Correct The Record Monday September 8, 2014 Afternoon Roundup
Correct The Record Monday September 8, 2014 Afternoon Roundup:
Tweets:
Correct The Record @CorrectRecord: As FLOTUS, Clinton received Mother Teresa award for her humanitarian work, Albania's highest civilian honor #HRC365http://1.usa.gov/U6M2xM [9/7/14, 4:00 p.m. EDT]
Headlines:
MSNBC: “Clinton and Bush get chummy at joint event”
“A potential future president, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was also there, taking a seat in the back. She did not speak.”
Associated Press: “Clinton, Bush Trade Jabs, Launch Scholars Program”
“With Hillary Rodham Clinton seated in the fourth row, Bush noted that many people ask him about the possibility of another Bush-Clinton White House campaign. His father, President George H.W. Bush, lost to Clinton in 1992, and his brother, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, may seek the GOP nomination in a race that could pair him against Hillary Clinton. ‘The first one didn't turn out too good,’ Bush quipped.”
U.S. News & World Report blog: The Run 2016: “How Hillary's 2016 Timeline Will Affect the Others”
“In essence – due to her unique stature in American politics – once Clinton is in, it will be difficult for others to wait.”
Politico: “Benghazi panel to hold first hearing”
“The House committee investigating the 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi will hold its first public hearing next week, according to a committee spokesperson.”
“Now, what is the thing that people have been so afraid to say of late? According to yesterday’s show, it’s that Hillary Rodham Clinton is running for president. So Todd said it: ‘Yeah, it’s obvious … that she’s running.’”
Burlington Free Press (V.T.): “Sanders would tempt fate, and history, as Democrat”
“Sanders says he's yet to decide whether to run for president in 2016. But he has plenty of supporters urging him to run — and to do so as a Democrat.”
“There will also be thousands of normal human beings in that Indianola field, extending their phones like periscopes to capture one or both of the Clintons as they pledge allegiance before a vast flag or pretend to cook steak on a grill that’s almost as large.”
Washington Post blog: WorldViews: “Obama’s new man in Moscow doesn’t do Twitter”
“When McFaul arrived in Moscow, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was pushing her envoys to use Twitter to reach new audiences in the countries where they were the public face of America. McFaul was happy to comply.”
Associated Press: “University of Miami President Shalala to Retire”
Shalala's goal was simple: She wanted to make Miami "the next great American university" and seemed to succeed in raising the school's profile."
Articles:
MSNBC: “Clinton and Bush get chummy at joint event”
By Alex Seitz-Wald
September 8, 2014, 12:17 p.m. EDT
The bonhomie was flowing between former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush Monday morning at an event to announce a new scholarship program run jointly by their presidential centers.
Bush’s father, George H.W. Bush was there in spirit, sending a lighthearted note urging his successors to keep their remarks brief at the event hosted by the Newseum in Washington, D.C. A potential future president, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was also there, taking a seat in the back. She did not speak.
The scholarship program is aimed at leveraging the experience and resources of the former presidents to teach new generation of leaders, so the two former presidents discussed at length what they admired about the leadership style of other occupants of the Oval Office, including each other.
Clinton revealed that Bush would call him twice a year in the latter’s second term to talk casually for 30 to 45 minutes. “I felt good about that. I thought that was a really healthy thing,” Clinton said. He’s now become especially close with the elder bush, whom both former presidents praised movingly. The younger Bush has a new book coming out about his father next month.
With two Clintons and two Bushes in the mix, the specter of dynasty and the 2016 presidential election loomed over the event, but only addressed once. The families have been close, but Hillary Clinton and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush are both considering runs, which could pit the clans against each other once again.
Bush, who was relaxed and casual, joking as often as he was serious, said he was recently asked about the prospect of another Clinton-Bush matchup. “My answer was: The first one didn’t turn out too good,” he joked he replied. Joshua Bolten, Bush’s former chief of staff who was moderating the discussion, quickly moved the conversation elsewhere.
At one point while Clinton was speaking on stage, a cell phone ring could be heard. The former president reached into his pocket to pulled out his device and silence it. “Only two people have this number, and I’m related to both of them,” he said, with his wife in the room. “I hope I’m not being told I’m about to become a premature grandfather.”
While Clinton has used his post-presidency to engage in global issues and remain on the public stage, Bush has led a relatively quiet life. “One of the things I’ve learned, maybe through my painting, is that I’m trying to leave something behind. Something to make the world a better place,” he said in a rare introspective moment.
Clinton, as is his style – Bush called him an “awesome communicator” – was more voluminous in his remarks. Both presidents were asked what they admired about each other and Clinton gave a lengthy response, praising his successor’s conviction and humility. Bush replied more briefly, praising Clinton’s empathy and oratory skills.
“Is that enough? It was a lot shorter than your answer,” Bush said. Bolten assured him the answer was “equally powerful.” “Thank you, Josh, former chief of staff, I appreciate you saying that,” Bush replied sarcastically to laughter.
Clinton spoke about the need for compromise in politics, saying that he loved the film “Lincoln” and the Broadway show “All the Way” about LBJ because they both showed presidents getting things done, even when it sometimes required ugly dealmaking. “If you read the Constitution, it ought to be subtitled, let’s make a deal,” he added.
Clinton said he hoped the new scholarship program would bring together leaders from various walks of life and in different sectors. For example, he hoped it would bring together tea party activists and community organizers in inner-city African-American or immigrant communities, who might find surprising common ground.
The program is a joint project of the presidential centers of George H.W. Bush, Clinton, George W. Bush, and Johnson, with support from private foundations. It’s a non-degree program for people who have already proven themselves and are ready to advance to another level. The board of advisors is made of alumni of both Clinton and Bush White Houses, as well as retired General Stanley McChrystal, the former Afghan War commander who was relieved by President Obama.
Finally, Bolten asked Bush if he had any advice for Clinton on becoming a grandfather. “Get ready also to be, like, the lowest person in the pecking order in your family,” he replied warmly.
Associated Press: “Clinton, Bush Trade Jabs, Launch Scholars Program”
By Ken Thomas
September 8, 2014, 12:57 p.m. EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Political opposites turned friends, former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush launched a new scholars program at four presidential centers with an opening act that might have been mistaken for a comedy routine.
The two former presidents - one a Democrat, the other a Republican - shared laughs and a buddy-like banter on stageMonday, talking about presidential leadership while trading stories about their famous families and life after the White House.
Bill Clinton said he and Bush laughed backstage about people coming up to them at restaurants and asking to take "selfie" photos. Quipped Bush: "At least they're still asking."
With Hillary Rodham Clinton seated in the fourth row, Bush noted that many people ask him about the possibility of another Bush-Clinton White House campaign. His father, President George H.W. Bush, lost to Clinton in 1992, and his brother, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, may seek the GOP nomination in a race that could pair him against Hillary Clinton.
"The first one didn't turn out too good," Bush quipped.
The 42nd and 43rd presidents joined together to announce the Presidential Leadership Scholars program, a partnership between the Clinton, Bush, George H.W. Bush and Lyndon B. Johnson presidential centers. At a time of partisanship and gridlock, both presidents said they hoped the scholars program would attract people in business, public service and the military interested in learning about presidential decision-making and applying it to their own careers.
Clinton revealed that he and Bush would speak twice a year during Bush's second term, 30-to-45 minute conversations about policy and politics. While they didn't always agree, Clinton said he never talked about their discussions and said the talks "meant a lot to me."
Clinton said the test of any democracy is finding ways of having a vigorous debate and still reaching resolution to the nation's problems. "If you read the Constitution, it ought to be subtitled: `Let's make a deal,'" Clinton said.
The elder Bush got in the act from afar, writing in a letter read aloud that every former president displays different qualities, "for example, not all of us skydive."
Bush, who celebrated his 90th birthday in June by making a tandem parachute jump, urged the two former presidents to "keep it brief."
George W. Bush campaigned for president in 2000 on restoring "honor and dignity" to the White House following Clinton's impeachment over a sex scandal. But the two former presidents have developed a bond, strengthened by their mutual admiration for the elder Bush, whom Clinton visited in Maine last week.
Clinton and the younger Bush worked together on relief efforts after Haiti's devastating earthquake in 2010 and have been active in the fight against HIV/AIDS in Africa.
Bush noted that his upcoming book, called "41: A Portrait of My Father," would be a "love story. It's a story about seeing someone you admire and learning from them."
As moderator Josh Bolten joking plugged the book's Nov. 11 release date, Clinton mused about writing his own competing Bush 41 book. "I think I can put one together that would be ready to go," Clinton joked.
U.S. News & World Report blog: The Run 2016: “How Hillary's 2016 Timeline Will Affect the Others”
By David Catanese
September 8, 2014, 12:30 p.m. EDT
[Subtitle:] Clinton's unique place in American politics could force an earlier start to the 2016 race.
Hillary Clinton’s signal that she’ll finally settle on whether to run for president again in January – a mere four months from now – likely will force the rest of the prospective field to reassess their own timelines for entry.
Assuming Clinton allows her intentions to be known during the first month of the year and assuming she decides to run, the 2016 White House campaign could commence before people have packed away their holiday decorations.
In essence – due to her unique stature in American politics – once Clinton is in, it will be difficult for others to wait.
None of her potential rivals from either party are as well known or as vetted as she is. Among Democratic constituencies, the expected rush of unity around Clinton will only hasten the drumbeat for those like Vice President Joe Biden and Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley to make a decision quickly. If either of them were to defiantly move ahead, it would be a suicide mission to wait very long to begin gathering staff and attempting to raise funds.
Top Republican operatives argue Clinton’s timeline won’t affect the GOP tribe. There remains a line of thought within GOP circles – or perhaps it's wishful thinking – that Clinton isn’t running after all.
“To me, she looks more like a person ending her career than starting,” says Keith Nahigian, who managed Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann’s 2012 presidential bid.
“I think very few GOP wannabes care what she does,” offers Dave Carney, Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s former top political aide. “More than a few think she won’t pull the trigger anyway.”
Yet the better odds are that Clinton is running and the regular trickle of paid speeches, book tour events and winks and nods in interviews is just a drawn-out warm-up act to the 2015 kickoff.
It also explains why the emerging Republican field has taken shots at Clinton at every chance afforded to them.
Because the GOP primary contest currently has only a marginal, tenuous front-runner and is expected to turn into a wide open and divisive free-for-all, there will be an incentive to get in early – beginning with the traditional formation of an “exploratory committee” – and define oneself.
Given that financial capacity within GOP circles is likely to be divided among a handful of upper-tier candidates, free media will be vitally important for the Republican slate – especially when juxtaposed against Clinton, who will attract nonstop coverage the moment she’s in.
As one unaligned operative notes, Clinton has graced the covers of supermarket checkout tabloids for almost a quarter of a century. Not one of the Republican aspirants can match that level of familiarity. But they must raise awareness of their biographies to compete in both the primary and general elections.
A slightly compressed primary calendar – with fewer debates – only adds to the urgency for Republicans, especially if Clinton is largely unopposed for the Democratic nomination. Media coverage will slowly but surely begin to frame the 2016 contest regarding which Republican is best suited to match up against the former secretary of state.
Of all the Republicans mulling it, there are two that could wait somewhat longer than the rest: Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
Bush’s name needs no explanation to the Republican primary voter and he’ll have access to bundles of money whether he decides in January or June. Paul has some residual name identification from his father’s three presidential endeavors, though the Kentucky senator has been the most aggressive contender in laying the groundwork for 2016 and it seems unlikely he'd wait long after the new year to announce a bid.
In the 2012 presidential cycle, most of the GOP field triggered exploratory committees – a legal vehicle that allows candidates to test the waters with fundraising and operational staffing – in March and April of 2011, with official announcements following in May and June.
But that timeline was calculated against a sitting president with no intraparty opposition.
A better parallel is to look back at the last time there was an open seat for the presidency without an incumbent. That, of course, was the 2008 race.
Then-Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., announced his exploratory committee on Jan. 16, 2007. Clinton dove in four days later onJan. 20.
But it’s often forgotten that several Republicans got out in front of them with extraordinarily early announcements.
Former Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., announced his exploratory committee on Oct. 30, 2006 – a week before the midterm elections.
It’s unlikely any major candidate would pull the trigger that early, but both Sen. John McCain and Rudy Giuliani waited only a little more than a week after the 2006 midterms to turn the switch for 2008. Giuliani and McCain pulled the trigger in 2006 on Nov. 14 and Nov. 16, respectively.
That early of an entry would invite immediate scrutiny, but it would also position a candidate to be on equal footing with Clinton when she makes her expected announcement in January.
Maybe the political world won’t even have to wait until after the new year for the next race for the White House; a daring contender could jump start things before Thanksgiving.
Politico: “Benghazi panel to hold first hearing”
By Lauren French
September 8, 2014, 10:49 a.m. EDT
The House committee investigating the 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi will hold its first public hearing next week, according to a committee spokesperson.
The hearing will focus on the State Department’s Accountability Review Board — a panel created by the State Department after the attacks — to review the government’s security systems abroad.
That review board found “systemic” management and leadership failures at the State Department surrounding the militant attacks, which left Ambassador Chris Stevens dead. The panel issued more than two dozen recommendations in December 2012 to help the U.S government tighten its security controls.
The committee, chaired by Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), will focus on how the implementation of those recommendations has proceeded.
The 12-member panel has actively worked since it was first created earlier this summer, reviewing previous reports on the Benghazi attacks and requesting documents from the State Department on the U.S. government’s actions in the region before, during and after the attacks.
The hearing was first reported by Fox News.
By Erik Wemple
September 8, 2014, 1:11 p.m. EDT
Chuck Todd did a good job in his debut yesterday as host of “Meet the Press.” He asked good questions of President Obama in an interview that the show spread out over a few segments; he interviewed three mayors about how they were overcoming Washington’s deep-set gridlock; and he acted like Chuck Todd — humble and smart and reasonable.
None of which stops the Erik Wemple Blog from posing a monster quibble with the program. As part of an effort to freshen up “Meet the Press,” Todd introduced a segment titled “What everyone in Washington knows, but is afraid to say.”
What a great premise! So bold and out-there. Now, what is the thing that people have been so afraid to say of late? According to yesterday’s show, it’s that Hillary Rodham Clinton is running for president. So Todd said it: “Yeah, it’s obvious … that she’s running.”
What courage. Todd is the first person to come out and make such a declaration. Except for:
The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza, who wrote, “Let’s be honest: Hillary Clinton is running for president.”
Carl Cannon, who wrote: “Yes, let’s get that out of the way: Hillary Rodham Clinton is not deciding whether to run for president; she’s already running for president.”
The Week, which wrote, “Yes, Hillary Clinton is running for president.”
UCLA political science professor Lynn Vavreck, who wrote in the New York Times that the world is “sure she’s a candidate, and they are treating her like one.”
Miami Herald world affairs columnist Frida Ghitis, who wrote on CNN.com, “Yes, Hillary Clinton is running for president, and she is running away from President Barack Obama’s record on foreign policy.”
A commentator on CNBC, who said that it “appears that she’s running for president.”
“Daily Show” host Jon Stewart, who said in an interview with Clinton, “It sounds to me like, if I may, you’ve declared for president.” A boomlet of Clinton-is-running pieces sprung up after that July program. Here’s one, another and another.
Burlington Free Press (V.T.): “Sanders would tempt fate, and history, as Democrat”
By Nicole Gaudiano
September 8, 2014, 8:12 a.m. EDT
WASHINGTON – Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont has belonged to one political party in his lifetime: the anti-war Liberty Union Party.
That was back in the 1970s. Since then, Sanders has forged his own political path, caucusing with Democrats in Congress but remaining independent on the ballot.
That could change as he considers a 2016 presidential bid. Among the decisions he's weighing is whether to run as an independent or as a Democrat.
On one hand, Sanders believes many people are dissatisfied with the two-party system and think Democrats are doing too little to protect working-class and middle-income Americans.
On the other hand, a Democratic presidential bid has definite advantages.
"If you run as a Democrat, it would obviously be much easier to get on the ballot," Sanders said during a recent interview. "And the advantage, again, running as a Democrat, is that you would be in the middle of Democratic primaries, you would be in debates, and you would, I think, attract more media attention for your ideas."
Sanders, who turns 73 today, is the longest-serving independent member of Congress in history. His progressive views, which he delivers forcefully in a Brooklyn accent on the Senate floor and left-leaning news shows, don't always align neatly with the Democratic agenda or party politics.
Democratic urges
A self-described democratic socialist, he believes lessons can be learned from the Scandinavian approach to governing, focusing on health care as a right, free higher education, and an emphasis on environmental issues and childhood poverty. In March, he held a subcommittee hearing on ways that countries such as Denmark and Canada offer better health care for less money.
"We should have a government that represents all of our people," he said, "not one which is dominated by big money which significantly works for the interests of the wealthy and large corporations."
Sanders says he's yet to decide whether to run for president in 2016. But he has plenty of supporters urging him to run — and to do so as a Democrat.
Progressive Democrats of America has gathered about 14,000 signatures on a petition, urging Sanders to run in the Democratic presidential primaries. The group is organizing steering committees in Iowa towns and plans to raise money for Sanders through its political action committee, Progressive Democrats of America Action Fund.
When Sanders makes various stops in Iowa this month, the group will have bumper stickers, signs and banners greeting him with the message, "Run Bernie, Run."
"If he runs as an independent, we just feel he would be isolated," said Conor Boylan, the group's co-executive director. "It wouldn't be a smart move for him."
Sanders would encounter "substantial procedural and legal hurdles" to accessing the ballot if he ran as an independent in the Democratic primaries or in the general election, said Tad Devine, a Washington media consultant and political strategist who has worked on two Sanders campaigns.
Devine, who has spoken with Sanders about the decision, said he thinks Sanders would run as a Democrat, or at least within the structure of the party.
"He understands that a third-party challenger of his nature could do something very bad, like help elect a Republican president, like, for example, (Ralph) Nader did in 2000," said Devine, who also has worked on presidential campaigns for Al Gore and John Kerry.
No spoilers
Sanders said that would never be his intention if he ran as an independent.
"If the campaign did not catch on, I would not stay in the race until November and play the role of a spoiler," he said. "But that decision would have to be made down the line."
Sanders noted that he's always won in Vermont as an independent, and his lack of party affiliation is part of his identity. His supporters in the state appear to like him that way, according to recent poll conducted by the Castleton Polling Institute in Vermont.
Fifty-five percent of 608 people polled in May said they likely would support a Sanders presidential bid. Of that group, 55 percent said he should run as an independent, while 31 percent said he should run as a Democrat.
Boylan of the Progressive Democrats of America Action Fund, however, said Sanders is an "ideal" progressive candidate to run in the Democratic primaries, because the Vermonter would work to expand Social Security, protect Medicare and Medicaid and advocate for the poor and working classes.
"We don't want Hillary Clinton to be the presumptive nominee and to run unchallenged," Boylan said. "We need to have an open debate."
Priorities
Sanders, the son of a Polish-Jewish immigrant father and a New York-born mother, studied psychology at Brooklyn College and graduated with a political science degree from the University of Chicago, where he was active in the civil rights movement.
After graduating, he spent time on an Israeli kibbutz. He moved to Vermont in the 1960s and worked as a carpenter, filmmaker, writer and researcher. He lost several elections as a Liberty Union Party member before his successful bid as an independent for mayor of Burlington in 1981.
anders, now chairman of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, has caucused with Democrats since his days as Vermont's lone congressman, beginning in 1991.
He believes the party does a better job than the GOP of standing up for working families, but he said there are "too many Democrats who are not prepared to stand up to the billionaire class, which today has incredible economic and political power."
His priorities include:
• Overturning the Supreme Court's 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission, which allows corporations and unions to spend unlimited amounts of money on ads supporting or opposing individual candidates. Sanders calls the decision "disastrous."
• Addressing wealth and income inequality with a "massive federal jobs program" to rebuild crumbling infrastructure, an increased minimum wage, affordable higher education, a reformed trade policy to prevent corporations from shipping jobs overseas and a reformed tax system so profitable corporations can't avoid paying them and wealthy individuals pay more.
• Focusing on the "crisis" of climate change and the need to move away from fossil fuels.
• Creating a single-payer national health care system, also known as "Medicare for all."
"These are the issues," he said. "This is what is important."
Sanders has been traveling the country, visiting traditional and non-traditional presidential campaign stops. Last month, he visited North Carolina, South Carolina and Mississippi. On Labor Day, he was at an AFL-CIO breakfast in Manchester, N.H., and later this month, he'll be in Wisconsin, Iowa and New Hampshire again.
His message is simple: The country's middle class is collapsing, the gap between the rich and poor is widening, and if nothing changes, the country could move toward an oligarchic society where a handful of billionaires control the economic and political system.
Sanders said his main challenge is figuring out whether that message resonates.
"How many Americans are prepared to get involved in the political process and fight hard to prevent that?" he said. "That's the question that I have to deal with."
By John Dickerson
September 7, 2014, 11:55 p.m. EDT
[Subtitle:] A mixture of hope and high expectations brings voters out to see the candidates. But the 2014 midterm elections are about to dash both.
The Iowa State Fair is over, but the circus is coming to town. On Sept. 14, Hillary and Bill Clinton will attend the 37th annual Harkin Steak Fry, the famous Iowa political event named after Sen. Tom Harkin. A mess of journalists will rush after the couple, looking for signs of a presidential campaign and drawing conclusions on the nearest barn wall. (It is fitting that the event takes place on a hot air balloon field.) But there will also be thousands of normal human beings in that Indianola field, extending their phones like periscopes to capture one or both of the Clintons as they pledge allegiance before a vast flag or pretend to cook steak on a grill that’s almost as large.
The press will be there to cover the hype (and create it), but the people sinking their folding chairs into the grass during the political speeches will be there for the hope. It is the engine that drives all presidential campaigns. Voters are exhausted with Washington politicians debating one another in adjacent boxes on TV, but they can still be thrilled by a presidential candidate walking in the fall air. Some will have brought their kids so they can get a glimpse of perhaps the first female president. That’s not simply a change from the previous president, but from the 227 years there will have been presidents.
But is this the beginning or the end of something? This will be Harkin’s last steak fry—the senator is retiring after five terms, and there’s a tough fight to replace him. The winner will become a freshman in a body that is drastically different than the one Harkin entered—different even than the one Hillary Clinton joined in 2001. It is partisan and deadlocked, and the election of 2014 will show us why it’s likely to stay that way. The structure of modern politics is driving toward more gridlock. That means the sense of hope and high expectation that’s fueling all those people coming out to look at Hillary Clinton may be a vain one.
It’s easy to see why presidential campaigns encourage hope for progress. It’s not just that so many parties, including the media, are invested in the conceit that big ideas are being debated and decided by the electorate. The structure of the presidential campaign helps encourage the notion that, despite the occasional silliness, progress is being made. In Washington, it doesn't seem to matter how many people march or protest, little happens when the gavel sounds. In a campaign, though, every yard sign and Facebook posting is aimed at a guaranteed result: the verdict of Election Day. Everyone who chooses to participate can believe that he or she might be doing the thing that changes minds and determines outcomes. When that verdict is rendered, all the activity that led to it is supposed to represent the people’s will. A president chosen through that productive process will have a honeymoon and a mandate. But is that an old idea that has died? The election of 2012 changed nothing: Afterward it was the same players, the same debates, the same clog. Still, voters will show up in that field in Iowa this week, full of hope.
Usually we have to wait until a president disappoints us before the hope dissipates, but the tall oaks of disappointment are being planted this fall. The election feels national—control of the Senate is at stake, after all, and the president's performance in office is on the ballot. But the electorate participating will be small, and there isn’t much actual engagement on national issues that could provide a mandate or give us a sense of the public mood. And even if there were, the politicians would learn soon enough to ignore the public message and follow the guidance of the structure that rules elections.
In the election of 2014, only a small number of seats are in a position to act as a proving ground for a battle of ideas. The Center for the Study of the American Electorate suggests that this might be the lowest midterm turnout in history. The number of people who will participate in states with elections that will determine control of the Senate is even smaller still. The House represents a national election of sorts, since all 435 members are up for re-election, but of that group only 30 (6 percent) are in races that are considered up for grabs.
Even if there were a great chunk of the population being asked to weigh in on competing visions about the issues of the day, those people would have lots of free time. The two parties are running parallel campaigns aimed at motivating their core voters. Republicans want the race to be about national issues and the failures of the president. Democrats want it to be about everything but that, so they're focusing on local issues.
In North Carolina last week, Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan ran four ads with voters describing how the education cuts of her opponent, state House Speaker Thom Tillis, have affected them. On the other side, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce launched its second general election ad attacking Hagan for her ties to President Obama. When the two candidates participated in their first debate last week, Hagan focused her remarks on how Tillis was bad for women. Tillis talked about how Hagan was a rubber stamp for the president. If the candidates aren’t discussing issues in an election, the election can’t ratify one set of policy ideas over another.
Elections don’t need to be about issues because, as the National Journal’s Ron Brownstein points out, congressional elections are increasingly just a method for voters to show their presidential preferences. In the 2006 midterm election, Republicans won six of the 10 Senate races in states where exit polls showed President Bush’s approval rating reaching 46 percent or above, but lost 19 of the 20 in states where he stood at 45 percent or below. In 2010, Democrats won Senate races in nine of the 10 states in which President Obama’s approval reached 48 percent or higher, and lost 13 of the 15 states that gave him lower marks.
As Brownstein has been arguing, the death of split-ticket voting has changed the electoral structure so that senators who were once encouraged to compromise no longer have to. During the Reagan and Nixon presidencies, Republicans controlled about half the Senate seats in the states they won. That meant there were Democrats representing states that preferred Republicans at the presidential level. That encouraged compromise. A senator needed to show his voters who did not share his ideology that he was not abandoning them. But that pressure has disappeared. During Bill Clinton’s term, two-thirds of the senators from states Clinton carried were also Democrats. Under President George W. Bush, that share became three-fourths. Now, under President Obama, Democrats hold 83 percent of the Senate seats in the states he won.
Democrats are sure to lose seats in 2014, and they may lose control of the Senate, which should be the ultimate rebuke of their party and their president. But since elections are increasingly driven by structural rather than policy differences, the incentive will be for Democrats to hew to the structure, not bend to some new policy view ratified by the last election. The 2016 map favors Democrats the way the 2014 map favors Republicans. Republican senators are on the ballot on blue or purple states like Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania. Democrats will be encouraged to block Republican ideas and blame them as Obama-hating. In 2016 Democrats will run as the antidote to GOP overreach in a presidential election where members of the Democratic coalition turn out in greater numbers than they do during a midterm. If the first viable female nominee is on their ticket, that will help Democrats even more.
It won't just be Democrats with an inclination to keep things bottled up in Washington. Republican senators facing re-election will have to fear challenges from the Tea Party on the right. One GOP strategist is advising every Republican up for re-election in 2016 to plan for a primary. That will not encourage Republicans running in competitive states to take vast risks for the sake of bipartisanship, particularly if the Democrats are being difficult.
Hope doesn’t have much of a chance in that environment. An even stronger version of this hope was on display at the Harkin Steak Fry in 2006 when President Obama was the keynote speaker. Iowa was a spiritual birthplace for Obama, since his victory in its state caucus boosted his chances. He went on to win the state twice in the general elections. But that hope was dashed, too. As I was typing this piece and making plane reservations to bring my tank of air to join the Hillary throng, an email came in from Gallup about the Iowa Senate race: “As a key U.S. Senate race unfolds in Iowa ... Obama’s approval rating among Iowans for the first half of the year stood at 38 percent, five percentage points below the national average and the lowest rating Gallup has measured in Iowa during his presidency.”
At an Iowa campaign rally, presidential candidates present a world of easy possibility. Solutions promise to be effective, and entrenched opposition is easy to vanquish. The stump speeches are infectious, because at a time of high cynicism, people allow themselves the chance to believe that it really could be like this. Perhaps Sen. Rand Paul or Gov. Chris Christie or Hillary Clinton can pull this off. Every presidential season the feeling that the right candidate can change things gets replanted like a field of corn. But the way elections are heading, the idea that salvation can arise from an Iowa cornfield is starting to feel like something that only makes sense in Hollywood.
Washington Post blog: WorldViews: “Obama’s new man in Moscow doesn’t do Twitter”
By Michael Birnbaum
September 8, 2014, 12:36 p.m. EDT
MOSCOW – The old U.S. ambassador to Russia was a firecracker on Twitter, taking on critics and offering a view of Moscow life that was unusually unfiltered for a diplomat.
The new U.S. ambassador – who on Monday presented his credentials to the Russian Foreign Ministry – doesn’t even have a Twitter account.
John Tefft’s arrival in Moscow last week as Washington’s new envoy here filled a post that had been empty since February, bringing a seasoned and traditional hand to the embassy at the time of the worst relations between Russia and the United States since the Cold War.
Tefft’s predecessor, Stanford academic Michael McFaul, 50, had been President Obama’s chief Russia advisor before his arrival in Moscow in January 2012, just as the protests against then-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin were reaching their zenith. McFaul dived in to the job with a glee and openness that befit his cheerful character and academic past – but it unsettled Kremlin policymakers who said he was in town to stoke a revolution.
When critics attacked him on Twitter, he was ready to fire right back, countering a Russian Foreign Ministry offensive against him in spring 2013 with a series of protestations. He was – and remains – happy to engage with both supporters and detractors on the messaging service.
The openness and speed of McFaul’s Twitter communications were unusual for a U.S. ambassador, whose every public utterance is typically vetted and filtered in advance by the State Department. But when McFaul arrived in Moscow, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was pushing her envoys to use Twitter to reach new audiences in the countries where they were the public face of America. McFaul was happy to comply.
Clinton’s “message was that our diplomacy goes beyond meeting with our counterparts in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” he said in a January interview with The Washington Post, shortly before he announced he would be departing after the conclusion of the Winter Olympics held in Sochi, Russia.
That experiment with Twitter may have backfired in Russia -- and Tefft's appearance in Moscow is a reversion to a more traditional form of diplomacy that may play better in the Kremlin's gilded hallways than McFaul's ever did.
Tefft, born in 1949, is a career diplomat and former ambassador to Ukraine, Georgia and Lithuania who was brought out of retirement for the Moscow job. He has a far different style, one more accustomed to working the quiet channels of diplomacy than punching out pithy 140-character observations on his State Department BlackBerry. And his arrival is a retrenchment of sorts for the Obama administration, which is gambling that his conservative approach to diplomacy will play better for getting business done The embassy has said that if ever his words appear on Twitter, they will come over the official embassy account, and he won’t be the one doing the tweeting.
After he presented his credentials on Monday, he said that “as Ambassador, I have two main responsibilities. First and foremost, I am here to promote, defend, and explain the interests of the United States. Secondly, I am here to help my own government understand Russia’s goals and perspectives.
“America’s relations with Russia have a long and complex history. We have been allies, and we have been adversaries. We have cooperated and we have clashed. One thing, however that has never changed is America’s enduring commitment to engage with Russia, its people, and its government,” he said.
His words were published on Facebook.
But he wasn’t the man who did the typing.
Associated Press: “University of Miami President Shalala to Retire”
By Tim Reynolds
September 8, 2014, 12:12 p.m. EDT
CORAL GABLES, Fla. (AP) -- University of Miami President Donna Shalala plans to step down in 2015, ending a tenure in which she raised the school's profile but also guided the athletic department through a controversial move to the Atlantic Coast Conference and a scandal involving a rogue former booster.
Shalala, 73, told the school's board of trustees of her decision Monday. She took over at Miami in 2001 after serving eight years as Health and Human Services Secretary under President Bill Clinton, with whom she remains close.
Shalala's goal was simple: She wanted to make Miami "the next great American university" and seemed to succeed in raising the school's profile. Miami is now consistently ranked among the nation's top 50 colleges and universities. The school's first "Momentum" fundraising campaign under her watch raised $1.4 billion, and the second such drive is on the way to a goal of another $1.6 billion.
The school's next fiscal year begins June 1. It's expected a new president could be in place by then.
Shalala also has been the chancellor at the University of Wisconsin and the president of Hunter College. She has received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George W. Bush, is a recipient of the Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights, and was a Peace Corps volunteer in Iran in the 1960s. She once made national headlines for foiling an attempted robbery at an ATM from which she had just withdrawn cash in Washington. She still teaches classes at Miami.
Sports has long been a major part of Shalala's life, and it was a major part of her Miami presidency as well. On the day she announced she was Coral Gables-bound in 2000, Shalala referenced the Hurricanes' football team, saying that she knows why the program had long been a perennial power.
"They know how to recruit," Shalala said.
Now, Miami will be recruiting her replacement.
She has long been a regular at Miami games, no matter the sport. She's been to World Cup matches, thrown out ceremonial first pitches at Olympic softball games and served on the board of directors for the U.S. Soccer Foundation. She enjoys telling the story of her first Little League coach when she was growing up in the Cleveland area - a man by name of George Steinbrenner, who would eventually own the New York Yankees.
It may be fitting that Shalala's best-known legacies at the school will be tied to athletics, even though the school's reputation and its medical and research reach grew considerably under her leadership.
The Hurricanes' basketball teams play in an on-campus building now, the Bank United Center, the construction of which she spearheaded. Some moves from her presidency made were far more controversial, including Miami's part of the ACC expansion in 2003 and the school's decision to move home football games from a decaying (and now demolished) Orange Bowl for Sun Life Stadium, home of the Miami Dolphins.
Football won its fifth national championship a few months after Shalala's inauguration as Miami's fifth president. It has not won a title since, and the program is beginning to emerge from a cloud that hung over it for years after a former booster and convicted Ponzi scheme architect went public with tales of lavish spending on athletes in violation of NCAA rules.
The NCAA investigation ended last year, but not before Shalala - who was complimentary of the NCAA for much of the process, until it became known that investigators working the case were breaking their association's own rules - lashed out at the governing body for college sports and demanded that Miami be treated more fairly.
"Her leadership throughout this chapter was amazing," football coach Al Golden said when the investigation ended last year.
Shalala is a 1962 graduate of Western College for Women, got her doctorate in 1970 from Syracuse and holds more than 50 honorary degrees.