Correct The Record Sunday December 7, 2014 Roundup

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P17 D6 P22 V11 P20

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*​**Correct The Record Sunday December 7, 2014 Roundup:* *Headlines:* *Roll Call blog: 218: “Democrats Irrelevant? Don’t Be So Sure, Pelosi Promises” <http://blogs.rollcall.com/218/nancy-pelosi-democrats-irrelevant-just-watch/?dcz=>* “‘Let me say this about Hillary [Rodham] Clinton: When she runs, she will win. And when she wins, she’ll go to the White House as one of the most prepared people in modern history to go there,’ Pelosi said, stopping just short of an endorsement that would be significant for Clinton, the former first lady and ex-secretary of State.” *New York Times column: Frank Bruni: “Hillary 2.0 Would Be Hillary XX” <http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/07/opinion/sunday/frank-bruni-hillary-2-0-would-be-hillary-xx.html?_r=1>* “If she runs, she’ll do so with more focus on her gender and a greater emphasis on making history than she did in 2008.” *The Hill blog: Ballot Box: “Republicans tie Landrieu loss to Hillary” <http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/senate-races/226237-republicans-tie-landrieu-loss-to-hillary>* “On the heels of Sen. Mary Landrieu's (D-La.) crushing loss in Louisiana Senate, Republicans were quick to tie her defeat to the Democratic Party's heir apparant: Hillary Clinton.” *Washington Post: Dan Balz: “Is Jeb Bush really prepared to lose in order to win?” <http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/is-jeb-bush-really-prepared-to-lose-in-order-to-win/2014/12/06/fdaec470-7d51-11e4-84d4-7c896b90abdc_story.html>* “Bush’s comments provide a contrast to those of Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is going through the same decision-making process as he is. He has been more open about his considerations and is seemingly farther along in knowing what he would make his campaign about and how it would conduct it, should he decide to run." *CNN: “The 'Inside Politics' forecast: Friends say Hillary leaning towards a later 2016 decision” <http://edition.cnn.com/2014/12/07/politics/ip-forecast-hillary-later/>* “There is nothing certain when it comes to Clintonland, but the safer bet appears to be later rather than sooner as to when we will get official word about her 2016 intentions.” *Articles:* *Roll Call blog: 218: “Democrats Irrelevant? Don’t Be So Sure, Pelosi Promises” <http://blogs.rollcall.com/218/nancy-pelosi-democrats-irrelevant-just-watch/?dcz=>* By Emma Dumain December 7, 2014, 8:00 a.m. EST Nancy Pelosi insists she doesn’t gloat when House Republicans can’t shore up the votes among their own members to pass any number of critical bills, and it’s Democrats who get to swoop in and call themselves the heroes. “I would rather they did the responsible thing so we wouldn’t have to bail them out every time,” the California Democrat quipped of her GOP counterparts. But the minority leader, who sat for an interview in her Capitol Hill office with CQ Roll Call, must be feeling gratified. The government is on the precipice of a shutdown, and if Republicans can’t get to 218 votes on their side of the aisle, Pelosi will get to call in the cavalry once again. It would be the second time in a matter of weeks that she’s gotten to flex her muscle: She successfully squelched a pre-Thanksgiving deal on a tax extenders package negotiated exclusively by Senate Democrats and House Republicans — a deal that would have been a nonstarter for her caucus and President Barack Obama. “The minute we got wind of what [it] would be and that it had a path, before it gained any respectability, I called our members and said, ‘This is what I think is happening … but I have to know that I can say to the president that this will sustain a veto,’” Pelosi recalled. With Obama still in the White House, Pelosi remains a player, as her impact on the tax extenders package showed. But how much leverage she retains in the 114th could come down to how she fits into the Republican-controlled Congress over the next two years. “I don’t think anyone is irrelevant. We have leverage if they don’t have the votes,” she said. “They have leverage because they know we will be responsible. And that allows them to be irresponsible to a certain extent.” And 2016? Well, that’s a whole new ballgame. By then, the country could see its first female president, said the nation’s first female speaker. “Let me say this about Hillary [Rodham] Clinton: When she runs, she will win. And when she wins, she’ll go to the White House as one of the most prepared people in modern history to go there,” Pelosi said, stopping just short of an endorsement that would be significant for Clinton, the former first lady and ex-secretary of State. A favorite parlor game of political observers and operatives, members and aides is wondering when Pelosi might retire. For the past 12 years, she’s been her caucus’s most senior leader, and during that time she’s cemented her legacy as a master vote-counter, consensus-builder and fundraiser. She’s said she’s continuing to serve because she does so at the pleasure of her members, and because she wants to protect the landmark, and perpetually embattled, health care legislation she helped draft and pass in 21010. Could 2016 be the year she steps aside, especially if Clinton runs and wins? Pelosi, 74, offers no hints, but she doesn’t pretend she’ll be around forever. Reminded that she said she’d stay on as leader as long as the caucus wants her, Pelosi joked, “Well, maybe not that long.” Asked whether anybody else could now do what she does, she drew in a breath and laughed: “I certainly hope so.” “Tooting my own horn, … the support I have in the country, originating in the great state of California, is substantial, and enables me to amass resources because they believe in what I believe in and also want to see a Democratic majority,” said Pelosi, who has raised more than $400 million since she entered leadership in 2002. Despite some grumblings that she has an inner circle and doesn’t like to expand it, Pelosi insisted she is and has always been laying the groundwork for a next generation of leadership to ascend when the time comes for her — and Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer and Assistant Leader James E. Clyburn, also in their mid-70s — to step aside. “That’s always a responsibility that we have,” Pelosi said. “I’ve probably appointed more women to be, where I had the discretion, to be chairs of committees, or place them in positions where they would become chairs.” The same is true, she said, for members of color, such as Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, whom she tapped to be top Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee. “There were people more senior who wanted that position, but it was a new committee so I had the ability to put that lineup in place,” she said. “It’s not just about leadership,” she added. “This place is competitive in some ways, but there’s so much opportunity, and beyond having a role, it’s what your standing is on the issue.” Pelosi tried recently to help elevate a woman to serve as ranking member of Energy and Commerce — a fellow Californian and her close friend, Rep. Anna G. Eshoo. Her endorsement ended up not being enough for Eshoo to defeat the more senior Frank Pallone Jr. of New Jersey, and it was one of a series of personal obstacles Pelosi faced in the immediate aftermath of an Election Day drubbing, when members were looking for someone to blame and targeted the minority leader for not taking ownership of the losses. She regained some goodwill, however, when she surprised nearly everybody and selected New Mexico Democrat Ben Ray Luján to be the next chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. With members expecting Pelosi to promote someone already firmly installed in her circle, the gesture was met with enthusiasm. Even her critics saw it as a sign their leader was open to singling out lawmakers who were outside the box, had put their heads down and worked hard and who didn’t necessarily have household names. “He has a beautiful reputation,” Pelosi said of Luján. Pelosi said members would have to answer the question of what has earned her the loyalty she enjoys, but she described herself as “a weaver of a loom just … pulling together all the threads of different opinion in our caucus. “My job is to make sure that we have the strongest possible fabric woven from all those different threads,” she continued. “If I have to say to people, ‘This is a path that we have to go, to vote with the Republicans to get something done, you don’t have to vote for it, but I have to give it some support,’ then they understand that. If you’re saying to people, ‘This is terrible, but you have to vote for it,’ that’s a harder sell than if you’re saying, ‘We just need to be helpful and you can … make your own judgment.’ “And they always do make their own judgment,” she said. *New York Times column: Frank Bruni: “Hillary 2.0 Would Be Hillary XX” <http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/07/opinion/sunday/frank-bruni-hillary-2-0-would-be-hillary-xx.html?_r=1>* By Frank Bruni December 6, 2014 November 2016 is still a long way off, but it’s hard to imagine that the presidential campaign will provide any bit of advertising as strangely entertaining and revealing as a video put online recently by Stand With Hillary, a new “super PAC.” Haven’t seen it? Oh you must. Right now. I give you leave from this column to go take a look, but hurry back. There’s a lot to talk about. It spotlights a man in a cowboy hat who croons in a country-and-western twang about how darned much he adores that there Hillary Clinton. “Hindsight’s always right,” he sings, a clear dig at Barack Obama, the candidate chosen over her in the Democratic primaries. There are images of construction work, a welder, a pickup truck, a tractor, a big red barn, cows. It’s the unveiling of Hard-Hat Hillary. Rodeo Hillary. Hillary, Patron Saint of the Prairie. But it positions her first and foremost as all woman. The references are incessant. The chorus goes like this: “Thinking about one great lady like the women in my life. She’s a mother, a daughter and through it all, she’s a loving wife.” A man with a sledgehammer shatters a panel of glass — twice. And the cowboy exhorts his brethren: “Put your boots on and let’s smash this ceiling.” Just in case there was any doubt about what that glass meant. The video wasn’t produced by Clinton or her aides. But the people who did put it together clearly followed the cues that they felt they were getting, and they read her intentions right. If she runs, she’ll do so with more focus on her gender and a greater emphasis on making history than she did in 2008. And that’ll be the smart move, because her gender is precisely what offsets certain of her weaknesses as a candidate. To double down on the double X may be her best way to mitigate several otherwise big vulnerabilities. Back in 2008, “Clinton seemed to develop a tortured approach toward her gender on the campaign trail, sometimes embracing it, sometimes dismissing it, sometimes appearing to overcompensate for it — but rarely appearing at ease with it,” wrote Anne Kornblut of The Washington Post in her 2009 book about that race, “Notes From the Cracked Ceiling.” She observed that some of Clinton’s key advisers felt that partly because of her gender, she had to routinely assert toughness and be America’s own Iron Lady. There were boxing gloves at her events, along with music from “Rocky.” Kornblut recalled the time when she was told by a proud Clinton adviser that it was “as though his boss were running with a penis.” And at one campaign event, a labor leader introduced her as “the candidate with ‘testicular fortitude,’ ” Kornblut wrote. Clinton never gave a gender speech that rivaled Obama’s race speech. Additionally, “When Obama won the Iowa caucuses, everybody wrote and talked about it as historic,” Kornblut told me last week. “But Jesse Jackson had won primaries. When Hillary Clinton won New Hampshire, it was historic. But the coverage was, ‘Hillary made a comeback. She’s the comeback kid, just like her husband was.’ ” Kornblut said that, belatedly, a few members of Clinton’s inner circle came to believe that her frequently gender-neutral approach wasn’t just “a big mistake of the campaign. That was the big strategic mistake.” But with an even longer résumé now, Clinton could emphasize her trailblazing womanhood for 2016 without the worry that many voters would misinterpret it as the main qualification that she’s claiming. And after four years as a secretary of state more hawkish than the president she served, she wouldn’t have to push the image of a dauntless world leader. Americans’ economic anxieties will almost surely be at the center of the race, and with the right language, Clinton might have “the ability to talk as mom and grandmom about the need to make sure government is on the side of our families,” Chris Lehane, a Democratic strategist who recently addressed the group Ready for Hillary, told me. “Being a woman translates into great politics,” he said. Clinton seemingly agrees. Over the last year she has weighed in strongly on issues like equal pay and child care. She has done women-themed events galore. In a speech at Georgetown University last week, she said: “We know when women contribute in making and keeping peace, entire societies enjoy better outcomes. Women leaders, it has been found, are good at building coalitions across ethnic and sectarian lines and speaking up for other marginalized groups.” IT’S possible that Clinton has noticed polls. In one by Gallup early this year, when Americans were asked what about a Clinton presidency would be most exciting, the answer given more than any other was that she would be the first woman in the job. It’s her “unique selling proposition,” wrote Frank Newport, Gallup’s editor in chief, in an analysis of those results. And that proposition is potentially an inoculation. Yes, she’s been around forever and isn’t a fresh face. But she can’t be yesterday’s news when she’s tomorrow’s precedent. Yes, there’s a whiff of dynasty about her. But maybe she gets some of the “new car smell” that Obama said voters were looking for by promising a new altitude of female accomplishment. Yes, a contest between her and Jeb Bush would be one of two surnames from the past. But only she can claim to represent an uncharted future, at least in one sense. Yes, detractors will say that she’s a third term of Obama: business as usual. Her supporters can answer that she’s history’s unfinished business. Yes, she’s now wealthy and well-connected, and would be starting the race with titanic advantages. But if she’s willing to talk about her experience as a woman, she can talk about what it’s been like to make her way in a man’s world. She’s a leader of the pack who can make some underdog noises, an ultimate insider who can potentially connect with outsiders — thanks to gender. Lehane called it “a sword and a shield.” When she ran the last time around, Rush Limbaugh asked, “Will Americans want to watch a woman get older before their eyes on a daily basis?” It was a sexist question, but this can be a sexist country, and even some Democrats had that concern. It’s more than six years later, and Ruth Marcus of The Washington Post recently noted Clinton’s “full-on embrace of grandma-hood, tweeting out pictures of her new granddaughter despite the twin pitfalls of gender and age.” For Clinton 2016, gender might not be a pitfall at all. *The Hill blog: Ballot Box: “Republicans tie Landrieu loss to Hillary” <http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/senate-races/226237-republicans-tie-landrieu-loss-to-hillary>* By Jonathan Easley December 6, 2014, 10:09 p.m. EST On the heels of Sen. Mary Landrieu's (D-La.) crushing loss in Louisiana Senate, Republicans were quick to tie her defeat to the Democratic Party's heir apparant: Hillary Clinton. Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus crowed that Louisianans had “rejected the Democrat agenda and the Obama-Clinton policies that have produced higher healthcare costs and job-killing regulations.” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a likely Republican presidential contender in 2016, also sought to hang the loss around Clinton, the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination. The RNC said its new majority would allow it to pass the “pro-jobs legislation that was stalled in the Senate when Democrats were in control.” “Bill Cassidy will be a champion for policies that create jobs and grow the economy, especially building the Keystone Pipeline,” Priebus said in a statement. “And as a doctor treating the uninsured, he has seen firsthand how ObamaCare has hurt healthcare in this country and will work toward market-driven, patient-centered reforms. Americans’ priorities will be Republicans’ priorities in the new Senate.” *Washington Post: Dan Balz: “Is Jeb Bush really prepared to lose in order to win?” <http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/is-jeb-bush-really-prepared-to-lose-in-order-to-win/2014/12/06/fdaec470-7d51-11e4-84d4-7c896b90abdc_story.html>* By Dan Balz December 6, 2014, 3:31 p.m. EST Jeb Bush might or might not run for president in 2016. If he runs, he might or might not emerge as a winner. But his formulation for how to think about waging a successful presidential campaign suggests he already is ahead of some of his potential competitors — in both parties. Bush, the former governor of Florida, spoke last week at a Wall Street Journal conference in Washington. In an interview conducted by Jerry Seib, the Journal’s Washington bureau chief, he said that anyone running for president should be prepared “to lose the primary to win the general [election] without violating your principles.” What Bush said is the opposite of the oft-stated idea that presidential candidates run to the left or the right to win their party’s presidential nomination and then scamper back to the center as best they can for the general election. That prescription, while sometimes successful, can easily contribute to cynicism among the voters, who watch and wonder whether their politicians have any principles beyond the desire to win at any cost. Bush offered a different concept, one grounded less to the machinations of typical political campaigns and more dependent on the power of ideas and the confidence to test them in the marketplace. At its core, what Bush was saying is that the best candidates are those who know what they believe, are not afraid to take risks to articulate those convictions and, in some measure, use their campaign to help redefine their party rather than becoming a prisoner of party orthodoxies and constituencies. Bush said last week that he would decide “in short order” whether to run. Advisers say there is nothing imminent, that his timetable is the same as it has been all year: get through the midterms and then sit down with his family before making a final decision. Bush’s strengths and weaknesses as a possible presidential candidate are well known. He governed effectively and conservatively in a populous and diverse state for eight years. But he’s been out of office since early 2007, in which time both his party and the nature of political campaigns have changed. He’s the son and brother of former presidents, so he’s seen the inside of two different presidencies. But the Bush name remains a mixed blessing with the general electorate. Bush’s major liabilities in the nomination battle would be his positions on immigration reform and education reform. He is at odds with many conservatives because he supports a path to some kind of legal status for millions of illegal immigrants and because of his advocacy for Common Core educational standards. Bush sounded as if he knows what he would talk about if he ran — from education reform and entitlement reform to an overhaul of the tax system and a paring of the regulatory apparatus to what he called an economically driven reform of immigration laws — and what he thinks about them. Being prepared to lose the nomination in order to win the general election does not necessarily mean an in-your-face campaign designed to poke his conservative critics unnecessarily. Instead, presumably it means a willingness to stand his ground on issues where he believes he is closer to the views of the broader electorate without, as he put it, violating his conservative principles. Bush for a long time has been prodding his party to put its stamp on the future rather than looking to its past. He was an early debunker of the wave of Reagan nostalgia that took hold during the 2008 presidential primaries — the notion that a return to Reaganism was the path to success in presidential elections. Bush argued that the party needed to adapt its conservative principles to a new time and a new America. Republicans just won the majority in the House and Senate; they control 31 governorships and have unified control in almost two dozen states. What they lack is the White House. As Bush said last week, Republicans are past the point of having to make a point. They need to show they know how to govern. Some governors are doing that. But this has been particularly challenging in Washington for a party that has come to power as the anti-Washington party. Bush’s comments provide a contrast to those of Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is going through the same decision-making process as he is. He has been more open about his considerations and is seemingly farther along in knowing what he would make his campaign about and how it would conduct it, should he decide to run. At a time of political dysfunction and deep public dissatisfaction, neither party needs to offer a nominee wedded to ideological orthodoxy. Being respectful of a party’s constituencies and coalition is not the same as being beholden to them. Nomination battles, however, tend to require candidates to adhere even more closely to those orthodoxies. Clinton is buffeted by the debate within her party about just how populist the Democrats should be in 2016. If she runs, she owes voters an explanation of her true convictions. In the establishment wing of the Republican Party, there is enthusiasm for a Bush candidacy; in more conservative precincts, there will be opposition. Some Republicans believe that if Bush were to announce his candidacy, he would become the front-runner for the nomination by dint of his name, his experience and his presumed capacity to raise money. Surveys of Republicans suggest obstacles. Bush is hardly a dominant figure in those measures. The undeclared field of candidates is so fractured right now that no one among the prospective candidates, save for Mitt Romney, comes close to getting even a fifth of the GOP support. In the exit polls from last month’s midterms, voters were asked to rate various prospective presidential candidates. Bush did worse than Clinton but better than any of the other Republicans tested — Chris Christie, Rick Perry and Rand Paul. Still, just 49 percent of Republicans who voted last month (and just 25 percent of independents) said they thought he would make a good president. At least he had more positives than negatives from members of his own party — something the other three tested could not say. Many months ago, Bush said he would consider running if he could do it “joyfully.” What he said last week was slightly different, that what would be important would be to find a way to “lift people’s spirits and not get sucked into the vortex,” according to a Journal account of his appearance. It’s difficult to believe that, in the often toxic environment of today’s politics, anyone could run for president joyfully. Avoiding the vortex of negativity is a more realistic goal. Bush has clearly been thinking about all this as he nears a decision. He sounds almost ready for the next step. But will he take it? *CNN: “The 'Inside Politics' forecast: Friends say Hillary leaning towards a later 2016 decision” <http://edition.cnn.com/2014/12/07/politics/ip-forecast-hillary-later/>* By John King December 7, 2014 Washington (CNN) -- Internal tensions in both political parties dominated this week's final trip around the 'Inside Politics' table. John King and other top political reporters empty out their notebooks each Sunday to reveal five things that will be in the headlines in the days, weeks and months ahead. 1. Seething over Schumer Look for more open battles between the Obama White House and congressional Democrats as we move into 2015. Julie Hirschfeld Davis of The New York Times described White House officials as "privately still pretty angry" at New York Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer for saying the President was wrong to prioritize health care legislation over other issues in his first term. And there is also bad blood after the White House pulled the plug on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's effort to negotiate a tax package with congressional Republicans. "I think we're going to see in the weeks and months ahead a real sort of division starting to emerge, especially as the White House starts to really press on trade, which is an issue that divides Democrats," said Hirschfeld Davis. "I think we're going to see that daylight get even brighter." 2. Boehner's secret weapon House Speaker John Boehner makes clear he has no interest in shutting the government down, and is no question in stronger political shape than he was in some past battles with the conservative grass roots. But stronger doesn't mean he doesn't appreciate a little help, and Robert Costa of The Washington Post took us inside efforts by the newest member of the leadership team to help keep the GOP troops in line. At issue: the work of House Whip Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana. "He has been able to finagle this thing for the last few days and make sure that conservatives feel like they are part of the process in the House leadership and that they're not looking for a showdown the way they did a year ago when they got a shutdown over health care reform," said Costa. 3. Room for a "nerd" in the GOP 2016 pack? There are a half dozen GOP governors mulling 2016 presidential runs, including the CEOs of Texas, Indiana, Louisiana, Ohio, Wisconsin and New Jersey. But Jonathan Martin of The New York Times says keep an eye on the self-described "nerd" who was just re-elected in the blue state of Michigan. Martin talked to Snyder when he was in Washington this past week getting an award from Governing Magazine. "It's this great dance, John, as you know," said Martin. "You talk to these politicians and they are waiting for you to ask the question and finally you do: 'So do you want to run for president?'" "And of course he has to answer that right now he is fully focused on Michigan and telling the Michigan story and chief in that is that the unemployment rate has dropped in that state that was so hard hit during the recession. But he is someone that at the very least wants to be in the mix for 2016." 4. A 2016 litmus test for Christie? President Barack Obama's executive actions on immigration are not only infuriating key conservatives in Congress -- they are triggering legal challenges from many states, and in a way that could ripple into the 2016 presidential race. Nia-Malika Henderson of The Washington Post notes that the governors of Indiana, Wisconsin and Louisiana are signatories to the suit, as is the GOP governor of South Carolina. All factor into 2016 talk of potential candidates or maybe vice presidential picks on the GOP side. But Henderson notes one glaring name not on the list: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. "Christie has said so far that he doesn't want to talk at all about immigration reform -- he won't do that unless he decides to run," said Henderson. "But it is a question of whether or not this lawsuit will be kind of a litmus test going forward in 2016 and whether or not he is going to be pressured to sign on and how he's going to navigate that." 5. Hillary 2016 announcement -- maybe later There is nothing certain when it comes to Clintonland, but the safer bet appears to be later rather than sooner as to when we will get official word about her 2016 intentions. The timing debate has been going on for months. Some allies believe an early announcement -- as in by the end of 2014 - is best, to end the doubts and bring early order to the organization. Others say there is little reason to rush, noting the lack of a formidable opponent and the added scrutiny and requirements that come with being a candidate in the eyes of the law. The former secretary of state is holding meetings to discuss her team, but is described by friends as not in too much of a hurry to make a final decision and then let it be known. So, for now anyway, the betting is she will wait a bit into 2015. *Calendar:* *Sec. Clinton's upcoming appearances as reported online. Not an official schedule.* · December 8 – New York, NY: Sec. Clinton attends a wildlife conservation event co-hosted by The Royal Foundation and the Clinton Foundation (The Hill <http://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/226134-prince-william-to-visit-white-house> ) · 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> ) · January 21 – Saskatchewan, Canada: Sec. Clinton keynotes the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce’s “Global Perspectives” series (MarketWired <http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/former-us-secretary-state-hillary-rodham-clinton-deliver-keynote-address-saskatoon-1972651.htm> ) · January 21 – Winnipeg, Canada: Sec. Clinton keynotes the Global Perspectives series (Winnipeg Free Press <http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/Clinton-coming-to-Winnipeg--284282491.html> ) · February 24 – Santa Clara, CA: Sec. Clinton to Keynote Address at Inaugural Watermark Conference for Women (PR Newswire <http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hillary-rodham-clinton-to-deliver-keynote-address-at-inaugural-watermark-conference-for-women-283200361.html> )