congressional Committee, Democrats couldn’t compete with a torrent of late spending by Republican super PACs. “We controlled the damage enormously. They were coming endlessly without one fact. Endless money, no commitment to truth. They will say anything,” she said. Pelosi isn’t nearly ready to give up on her tenure as the House Democrat’s top fundraiser and leader. The veteran lawmaker said she has no plans to leave or stay past 2016, but she said that to win back the House, Democrats will need access to her expansive donor network. As for leaving after a tough loss, Pelosi said she is committed to helping Democrats regain the majority. In fact, Pelosi insisted that she would have only considered stepping down had Democrats won the House, returning her to the speaker’s chair. Many expect her to serve until at least Obama leaves office in 2017 — in part to defend the 2010 Affordable Care Act from a Republican-led Congress. Pelosi adamantly declined to say what she would do if Hillary Clinton won the White House in 2016, turning into a joke about her relationship with a presidential front-runner. “You know what I’ve read? I’ve read that my lifelong dream is to serve as speaker with Hillary Clinton as president. So what? My lifelong dream …” Pelosi deadpanned. House Democrats remain intensely loyal to Pelosi. She’s known for impressing donors with handwritten “thank you” notes and personal phone calls. Members say she pushes them not with threats or strong-arming but by asking them what they need from certain legislation or votes. That bond with her rank and file explains why Pelosi has been able to stave off any challenge to her leadership post. It helps that no current Democrat could take up her fundraising network. Pelosi has raised more than $400 million since 2002. She does it by attending roughly 750 fundraising and campaign events in the past two years, her office said. “We would have lost more than 15 [seats] without Nancy Pelosi,” Israel said. “She’s the one who raised the money that gave us the resources to build the firewall that mitigated against even worse losses.” With Republicans in the majority in both sides of the Capitol, Pelosi now faces a new Congress that will be more conservative than in the past four years of just a GOP-controlled House. Already, GOP hard-liners are demanding a series of votes on Republican-friendly legislation that will anger Democrats. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), poised as the next Senate majority leader, already pledged to hold an Obamacare repeal vote early in the new session. The 2010 health care law is one of the cornerstones of Pelosi’s legacy in the House — and the California Democrat said she would remain in leadership to defend the law at least for another term. “I’m honestly here to protect the Affordable Care Act from the clutches of … whatever,” Pelosi said. *Calendar:* *Sec. Clinton's upcoming appearances as reported online. Not an official schedule.* · November 14 – Little Rock, AR: Sec. Clinton attends picnic for 10thAnniversary of the Clinton Center (NYT <http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2014/10/17/?entry=2674&_php=true&_type=blogs&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&_r=0> ) · November 15 – Little Rock, AR: Sec. Clinton hosts No Ceilings event (NYT <http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2014/10/17/?entry=2674&_php=true&_type=blogs&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&_r=0> ) · November 21 – New York, NY: Sec. Clinton presides over meeting of the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves (Bloomberg <http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2014-11-02/clinton-aides-resist-calls-to-jump-early-into-2016-race> ) · November 21 – New York, NY: Sec. Clinton is honored by the New York Historical Society (Bloomberg <http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2014-11-02/clinton-aides-resist-calls-to-jump-early-into-2016-race> ) · December 1 – New York, NY: Sec. Clinton keynotes a League of Conservation Voters dinner (Politico <http://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/hillary-clinton-green-groups-las-vegas-111430.html?hp=l11> ) · December 4 – Boston, MA: Sec. Clinton speaks at the Massachusetts Conference for Women (MCFW <http://www.maconferenceforwomen.org/speakers/>) · December 16 – New York, NY: Sec. Clinton honored by Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights (Politico <http://www.politico.com/story/2014/11/hillary-clinton-ripple-of-hope-award-112478.html> )