CORRECTED VERSION: Correct The Record Tuesday November 4, 2014 Morning Roundup
Correct The Record Tuesday November 4, 2014 Morning Roundup:
Headlines:
Politico: “Chicken soup for the Democratic soul”
“And then, of course, there’s the chicken soup with instant healing power: ‘Just wait until Hillary Clinton runs and all the Republican candidates start beating each other up.’”
MSNBC: “Hillary concludes busy campaign season with raised profile”
“Earlier in the cycle, some Democrats worried she would not lend her star power to the party’s candidates in what promised to be a difficult year for Democrats, but campaigns from Pennsylvania to Iowa to Kentucky have been very happy with her efforts.”
Politico: “Hillary Clinton set to receive award”
“Hillary Clinton will be honored by the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights next month, alongside Robert De Niro and Tony Bennett, according to an invitation for the event.”
The Hill blog: Ballot Box: “House Dems brace for losses”
“Many Democrats think they’ll have a shot at winning back the House in 2016 on the wings of a strong presidential candidate — say, Hillary Clinton — if they can keep losses this year to a minimum.”
MSNBC: “Meet Staci Appel, Hillary Clinton’s top congressional candidate”
“Appel is running for Congress in an open seat from this true tossup district that includes Des Moines and the Southwest quadrant of the state. And she’s got a fan in Hillary Clinton, who has praised Appel in speeches from San Francisco to New York City.”
Washington Post: “Hillary Clinton’s 45 events in 54 days: Midterm stops and maybe a 2016 preview”
“As one of her party’s most popular figures and a proven fund-raiser, Clinton was both doing a favor for Democrats around the country this year and, perhaps, gathering supporters and building a network that she would need next year and in 2016 if she were to launch another White House bid.”
CNN: “Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign quietly begins to take shape”
“With a trio of pro-Hillary superPACs -- Ready for Hillary, Priorities USA Action and Correct the Record -- months into shoring up support, a Clinton campaign is already well underway outside of her inner circle.”
Politico: “A midterm referendum on Barack Obama”
“President Barack Obama’s policies aren’t actually on the ballot, and neither is he. But 2014 has been all about him.”
Mediaite: “Beck: GOP Taking Control Could End Up Helping Hillary”
“Glenn Beck isn’t too eager about Republicans potentially taking control of the Senate, and argued today that the GOP in charge could actually be exactly what Hillary Clinton and President Obama are hoping for.”
Articles:
Politico: “Chicken soup for the Democratic soul”
By David Nather
November 4, 2014, 5:04 a.m. EST
When this election is over, the Democrats are going to need a whole lot of healing.
They’re staring at the very real prospect of losing the Senate for the first time since 2006. If they somehow manage to hang on, they’ll be left with an even thinner majority and more gridlock, as if that was possible. They’re sure to lose more House seats, either way.
So they’re going to need some good talking points to make their voters — and the donors — feel better. They’re going to need some chicken soup for the Democratic soul.
They’ll have lots of heartwarming stories to offer. They can talk about how terrible the Senate map was for them this year. They can certainly talk about how much better it will be in 2016, with more Republicans defending their seats in purple states — enough that they might have a real shot at winning back the Senate.
And then, of course, there’s the chicken soup with instant healing power: “Just wait until Hillary Clinton runs and all the Republican candidates start beating each other up.”
Sooner or later, though, they’re going to notice the fly in the soup: two years of lost seats and diminished power — and Barack Obama’s presidency running on fumes. There’s sure to be finger-pointing as some Democrats blame Obama’s plummeting approval ratings. And even if they win some high-profile governor’s races, a feature that was supposed to be a highlight of this election, it’s looking more likely that they’ll lose others and it will end up a wash.
To be sure, if the Democrats hold on to the Senate, the future is a lot brighter. All of a sudden, they’ll be talking about building their majority rather than trying to win it back. No matter what happens, though, the next two years on the Hill will be difficult ones — because they’ll either be out of power or clinging to it by their fingernails.
Here are the morale boosters Democrats will use to cheer themselves once the election is over:
1. We never had a chance
Democrats have been bracing for a terrible year all along. The seats they’re trying to hold are heavy on conservative states like Arkansas, Louisiana, North Carolina, Alaska, West Virginia and Montana.
Midterms rarely go well for the president’s party anyway, let alone for someone whose approval ratings are in the low-40 percent range. So it’s kind of a miracle for them that the races have been so close, in theory.
But really — Colorado? Iowa? What happened? It’s not as if Democrats can’t compete in those purple states — Obama won them twice — yet Iowa’s Bruce Braley and Colorado’s Mark Udall are in serious danger of coming up short. Should they lose, Democrats won’t be able to blame the lousy Senate map.
Republicans, who have been through recent election night disappointments of their own, have a bit of advice for the Democrats: If it turns out badly, think about why you lost.
“Excuses are the first stage of grief,” said Ron Bonjean, a GOP strategist and former Hill leadership aide. “They did have solid candidates and incumbents, but the fact is that Obama’s policies just swamped it out across the board.”
2. 2016 is our year
This is one of the Democrats’ favorite comebacks: If you think the Senate map was bad to us this year, just look at how bad it will be to Republicans in 2016.
This time, it will be Republicans defending seats in blue-to-purple states: Rob Portman in Ohio, Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire, Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania, Ron Johnson in Wisconsin, Mark Kirk in Illinois. And it will happen during a presidential election year, when voter turnout is sure to be higher than it is during a midterm election.
“There is an increasing correlation between presidential voting and senatorial voting and gubernatorial voting,” said Democratic pollster Mark Mellman. “That means the map is our own worst enemy now, but in 2016, the map will be a very good friend.”
Or, as former Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt put it: “They call them election cycles for a reason.”
The catch: It’s not as if there are no vulnerable Democrats up in 2016. Michael Bennet of Colorado, who squeaked by in 2010, will have to run for another term. And don’t forget Harry Reid, who would be in for the fight of his life if popular Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval decides to challenge him.
3. Hillary will save us
The rest of the country may be in suspense, but Democratic consultants really aren’t. They have no doubt that Hillary Clinton will be the party’s next presidential nominee and that Republicans will be at a big disadvantage because they don’t have anyone who’s the same kind of natural front-runner — and because they’ll tear each other up in the primaries.
“You’d think it would be tough for the party in power to hold on after eight years, but the Republicans are fractured, and the primary process is not going to help their problems,” said Democratic lobbyist and Hill veteran Steve Elmendorf.
Democratic pollster John Anzalone put it bluntly: “The chicken soup’s name is Bill and Hillary.”
This scenario, of course, assumes she won’t spend her campaign cleaning up after the kinds of verbal stumbles she’s made on the road this year. But if she hits her stride, they believe she’ll mobilize the key voting groups that will help Democrats in races around the country.
There’s another big benefit, according to Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg: Clinton would be able to give the party’s candidates the kind of fully formed “economic worldview” that they can’t produce on their own — and help them move forward from the Obama years. “The president is in a different era,” Greenberg said, noting that whenever Obama focuses his economic speeches on the recession, “it’s like a decade ago.”
Some are also convinced that the Republicans will blow it in 2016 by having too many firebrands in the presidential field — like Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Marco Rubio — and that they haven’t really confronted their challenges with changing demographics, especially among unmarried women, African-Americans and Hispanics.
“There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell that the Republicans are going to win the White House in 2016,” said Democratic consultant Jim Manley, a former spokesman for Reid. “That’s going to be one of my consolations on Tuesday, depending on how it comes out.”
4. The Republicans will have to pass things now
Call them crazy optimists, but there are Democrats who predict that Republicans may govern differently than they campaigned if they win the Senate. After all, if the Republicans don’t show they can pass legislation — and put an end to confrontational tactics like last year’s government shutdown — their majority won’t last beyond two years. That’s one reason White House officials are already looking for issues that could be ripe for deals with a GOP majority.
Privately, Republican aides say the same thing — that senators like Ayotte, Portman and Toomey will be looking for accomplishments that can boost their cases for reelection. But that doesn’t mean tea party groups and conservative activists will play along. They’ll want confrontations with Obama at every turn, sending him veto-bait bills that, in their view, will present clearer choices between the two parties for 2016.
That factor has already become clear with Obamacare, as Mitch McConnell has tried to reassure conservatives that he’ll keep fighting to repeal the law, even though Republicans know Obama would never sign it. And House Republicans, who are poised to expand their majority, will have zero incentive to soften their fights with the White House.
5. Hey, look at the governors
The governor’s races were supposed to be a bright spot for Democrats in this year’s elections, which is one reason Obama put so many of them on his campaign schedule. At one point, there were predictions that Democrats could pick up anywhere from two to four governorships.
That’s looking less likely now. Democrats could still win a few morale-boosting races, although one of their best prospects, Florida’s Charlie Crist, is a guy who used to be a Republican. But for every governorship they might pick up, they have others that they could easily lose in states that they should have won. (We’re looking at you, Martha Coakley in Massachusetts.)
In reality, the Democrats’ best bets are in Pennsylvania, where Tom Wolf is virtually certain to defeat Gov. Tom Corbett, and Maine, where Michael Michaud has a good shot at unseating Gov. Paul LePage. After that, they could win toss-up races in Florida and Kansas, but they could also easily lose Democratic Govs. Dannel Malloy of Connecticut and Pat Quinn of Illinois, who are in too-close-to-call races of their own.
So look for Democrats to focus on the close races and hope for the best. Mellman noted that Pennsylvania “almost certainly” will go Democratic, and said the reelection races of two prominent GOP governors — Wisconsin’s Scott Walker and Michigan’s Rick Snyder — are “still very much in play.”
MSNBC: “Hillary concludes busy campaign season with raised profile”
By Alex Seitz-Wald
November 3, 2014, 2:38 p.m. EDT
Hillary Clinton made 45 appearances on the campaign trail this year for congressional Democrats, according to her spokesperson, winning gratitude from Democrats as she reintroduces herself to voters in key states ahead of a likely presidential run.
Clinton largely left politics after losing her 2008 presidential race and becoming President Obama’s secretary of state. But since early September, she’s been crisscrossing the country for Democrats in key races and exceeding expectations. She held fundraisers or rallies for 10 senate, 12 gubernatorial and four House candidates in 20 states.
That includes the key presidential state of Iowa, where she attended the annual Tom Harkin Steak Fry in September and then returned last week to campaign for Senate candidate Bruce Braley. On the second visit, Clinton visited an iconic diner and mingled with voters, humbly reintroducing herself to the state that scorned her in 2008 in favor of Barack Obama. Her husband, former president Bill Clinton, also visited Iowa to campaign for Braley this weekend.
On Sunday, the former secretary of state returned to New Hampshire, a state which has always been good for the Clintons and she won in 2008. Clinton made four stops in the state, which holds the first primary in the Democratic nominating process.
Earlier in the cycle, some Democrats worried she would not lend her star power to the party’s candidates in what promised to be a difficult year for Democrats, but campaigns from Pennsylvania to Iowa to Kentucky have been very happy with her efforts.
She’s also raised millions of dollars for party committees, which support all Democrats running for the House, Senate, or governor’s mansion. Meanwhile, Bill Clinton has also worked harder for Democrats this year than in previous cycles.
Clinton allies say she’s motivated by a desire to help Democrats get elected in a tough year, but also privately acknowledge that her campaign work is another sign that she’s preparing to run for president in 2016.
Politico: “Hillary Clinton set to receive award”
By Maggie Haberman
November 3, 2014, 8:01 p.m. EST
Hillary Clinton will be honored by the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights next month, alongside Robert De Niro and Tony Bennett, according to an invitation for the event.
The event, on Dec. 16, will take place in New York City. Clinton, De Niro and Bennett will be presented with Ripple of Hope Awards, according to the invitation.
The event is one of the few public appearances Clinton has scheduled in the next two months, a period during which she is expected to spend time with her newborn granddaughter, Charlotte, and also talking to advisers and friends as she makes a decision about a second presidential campaign.
Clinton’s schedule of paid speeches also appears to have wound down through the end of the year.
Her advisers have been debating whether to lay down a marker on a campaign if she decides to run this year, as opposed to early next year, with some advocating for it but others strongly opposed, according to several people familiar with the discussions. One adviser characterized an early move as unlikely if for no other reason than, for all the activity of outside groups on her behalf this last year, many open questions remain about how her campaign would operate.
The Hill blog: Ballot Box: “House Dems brace for losses”
By Mike Lillis
November 4, 2014, 6:00 a.m. EDT
House Democrats are heading into Tuesday’s midterms hoping that a swelling of Republican support does not crest into a tidal wave.
Democratic leaders had spent much of 2013 playing offense, with thoughts of defying historic trends and retaking the lower chamber this year. Their optimism reached its apex after last year’s government shutdown left the Republicans badly bruised.
But Democrats have run into a perfect storm since then. Incumbents are retiring; the public is anxious about a fragile economy and foreign unrest; the perennial problem of low turnout among left-leaning groups in midterm elections persists; and President Obama’s approval rating is near historic lows.
Put it all together and it is perhaps no surprise that Democrats have been forced into a defensive crouch, where their best hope is to stanch the bleeding and prevent a Republican rout.
Party strategists are now focused merely on preventing the GOP gains from exceeding the eight seats Democrats netted in 2012.
“Democrats should be happy if they keep [the number of] losses under double digits,” one Democratic strategist said Monday.
Tuesday’s outcome will have obvious practical implications. Significant Republican gains would likely help Speaker John Boehner (Ohio) advance his policy agenda in the face of frequent resistance from a Tea Party wing that criticizes GOP leaders as overly centrist and timorous. As indicated by their “Drive for 245” slogan, the Republicans are hoping to net 11 seats.
But the consequences could also carry far beyond the 114th Congress. Many Democrats think they’ll have a shot at winning back the House in 2016 on the wings of a strong presidential candidate — say, Hillary Clinton — if they can keep losses this year to a minimum.
“They want to keep this in the realm of a strong Democratic presidential candidate being able to have enough coattails to shift control in 2016,” Julian E. Zelizer, congressional historian at Princeton University, said Monday. “If the expansion of the GOP majority is significant, even with a poor Republican candidate in 2016, it will be much harder for Democrats to regain control.”
Rep. Jim Moran, a veteran Virginia Democrat retiring at the end of the year, suggested that a large Republican majority could pose its own perils for the GOP.
“If the Republicans get the Senate, and pick up even another half dozen seats in the House, they’ll overreach; and they’re going to get so far out of the mainstream that there will be a big, critical backlash in 2016,” Moran told The Hill. “[That] would enable a presidential candidate as strong as Hillary … to usher in a wave election with her.”
First though, the Democrats have to survive 2014, no easy task in an election year that seems increasingly to be “a referendum on President Obama,” in the words of Rep. James Clyburn (S.C.), the third-ranking House Democrat who blamed the party for not doing “a better job messaging exactly what the president has done.”
Democratic leaders long ago wrote off several seats currently under their control, including those of outgoing Reps. Mike McIntyre (N.C.), Jim Matheson (Utah) and Bill Owens (N.Y.), three centrists who essentially ceded their conservative-leaning districts to Republicans the day they announced their retirements.
Democrats are also facing extremely tough odds of keeping seats held by Reps. Nick Rahall (W.Va.), Collin Peterson (Minn.), John Barrow (Ga.) and Rick Nolan (Minn.).
They’ve been frustrated by an inability to put more pressure on Rep. Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.), despite a long list of federal charges pending against him.
And last month they were forced to pull money from several close contests for open seats in order to protect incumbents whose races tightened late in the cycle. Reps. Lois Capps (Calif.) and Steven Horsford (Nev.) were among the Democrats who received first-time cash infusions from the party at the eleventh hour.
There are some bright spots for Democrats, however. They’re expected to win the seat being vacated by retiring Rep. Gary Miller (R-Calif.); they have a very good shot at picking off Republican Reps. Lee Terry in Nebraska and Steve Southerland in Florida; they see another pickup opportunity in the West Virginia seat of Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R), who’s expected to win her bid for the Senate on Tuesday; and despite last-minute attacks by outside conservative groups, both Capps and Horsford are expected to win reelection.
Indeed, party leaders insist that every non-retiring incumbent has a fighting chance to return next year. That’s a stark contrast to 2010, when they’d written off a number of seats long before Election Day.
Rep. Steve Israel (N.Y.), head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) said Monday that there are 20 races still too close to call.
“So anybody who tells you that they know what’s going to happen [Tuesday] night is literally the last person that you should be listening to,” he told MSNBC. “You still have 20 very close races.”
Still, party strategists are also bracing for likely losses — and eying the next cycle with relish.
“No matter what happens Tuesday night, the field in 2016 flips dramatically from 2014,” DCCC spokesman Josh Schwerin said Monday in an email. “[W]e’ll be able to play offense in more seats and Republicans are going to spend the next two years reminding voters that they are completely unable to govern responsibly.”
Not everyone agrees the Democrats have a shot at the House in 2016, regardless of the outcome of Tuesday’s elections, however.
Michael Mezey, political scientist at DePaul University, said Republicans’ redistricting efforts in 2010 mean there’s “no chance for the Democrats to regain control of the House until 2022,” after the next census.
“Pennsylvania, for example — a reliably blue state — has a congressional delegation composed of 5 Dems and 13 Republicans,” Mezey said Mondayin an email. “Hillary’s coattails, if they exist, are not going to overcome that.”
MSNBC: “Meet Staci Appel, Hillary Clinton’s top congressional candidate”
By Alex Seitz-Wald
November 3, 2014, 10:16 p.m. EDT
DES MOINES, Iowa – If you’ve heard Hillary Clinton on the stump for Democrats this year, you’ve heard her praise incumbents locked in titanic $100-million Senate battles. But you may have also heard her single out Staci Appel, who is running for Congress here and may be a rare bright spot for Democrats on what is shaping up to be a bleak Election Night Tuesday.
Appel is running for Congress in an open seat from this true tossup district that includes Des Moines and the Southwest quadrant of the state. And she’s got a fan in Hillary Clinton, who has praised Appel in speeches from San Francisco to New York City.
“I was in Iowa with a candidate for Congress Staci Appel. She is a great mom who worked her way up from minimum wage to management, and with enough support, she could be the first women ever elected from Iowa to Congress,” Clinton said at a gathering of Democratic women in Washington in September.
Appel, a former state senator who was a county chair for Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2008, is happy to hear it. “Well, I’m a fan of hers!” she said in an interview during a campaign stop at a coffee shop here.
The state has a history of rejecting women at the polls – as Clinton, who came in an embarrassing third place here, knows – but it might elect two or more Tuesday night, including Appel and Republican Senate candidate Joni Ernst.
While other Democrats have struggled here, Appel is feeling good heading into election night, with a strong financial lead, a narrow edge in polls, and a chance to break Iowa’s glass ceiling that Democrats say is firing up voters. “The excitement to elect the first woman to Congress is really huge,” she told msnbc.
Appel is counting on that excitement to help her do better than other Democrats on the ticket. “We’ve outperformed Bruce Braley,” she said. “I think it’s because I haven’t served in Washington, D.C. I’ve served here in Iowa and I have a record of getting things done.”
Also confident is Ernst, whom Gov. Terry Brandstad introduced on Monday at event in Newton as “the first woman senator from Iowa, the first woman combat veteran in the United States Senate.”
In a memo, her campaign touted an internal poll that they say shows 8% of voters in the district plan to vote for Ernst and Appel. “We believe it is important to share with you that we have been running ahead of the Braley in the 3rd district since we began polling in July,” campaign manager Ben Miller wrote.
In the entire county, her campaign is one of only a small handful of congressional races where Democrat have a good opportunity to pick up a seat, and where the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is still spending outside money to back a candidate in an open seat.
Republican opponent David Young, a former chief of staff to Sen. Chuck Grassley, came in fifth place in a Republican primary, but won during a party convention. A magician who has raised eyebrows with campaign ads featuring illusions, Young has struggled at times. He had only $30,000 on hand in his most recent campaign finance report, to Appel’s nearly $250,000.
He also came under criticism from fellow Republicans recently for saying Obamacare was “here to stay.” An influential conservative blogger slammed his “schizophrenic” campaign.
Still, polls show a close race that could come down to the wire.
In the state Senate, where Appel served as assistant majority leader, the mother of six worked on family-centric issues: Universal pre-school, a ban on texting while driving, equal pay for equal work, a seat belt law, and an indoor smoking ban.
The state has attracted other top-tier women candidates, like Christie Vilsack in 2012, but has yet to send a woman to Congress.
Appel took a pass on responding to Sen. Tom Harkin’s controversial comments that Ernst is “very attractive.”
As for Hillary Clinton, Appel wants to help her again – and this time to win the state. “She will win,” Appel said.
Washington Post: “Hillary Clinton’s 45 events in 54 days: Midterm stops and maybe a 2016 preview”
By Anne Gearan
November 3, 2014, 8:23 p.m. EST
MANCHESTER, N.H. — Hillary Rodham Clinton closed out her first political season since stepping down as secretary of state with a scene that looked very much like the beginning of the long 2016 campaign.
She shook scores of hands, posed for pictures and caught up with supporters from her failed 2008 run at a restaurant owned by a stalwart of the New Hampshire Democratic Party. The packed scene Sunday at the Puritan Backroom was among 45 midterm-related political events listed by Clinton’s office this year. Four of those were in New Hampshire.
Of course, many of the New Hampshire voters she met encouraged her to run again in 2016, and Clinton looked the part of a candidate. She has said she will decide after Jan. 1 whether to mount a second run for the White House.
As one of her party’s most popular figures and a proven fund-raiser, Clinton was both doing a favor for Democrats around the country this year and, perhaps, gathering supporters and building a network that she would need next year and in 2016 if she were to launch another White House bid.
The list of her appearances and other work for Democrats this year began with a D.C. fundraiser for female Democratic Senate candidates on Sept. 9 and included stops in 19 states. Including, yes, Iowa.
CNN: “Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign quietly begins to take shape”
By Brianna Keilar
November 3, 2014, 6:42 p.m. EST
Hillary Clinton has spent the final moments of the midterm campaign season publicly deflecting the flurry of questions about her likely run for president.
But behind the scenes, her campaign machine is quietly whirring to life.
Clinton insiders have begun to approach Washington-based Democratic operatives who may play a role in a potential campaign and are soliciting their recommendations on other possible staffers, according to Democrats familiar with the conversations.
A number Clinton associates are compiling staffing lists, according to multiple Democratic sources. Michael Whouley and Minyon Moore of the Democratic communications and consulting firm Dewey Square Group are one conduit to Clinton's inner circle and among the primary compilers of the campaign universe that will surround Clinton, should she run.
The firm is led by veteran players in Clinton world. Whouley was an adviser to Vice President Al Gore and a Clinton campaign aide while Moore is a longtime Clinton confidante.
Ginny Terzano, head of communications for Dewey Square, said the characterization is "incorrect."
"DSG officials have no role" in a potential Clinton campaign, she said.
Operatives at the firm are reviewing possible Clinton staffers "under the guise of spitballing ideas," as one Democratic source put it.
With a trio of pro-Hillary superPACs -- Ready for Hillary, Priorities USA Action and Correct the Record -- months into shoring up support, a Clinton campaign is already well underway outside of her inner circle.
"The reality is that if you have a message and you're larger than life, the organization can come together pretty quickly," said Tom McMahon, who served as deputy campaign director for Howard Dean's 2004 campaign. "It can be a turnkey operation."
As the Clinton campaign apparatus is constructed, those close to her are trying to shroud it from view, wary of the glaring political spotlight that amplifies every move the former secretary of state makes.
"There are no formal talks, no one is being offered jobs," one source told CNN, dismissing the signs of campaign life as "a lot of jockeying" from Democrats who want to work on a Clinton campaign.
In September, Clinton and her inner circle were dismayed by a leak to Politico that revealed the presence of John Podesta -- former Chief of Staff to President Bill Clinton, current top aide to President Barack Obama and the person favored to serve as chairman of a Hillary Clinton campaign -- at meetings with pro-Clinton super PACs this summer.
Huma Abedin, one of Clinton's closest aides, has told multiple Democrats to rein in chatter about 2016, saying Clinton wants to keep attention on the midterm elections and minimize attention on a presidential run, according to a Democratic source who spoke to Abedin.
Clinton and the small team she employs are trying to keep her out of the tarnishing political spotlight until she is ready to make a run official, something Clinton will likely do by the end of winter, though she would like to put it off as late as possible.
"If there's not a competitive primary, the general election starts as soon as she declares," said Katie Packer Gage, former deputy campaign manager for Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential run, who says the challenge of a Clinton campaign will be more of what her current team is already struggling with -- ''how do they keep her fresh for the American people?"
Recent campaigns for viable Democratic or Republican presidential candidates were well into the preliminary phase of staffing up at this point in time, with top aides already getting in line ahead of an official announcement.
In 2012, Matt Rhoades, at the time the executive director of Mitt Romney's Political Action Committee and later Romney's campaign manager, was already in early discussions with all of those who would become senior staff.
Well before the 2006 midterms, then-Sen. Barack Obama had conducted preliminary discussions with and identified a number of top aides. His campaign effectively went into high gear after the elections, though he launched his exploratory committee in January 2007 and declared his candidacy in February.
But some political operatives warn not to read too much into the beginning phase of a Clinton campaign currently underway.
"Of course the preliminary conversations should be going on," said Steve Elmendorf, Deputy Campaign Manager for John Kerry's 2004 campaign. "But there are a lot of people who have had those conversations - who thought about running for office, made plans to run for office, and didn't."
Among those believed to be part of a potential Clinton campaign, Guy Cecil, the current executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, appears to be one of Clinton's most likely choices for campaign manager, according to interviews with more than two dozen Democrats.
"Even if Democrats don't hang onto the Senate, people respect the job that he's done," said one.
Cecil's role is expected to fall under the oversight of Podesta, seen as a calming force who could squash much of the internal drama that plagued Clinton's 2008 campaign. Podesta is expected to stay at the White House through the State of the Union, according to two sources familiar with his current plans, despite his initial commitment of one year service when Obama named him to his post in the West Wing last December.
By last Spring, Robby Mook, who managed the campaign that propelled Clinton fundraising guru, Terry McAuliffe, into the Virginia governor's mansion, has "been on ice" - as one Democrat put it - since as early as the spring, according to two Democrats familiar with the discussion. He was told not to make long term plans by those close to Clinton, the sources say, and is widely expected to play a major role in running the campaign.
Dennis Cheng, who manages fundraising for the Clinton Foundation and served as Hillary Clinton's deputy chief of protocol at the State Department, is the frontrunner for finance director, according to multiple Democrats. Huma Abedin, as well as longtime Clinton aide Philippe Reines and Nick Merrill, Clinton's current spokesperson, are expected to serve in influential roles in and around the campaign.
Politico: “A midterm referendum on Barack Obama”
By Edward-Isaac Dovere
November 4, 2014, 5:05 a.m. EST
President Barack Obama’s policies aren’t actually on the ballot, and neither is he. But 2014 has been all about him.
The midterm map put Democratic candidates on defense — there are indeed red states and blue states, and they vote Republican in the red states, especially with an anti-incumbency mood in the air.
But the predominant theme has been opposition to Obama himself. Unstoppable in his 2008 and 2012 campaigns, he is now likely headed for another midterm rebuff from a churning country with buyer’s remorse.
That the only Obama campaign stop on Monday was the first lady’s rally in Baltimore for Anthony Brown’s gubernatorial bid says everything about the president’s standing at the end of the midterms. (That the governor’s race narrowed in Maryland says a lot about how the campaigns closed for Democrats, too.)
The president was the theme that ran through all the races. Obamacare, ISIL, Ebola, the economy — for Republicans, these all were different ways of talking about how terrible the president is, not making the country or the world work for Americans. And that talk only hardened in the final days of this year’s races.
Rep. Bill Cassidy, a Republican hoping to knock out Sen. Mary Landrieu, said plainly to reporters Saturday in New Orleans what the GOP’s been thinking all across the country.
“The issues are on our side. Every week the president does something to help us. Folks here are wondering why in the heck she would support the fellow when he’s against what they see as the right thing to do,” Cassidy said. “So, it works for us.”
Democrats, meanwhile, spent months figuring out new ways to distance themselves from the president and say they disagreed with his positions.
Obama himself has missed the adoring crowds, replaced by an endless parade of fundraisers where he has gone through the motions of a speech about hope over cynicism that even he didn’t seem to believe anymore. In contrast, at his Saturday night rally in Detroit for gubernatorial candidate Mark Schauer and Gary Peters — the only Senate candidate who wanted him — he was sharp and funny and energetically ripped into the Republicans, feeding off the energy of 6,000 people actually ecstatic to see him.
There, Obama put himself at the center of the conversation again, as he hasn’t since the early October speech in which he insisted his policies were on the ballot, making Democrats everywhere bang their collective head against the wall.
“Gary needs your vote, and Mark needs your vote,” Obama said. “I need your vote.”
But there aren’t many crowds like that left. Most Democratic campaigns didn’t want Obama anywhere near them, and with his negative numbers continuing to rise through the fall, several of those that had expressed interest rescinded their requests.
That only added to Republican glee.
“Everybody wants Mitt Romney or Jeb Bush, but nobody wants Obama, so he’s hiding in the White House somewhere,” said Bob Dole, as he campaigned for Sen. Pat Roberts over the weekend at the American Legion in Overland Park, Kansas.
But Monday, White House press secretary Josh Earnest pushed back on the idea that the midterms were a referendum on Obama. Earnest chalked up the negative feelings to voters holding Obama accountable for Washington dysfunction rather than disapproving of his policies.
“The vast majority of voters are not making their decision in this election based on their appraisal of the president,” Earnest said.
The map shaped the macro-dynamics: Montana, Arkansas and Louisiana were slipping away from Democrats, while Republicans fizzled in Minnesota, Oregon and Michigan. West Virginia’s GOP turn was what kept Shelley Moore Capito gliding to a Senate seat. Pennsylvania gubernatorial hopeful Tom Wolf didn’t break away in polls because of his dynamism on the stump.
But in a year when so many Senate and governor’s races stayed within 3 points even in the final hours, Obama was a constant. In purple states like Colorado, New Hampshire and Iowa, he was a clear drag.
Joni Ernst, the Republican nominee who headed into the final days appearing to have an edge over Rep. Bruce Braley, told POLITICO on Saturday that the president is the reason she believes she’s headed to a win in the state where Obama’s march to the White House began.
“Iowans are rejecting President Obama and his policies, which Congressman Braley has supported over the past six years of his time in Congress,” Ernst said while standing at a train depot in Osceola. “We are seeing that Iowans want a different direction, and they are choosing to go with me.”
North Carolina GOP Senate nominee Thom Tillis used the specter of Obama’s last two years in office to propel his cause. “Can you imagine if we don’t get a Senate majority what this president will do in the remaining two years of his term?” he asked 300 supporters in a high school cafeteria in Catawba, North Carolina.
Speaking a day earlier at a rally for Sen. Kay Hagan in Raleigh, Bill Clinton said Tillis’ strategy was clear.
“He’s trying take to her off the ballot and put the president on it,” Clinton said. “Isn’t that what’s going on? He knows the president’s having a hard time.”
Even with Obama’s job approval ticking slightly up in recent weeks, according to Wall Street Journal/NBC News polling released Sunday, the overall number of people who say they want “a great deal of change” is higher than in 2010 — 87 percent of Republicans and 47 percent of Democrats.
Lynne Smith, a Democrat who’d already voted by the time she showed up for a Davenport rally that Vice President Joe Biden led for Braley last week, said she thought Obama had made the right decision to stay away from the Senate race.
“I’m sure he would be highly criticized if he would come to campaign. The Republicans will pull anything to put him down,” Smith said.
Some Democrats tried to push back.
“If they don’t like Obama, that’s fine,” said former Sen. John Breaux during an interview at a pro-Landrieu rally in Lafayette, Louisiana, on Friday. “But he’s not on the ballot in Louisiana.”
But at a rally Saturday, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, the senator’s brother, acknowledged that is indeed where Republican feelings are in one of the races that could end up deciding control of the Senate.
“Bill Cassidy has told everybody who he hates and this is really clear,” he said. “If you want to elect somebody who will spend every day hating every breath that Obama makes and tearing down everything that Congress tries to do, you know who to vote for.”
Mediaite: “Beck: GOP Taking Control Could End Up Helping Hillary”
By Josh Feldman
November 3, 2014, 3:59 p.m. EDT
Glenn Beck isn’t too eager about Republicans potentially taking control of the Senate, and argued today that the GOP in charge could actually be exactly what Hillary Clinton and President Obama are hoping for. Beck warned that a GOP victory “isn’t necessarily a good thing” for the country.
Obama will be happy, Beck argued, because after the midterms, Obama will have nothing left to lose, and with no more elections in his future, he’s gonna go all-out in pushing his agenda. And Beck predicted the ensuing fight will be “the end of the republic as we know it.”
He cited the immigration debate in particular and said the fight between the president and Congress will help out a presidential contender:
“Who will be there to say, ‘Look, the GOP is crazy, they’re full of haters, they’re full of racists… there’s a place in between here and we need to start talking about common sense?’ May I introduce you to the next President of the United States, Hillary Rodham Clinton.”
Watch the video below, via BlazeTV:
[VIDEO]
Calendar:
Sec. Clinton's upcoming appearances as reported online. Not an official schedule.
· November 14 – Little Rock, AR: Sec. Clinton attends picnic for 10th Anniversary of the Clinton Center (NYT)
· November 15 – Little Rock, AR: Sec. Clinton hosts No Ceilings event (NYT)
· November 21 – New York, NY: Sec. Clinton presides over meeting of the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves (Bloomberg)
· November 21 – New York, NY: Sec. Clinton is honored by the New York Historical Society (Bloomberg)
· December 1 – New York, NY: Sec. Clinton keynotes a League of Conservation Voters dinner (Politico)
· December 4 – Boston, MA: Sec. Clinton speaks at the Massachusetts Conference for Women (MCFW)
· December 16 – New York, NY: Sec. Clinton honored by Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights (Politico)