Showing posts with label clinton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label clinton. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 05, 2014

Friday, November 15, 2013

Elizabeth Warren And 2016

An interesting article popped up in New Republic last week. It basically says Senator Elizabeth Warren might upend Hillary Clinton for the 2016 race. It is convincing. But the big question for me with Elizabeth Warren, as with Hillary Clinton, is: will she even run? Some argue she does not know much foreign policy. You could have said the same thing about Bill Clinton in 1991.

A heartwarming theme in the talk for me is that looks like the top two contenders for 2016 are both women. After a black president it is time America got itself a woman president.

New Republic: Hillary's Nightmare? A Democratic Party That Realizes Its Soul Lies With Elizabeth Warren
Think of the Republican Party after George W. Bush. Or, you know, Yugoslavia. ..... any candidate who challenged Clinton would need several key assets. The candidate would almost certainly have to be a woman, given Democrats’ desire to make history again. She would have to amass huge piles of money with relatively little effort. Above all, she would have to awaken in Democratic voters an almost evangelical passion. As it happens, there is precisely such a person. Her name is Elizabeth Warren. ..... Treasury officials joked that if she were “Ambassador to the Middle Class,” it would make them “Ambassadors to the Plutocrats.” ..... During her Senate campaign, Warren traveled with at least three staffers: Her body man and press secretary, as is the case for most candidates, but also a digital director, whose job it was to capture Warren’s choicest words on video, then upload the clips to YouTube and circulate them via social media. “She’s engaged in videos, e-mails, everything,” says an aide. “She plays an integral role in the content we send out.” ..... Warren has been preoccupied with the plight of the middle class since her childhood, when her father suffered a heart attack and her mother took a job in the catalog department of Sears to keep four kids clothed and fed. “I watched Obama get completely obsessed by health care reform . . . and realized it was all about his mother on her death bed,” says a longtime Warren friend. “For her, it was her father.” .....

“My first choice is a strong consumer agency. My second choice is no agency at all and plenty of blood and teeth left on the floor.”

..... the banking industry and its Republican allies (as well as internal opponents like Geithner) didn’t fully appreciate when they effectively killed Warren’s hopes of permanently heading the consumer agency in 2011. ..... It’s hard to look at the Democratic Party these days and not feel as if all the energy is behind Warren. Before she was even elected, her fund-raising e-mails would net the party more cash than any Democrat’s besides Obama or Hillary Clinton. ....... From the Howard Dean campaign in 2004 to the Occupy Movement in 2011, the last decade in Democratic politics has been rife with heady declarations of grassroots rebellion, only to see the insiders assert control each time. Even the one insurgency that did succeed, the Obama campaign, was quickly absorbed into the party establishment, from which Obama was never so far removed in the first place. ..... the disillusionment surrounding Dodd-Frank, which ushered in a range of new regulations but left the details to regulators, who promptly caved. ..... government per se isn’t the problem; the problem is a government taken over by “big-money interests.” ..... “I think it’s mutually exclusive to be a real hero for reform and accountability and to have a [fund-raising] strategy that relies on Wall Street.” A financial reform activist is more blunt: “Unless there is some major public break by Hillary Clinton with this disreputable crowd, then everybody will have to think long and hard before they support her as president. We do not need yet another administration packed full of Wall Street–friendly politicians.” ....... When I recently asked a top Clinton campaign operative from 2008 if there’s any Democrat who Hillary should fear in 2016, he immediately named the Massachusetts senator. ..... “I don’t think there’s anyone out there who can break out of just that left coalition like Warren could,” says the operative, who hopes to work for Hillary again. “She’s got a real message tailored to the middle-class and working-class people.” ..... “But in Obamaworld, there is not deep loyalty to Hillary Clinton.” ..... With Obama, it was all about hope and change. With Warren, it would be about a distinct worldview. But as different as their sources of appeal are, both allow donors to feel as if they’re part of a larger crusade. By contrast, the long-standing knock on the Clintons in these circles (unfair in many ways) is that they primarily represent the cause of themselves. ....... Clinton, on the other hand, would probably embrace a two-pronged strategy. First, she would move left on as many issues as possible. Since leaving the State Department, she has already staked out liberal ground on gay rights and voting rights, and she recently used the word “progressive” so many times in a single speech it was tempting to describe her condition as “severe.” ...... Phase two would be to attack ruthlessly, casting Warren as an untested novice with little expertise outside financial issues. Unlike Obama, who at least had Iraq and a tour on the Foreign Relations Committee to neutralize charges of naïveté, Warren would be exceedingly vulnerable. ..... would quietly work to disqualify Warren as a crazed, countercultural liberal. A former Obama campaign aide recalls Clintonites planting stories in foreign newspapers, then watching them enter the domestic bloodstream through outlets like The Drudge Report. ..... Warren has been boning up on a variety of policy areas in periodic dinners with experts—she told me there are several issues beyond Wall Street “we need to have frank conversations” about without naming specifics—she remains a work in progress as a politician. She is still pedestrian in front of a crowd despite her strengths as a questioner and debater ..... If Clinton took a pass, on the other hand, many believe Warren would be difficult to beat, and the pressure to run could be irresistible. .... While her ambitions are considerable, they have always been focused on advancing her economic agenda. Everything from her public denunciations of Clinton to her lobbying to lead the CFBP to her eventual Senate run was motivated by a zealous attachment to the cause that has preoccupied her since childhood, not necessarily an interest in holding office. ..... An opponent who doesn’t heed political incentives is like a militant who doesn’t fear death. “Yeah, Hillary is running. And she’ll probably win,” says the former aide. “But Elizabeth doesn’t care about winning. She doesn’t care whose turn it is.”

Elizabeth Warren Can Shape the 2016 Race Even if She Can't Beat Hillary: The liberal icon and the future of the Democratic Party
The New Yorker: Clinton Vs. Warren?
Daily News: Democrats quietly throwing presidential support behind Elizabeth Warren: report


2008 is proof Hillary can be beat. Barack Obama also was a first term Senator. Fundraising has gone decidedly grassroots. In this age of social media it helps when your videos go as viral as Elizabeth Warren's YouTube videos tend to. That is how I first got introduced to her. And I remember getting excited.

Barack Obama was a Deaniac in 2004 like I was. And in many ways I saw Obama 2008 as a successor to Dean 2004. But in terms of meatier progressivism, Elizabeth Warren might be the true heir.

Both belong to the same generation and are over a decade older than Obama. Only someone like Bobby Jindal would be a generation changer. But he is not being talked about much.

One sign Obama might run was he was the most sought person by Democrats across America during the 2006 congressional elections. He was giving speeches all over the country. It is to be watched if Warren will emerge that person next year and how welcoming she is of the prospect.

The message for Warren might be: Lean In.

But then you have Angela Merkel in Germany. She has been a strong leader, looking very normal at the top. And you have had woman after woman become head of state in South Asia, one of the most sexist parts of the planet.

She has been a Harvard Law professor. That means to me she is a good student. She is an informed person. I can’t imagine she has not been reading up on all sorts of policy issues over the years and over the decades. I can’t imagine her not having a deep knowledge of history. Her sound bites make her look a little one dimensional on policy, but that is because her jobs so far have been specific. If you sit on the banking committee, you are not going to mouth off on Syria, are you? And word is she regularly meets up with experts on a wide variety of topics. People less smart than Warren have called the shots in the Oval Office before.

Whoever runs and wins in 2016, I for one want a two woman team. If Warren is the person, I would want her to team up with someone like Kamala Harris of California. President Obama got into a little bit of trouble for calling Harris “the most good looking Attorney General in America.” I don’t see how that comment is sexist. I am putting all men Attorneys General on that list as well. Show me some pictures if you dispute.

There is also the no small matter of geographic balance. A northeast liberal needs a Left Coast person to team up with.

For me 2014 is going to be the year when I pay close attention to the national elections in India, so easy to do in the age of the Internet. We will soon have the results for Nepal. Then there are the congressional elections in America. And 2016 is not that far. I guess I watch elections like some people watch sports. My sports event to watch would be the World Cup Soccer.

That puts someone like Warren in the same league with the likes of Ronaldo and Ronaldinho.

And a Warren or a Hillary at the helm makes Angela Merkel look even more normal than she already does. Maybe there is even a Sheryl Sandberg presidency in the offing down the line. Meg Whitman of eBay fame did run for Governor.

My political instincts tell me Warren right now is leading the 2016 race.

The economic is central to all other issues, and there she is the one with a compass. Indira Gandhi won wars. A democracy is designed to give the command of the army to whoever the people choose to elect. It is not at all hard to imagine a woman Commander In Chief. A woman sitting on top of the machinery will call the shots as necessary.

It is unfair to Hillary’s considerable talents that the Clinton brand name can work against her as much as for her. There is some Clinton fatigue in the public imagination. Whereas Warren is a fresh face. It is still hard to unearth too many of her life’s details online at this point. That is a political plus.

The old saying goes, a week is a long time in politics. 2016 is still a while away. Warren was not even mentioned as a presidential candidate two years ago. Which means more names might crop up in two years. Never say never. But right now Warren is looking good and strong.



Elizabeth Warren: Not Ready for Presidential Prime Time
Gutsy, smart, and hyper-articulate, Elizabeth Warren is quickly becoming the voice of progressivism in Washington. Along with departing regulator Gary Gensler, Warren probably did more than anyone in Washington to bulk up Dodd-Frank from its rather flimsy beginnings and turn it into a financial-reform law with some weight. She also speaks out eloquently for the beleaguered middle class and on the deeper problem of income inequality. ....... she is basically a one-issue political figure. And that doesn't get you into the White House in this era. (OK, fine, Barack Obama first came to national attention by declaring Iraq a "dumb" war, but more on that later.) ..... A Harvard Law professor who became an expert in mortgage fraud and bankruptcy and later conceived of one of Dodd-Frank's most significant reforms, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, she's never done much of anything else in public life, other than chair the TARP oversight committee. And her "issue" has faded in popular imagination. ....... Yes, the banks are huger than ever and over-the-counter derivatives are being traded again in the hundreds of trillions—one reason why Gensler, the outgoing head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, may be one of the great unsung heroes in Washington thanks to his lonely fight to regulate derivatives internationally. But only a handful of people in the entire world truly understand derivatives regulation. "Bash the Bankers" works as a slogan, but when you get down to what really must be done about them you would have to talk about capital and liquidity ratios on the stump. ....... The last two Democratic presidents both had populist inclinations but went straight to the center in order to win two terms. For both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, that apparently also meant going easy on Wall Street. And Bill Clinton, at least, later publicly expressed regret for permitting the Alan Greenspanization of his views on financial reform.
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Friday, February 01, 2013

Clinton: To Run Or Not To Run


2016 Talk
Is Hillary Running?

Hillary Clinton is an extremely talented person who is extremely hard working. That is quite a combo. And she is not going to feel like a first woman president, just like Barack Obama did not feel like the first black president to me. My point being, that is not how I see him.

I have a suggestion for her book's title: Ambassador To The World.

After you have been to 112 countries, you deserve to end up in the White House. What preparation! I was in my 20s when I showed up in America. I like the White House occupant to have some deep global perspectives. Barack Obama having partly grown up in Indonesia was a huge plus in my book.

I want Hillary in the White House, and Kirsten Gillibrand there with her, and Susan Rice for Secretary of State, and I want Ashley Judd to kick Mitch McConnell out of Kentucky.

Not knowing if you will run is a great political decision. It keeps the mystery going. I think her inner clock says she will not announce before October 2015. A two year campaign is not her style. But announcing in January 2015 would be best. Learn from Barack. An early announcement would make the primary super easy.

I think her elevation to the White House might bring about an new era in international politics where a female head of state is no longer big news in any part of the world by the time she is done with her two terms. I think I would like that. Or maybe I am being too optimistic.

She would do well to hire all the techno whiz kids of Obama 2008 and 2012, and the grassroots organizing maestros. There is no going back to the old ways that was Hillary 2008 or Bill Clinton 1992.

There is a part of me that does think she is to the Clinton brand name what Ted Kennedy was to the Kennedy brand name. Only one Kennedy became president. And Ted Kennedy was an excellent Senator. He was no slouch. So she can't take things for granted.


Ashley Judd
Cover of Ashley Judd

Hillary Clinton: 20 years in the spotlight
POLITICAL SCENE: EVALUATING HILLARY CLINTON
What I Learned Covering Hillary Clinton
her immense talent and ambition. Will she seek the presidency in 2016? Clinton doesn’t know. Friends expect her to rest a year or so before taking a final measure of her health and her prospects .... if you don’t think she wants to be president, you don’t know her. ..... In late 1998 or early 1999, people close to Clinton told me she was mulling a U.S. Senate campaign. I was stunned: No sitting first lady had ever contemplated such a move, much less one whose husband had been impeached for lying about an affair....... It took me several days to overcome my doubts. When I finally reported that she was seeking the vacant U.S. Senate seat in New York, another news organization quoted several authoritative sources insisting that she was not. The competition didn’t know what I did: Never bet against Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Why Ashley Judd's Breakup Is Bad News for Mitch McConnell
Interview: Axelrod on Hillary Clinton’s Political Prospects
‘We were friends before we were opponents. She’s tough and skilled and I need someone who will be taken very seriously when they land on foreign soil, because I’m going to be dealing with a financial crisis. I need an A-team.’ ...... “The big question for her is simply whether at this point she wants to do this.” .... “She was the odds-on favorite in 2008 and she didn’t” win, Mr. Fratto said. “It’s not really clear that people who lose their party’s nomination come back and be successful. It’s rare for that to happen. She has been the ‘inevitable’ candidate already. So she has something to prove.”
Clinton's Exit: Either Epilogue or Prelude
Mrs. Clinton would enter the 2016 race for the White House as a solid front-runner. Her presence would likely scare off some other presidential hopefuls ..... For now, she says she wants to sleep, relax and deliver speeches. ..... catching up on about 20 years of sleep deprivation ...... Some of her supporters never warmed to Mr. Obama and would like to see her draw distinctions with the White House in one respect at least: representation of women in government. ..... "It's shameful that a man who got elected by women and people of color and people of different sexual orientation goes and chooses a bunch of white men" for top government roles. ..... she said she was taking medication, adding "that's what people do when you have blood clots."
Iran stepping up support for Syria, Hillary Clinton warns
Barack Obama signs sweeping US defence spending bill
Hillary Clinton's Legacy: Ambassador to the World?
Secretary Clinton achieved more as an ambassador than as secretary of state. Cassidy writes: "The post she really had was that of U.S. Ambassador to the world, and she made a pretty good fist of it." ..... Since 1992, Hillary Rodham Clinton has maintained a consistent level of power in Washington, from first lady to senator to secretary of state. .... Clinton has always had her detractors
Hillary Was a Great Ambassador, Not a Great Secretary of State
Having stopped off in a hundred and twelve countries during her four years as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, in her last week in office, seems intent on visiting almost as many televisions studios. At the weekend, she did “60 Minutes” on CBS. Today, she will be on ABC, NBC, CNN, and Fox. Tomorrow, it’s the BBC. If you are a news producer at CNBC, Bloomberg, New York 1, or the Weather Channel, give the State Department a call. As far as I know, Thursday and Friday are still open. ....... In foreign-policy circles, the knock on Hillary is that, unlike some of her storied predecessors—John Quincy Adams, George C. Marshall, Dean Acheson, Henry Kissinger—she failed to carve out a historically significant role for herself. ...... Marshall gave his name to an economic-recovery plan for war-torn Europe. Acheson laid down the Cold War policy of containment and helped create NATO. Adams helped conceive the Monroe Doctrine, which defined Central and South America as part of the U.S. sphere of influence. Kissinger pioneered détente with the Soviets, instigated a rapprochement with the Chinese, and did much else besides (by no means all of it estimable). By contrast, Hillary’s signature achievements look like small beer. She was the public face of the U.S. response to the Arab Spring, which involved persuading Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian President, to step aside peaceably ..... In carrying out the task she was allotted, she was a big success. It’s just that the nature of her job was very different from the ones that Acheson and Kissinger held. In reality, she wasn’t directing American foreign policy, or anything close. At times, she wasn’t even the Administration’s chief troubleshooter—a niche occupied by a series of special envoys: Richard Holbrooke, George Mitchell, and Dennis Ross. The post she really had was that of U.S. Ambassador to the world, and she made a pretty good fist of it...... In total, she was traveling for four hundred and one days—more than thirteen months—enduring hundreds of long flights and sitting through countless boring meetings
'Hillary Clinton 2016' Hype To Be Further Fueled By Eye-Popping PPP Poll
the former FLOTUS/New York senator/presidential aspirant/secretary of state could put Texas in play..... PPP's newest Texas poll finds that, at least for now, Hillary Clinton could win the state in 2016. This follows on the heels of a survey last month where we found she would have a decent chance of winning Kentucky if she makes another White House bid. .... The going theory is that Texas' growing Hispanic population could be the seed bed for a new generation of majority-tipping Democratic voters
Name Hillary Clinton's book
The new Hillary Clinton
still afflicted by the same problem that hampered her during the up-and-down 2008 campaign: an inability to clearly define her leadership or governing philosophy..... Few modern American politicians have enjoyed quite as dramatic a political rebirth as Clinton has experienced in her four years at the State Department ..... the past week’s farewell tour seems to augur the arrival of The New Hillary..... The leap from State to the White House used to be commonplace in the early days of the Republic. Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams and Martin Van Buren did it. But the last secretary to make the jump was James Buchanan, one of the worst presidents ever, a weakling who ceded the stage to Abraham Lincoln 152 years ago..... Vice President Joe Biden, a Clinton admirer who own gaze is firmly fixed on 2016 ..... once elected Obama adopted Clinton’s “smart power” strategy, an unromantic foreign policy strategy of limited intervention, dictated by circumstance, availability of resources and likelihood of success. It may be a defensible approach, but it’s not one geared at capturing the public imagination....... in an age of ambiguous alliances, asymmetric threats and a diminishing U.S. footprint overseas ...... Clinton’s diffuse achievements — which range from wrangling international support for sanctions against Iran, organizing goodwill missions to off-map countries like Togo and fighting for the rights of oppressed women and girls around the globe
The Obsessive Guide to Hillary Clinton’s Not-Quite-Shermanesque 2016 Denials
Rest Up, Hillary Clinton: 2016 Will Be Different
I surmise that there has never been a national political figure so watched and so examined as has Hillary Clinton..... She is an incredibly smart and talented politician; and as important as her gender is, it is not the primary thing that defines her. Things are different now, and consequently, I think the U.S. is ready to see her as President
How The South Will Rise To Power Again
this year the four best states for business, according to CEO Magazine, were Texas, Florida, North Carolina and Tennessee .... Last year Texas, Louisiana, Georgia and North Carolina were four of the six leading destinations for new corporate facilities .... Houston and Dallas are already immigrant hotbeds; Nashville. Charlotte, Atlanta, Raleigh and Orlando all have among the nation’s fastest-growing foreign populations.
Clinton says she doesn't see "getting back into politics"
"...I am really looking forward to stepping off the fast track that I've been on. I've been out of politics as Secretary of State. I don't see myself getting back into politics" ...... in a separate NBC interview she said that she was healthy enough to wage a campaign.
Reinventing Rahul Gandhi
Nitish Kumar best prime ministerial candidate: JD-U leader
Rove: About That 'Permanent Democratic Majority'
Obama has forged a new majority coalition of women, minorities, young people and upscale cultural liberals so large and durable that he can do what no president has done before—pursue a very liberal agenda without serious opposition or defections from his own party. Demography is destiny ..... Demography isn't destiny because nothing is permanent in politics—and Democrats' insistence to the contrary will likely lead them to overreach, ignoring issues such as jobs, anemic growth and deficits in order to tackle gun control and climate change. That would be good for Republicans. Governing from the hard left sunk Democrats in 2010 and would cost them again in 2014.
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Wednesday, January 09, 2013

Republicans Being Ridiculous On Benghazi Attack

George W. Bush
Cover of George W. Bush
George W. Bush on being told a plane had just hit the World Trade Center kept on reading stories to little children. He thought it was an accident, a bad accident, but an accident still. 9/11 was a thousand times more "offensive" - if that is the word - than the attack in Benghazi. And W got it wrong at the outset. The 9/11 attack was so unexpected, so out of the box. And I don't blame George W - never did - for not getting it right right away. To engage in such a blame game would be disrespectful of the tragedy.

In hindsight we know what the Benghazi attack was. It happened on 9/11. The Al Qaeda feels poetic about that date. America killed Bin Laden, so the Al Qaeda killed an American ambassador. I read up on the guy after the death. He was a dream ambassador. He was steeped in the local culture with passion long before he was picked for the job. Libya was lucky to have him. And he got killed. Of course people did not get it right right away. You start with disbelief. You even engage in a little bit of denial. But then you get it right, and you draw a plan of action. The president said the perpetrators will be brought to justice. And I think he means it, he meant it on Bin Laden.

Hillary Clinton has been an excellent Secretary of State. In an era when soft power means for more than military power Hillary has managed to draw on all sorts of levers of soft power to do an effective job as America's face to the world. Now for the Republicans to conclude her time in office with a humiliating hearing on Benghazi I find obnoxious. It is "offensive" - Barack Obama's word to Romney during the second debate. The Republicans should be ashamed of themselves for playing political football with an apparent tragedy. It is a disservice in that it takes away from the fight against the Al Qaeda. This meets my definition of a witch hunt. And if they are not ashamed they should own up to the fact that 9/11 happened on their watch.

Is Hillary Running?


A month after falling ill, Clinton returns to work
on Capitol Hill, where Clinton is expected to face bruising questioning from Republicans about security lapses at a diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya. The deaths of U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans in a militant attack there in September represent the largest blot on Clinton’s record as secretary, and Republicans have insisted that she testify in person about what went wrong ..... Top deputies gave Clinton the helmet and a jersey with the number 112, representing the number of countries she has visited during her tenure. .... “She loved it. She thought it was cool,” Nuland said, referring to the gift. “But then, being Hillary Clinton, she wanted to get right to business.”
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