Correct The Record Thursday September 4, 2014 Morning Roundup
Correct The Record Thursday September 4, 2014 Morning Roundup:
Headlines:
Politico: “Hillary Clinton basks in Harry Reid’s green energy glow”
“Hillary Clinton’s speech at a clean-energy summit Thursday will allow her to do two things that could help her run for president in 2016: embrace an audience of influential progressive activists and green-industry leaders, while paying tribute to Nevada Democratic kingmaker Harry Reid.”
“The group, 9/11 Health Watch, announced Wednesday that the former First Lady will be a special guest at the Sep. 16th event, which is hosted by the New York State AFL-CIO and other groups.”
“Hillary Clinton, making her first return to the State Department since stepping down as secretary of state early last year, was among five of the seven living former secretaries of state gathered Wednesday to break ground for a new Diplomacy Center.”
CNN: “Henry Kissinger loves joking about Hillary Clinton 2016”
“He then, however, dropped a slight joke about the prospect of Clinton running for president. ‘We all know that we will never do anything more challenging in our lives than to serve these objectives,’ Kissinger said. ‘I would say all of us, except one.’”
Associated Press: “Christie and Clinton Making Visits to Mexico”
“Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie are making overlapping trips to Mexico this week, signifying the importance of connecting with Hispanic voters ahead of potential presidential campaigns in 2016.”
Bloomberg: “Hillary Clinton Follows Christie to Mexico for Carlos Slim Event”
“Hillary Clinton will be on hand Sept. 5 for Slim’s annual event to honor his own charity’s scholarship students.”
Politico Magazine: The Politico 50: “34: Allida Black & Adam Parkhomenko”
“The campaign is ready for Hillary. Now, the question is, is she ready for it?”
National Journal: “Elizabeth Warren Just Gave Republicans a Gift”
[Subtitle:] “Whether she meant to or not, she criticized Hillary Clinton by omission.”
Politico: “Cantor's ticket to Wall St: A one-way ride?”
“Clinton keeps trying to come up with ways to talk about her wealth, and how she earned it, without turning people off. She has not found a way. And that may be because there isn’t one.”
Articles:
Politico: “Hillary Clinton basks in Harry Reid’s green energy glow”
By Darren Goode
September 3, 2014, 8:11 p.m. EDT
LAS VEGAS — Hillary Clinton’s speech at a clean-energy summit Thursday will allow her to do two things that could help her run for president in 2016: embrace an audience of influential progressive activists and green-industry leaders, while paying tribute to Nevada Democratic kingmaker Harry Reid.
At the same time, the controlled format seems tailor-made for avoiding troublesome questions on issues like the Keystone XL pipeline — as well any repeats of the recent flaps in which she criticized President Barack Obama’s foreign policy and spoke about being “dead broke” after leaving the White House. No media interviews are scheduled for Clinton, who is expected to follow her remarks with a friendly chat on stage with one of her husband’s former White House chiefs of staff, John Podesta.
If Clinton has any major differences with Obama on energy and climate policy, they’re not readily apparent in her recent memoir, “Hard Choices,” and probably wouldn’t come up Thursday either. Instead, she praises him in her book for “moving forward with strong executive actions” in addressing climate change.
Clinton will deliver the keynote speech at Thursday’s daylong summit, the seventh annual energy policy gathering that the Senate majority leader has hosted in Las Vegas. In past years, the event has drawn speakers like Al Gore, Vice President Joe Biden, billionaire climate activist Tom Steyer and former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger — along with three appearances by Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton. As with her husband and other recent keynote speakers at Reid’s event, Clinton may take questions from the audience screened by Podesta.
Thursday’s summit comes on the same day as another news event in clean energy: the announcement that the luxury electric-car manufacturer Tesla has chosen Nevada as the site of its $5 billion battery “gigafactory.” Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval is expected to make that news official in Carson City, the state capital.
For Clinton, the Vegas summit will be a forum for reaching crucial constituencies in the green-energy and political worlds, people active in both realms said.
“This has become one of the must-stops for someone who wants to talk about their climate and energy environmental credentials,” said Chris Lehane, a former Clinton administration and Gore campaign aide who is now a senior strategist for Steyer.
Nevada political analyst Jon Ralston said Clinton’s appearance is “smart for her and smart for Reid too. Obviously it’s a good sign for their relationship superficially that she is coming to this big event, and she does a lot to bring attention.”
Her presence also suggests that any hard feelings have long been buried since the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination fight, in which Reid helped prod Obama to enter a race that was supposed to be Clinton’s to lose. Or at the very least, she stands to earn chits with Reid, who has created one of the nation’s strongest Democratic voter turnout machines in a state that will host a pivotal early caucus in 2016.
“Both Hillary and Harry are consummate politicians. They understand the game, they understand the way it’s played,” said former Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.), who backed Clinton’s 2008 presidential bid. “They are both smart enough and sophisticated enough not to pay attention to that sort of thing and look forward.”
Reid praised Clinton last year as someone who could be an even better president than her husband, though he declined to answer last week when reporters asked if she should run.
A source close to Reid said he personally called Clinton early this year to ask her to speak at his event.
“Of course it’s a big deal to have her here, and he has respected her and been friends with her for a long time,” the source said. “This is an issue she has worked on for a long time as well, so it was a natural fit to ask her.” Clinton had also been approached to appear at the event when she was secretary of state, but was unable to because of logistics and other considerations.
Her appearance Thursday shows that Clinton is learning from 2008, Lehane said. “You see her being much more aggressive, much more proactive in defining who she is and what she wants to talk about,” he said. “This is one of those in a series of events where she’s approaching it that way.”
Some people close to Clinton cautioned against reading too much into her appearance Thursday.
“I think the event just is what it is,” said Neera Tanden, head of the Center for American Progress, who was a former senior policy adviser to Clinton as first lady and during her 2000 Senate and 2008 presidential campaigns. “This event gives her an opportunity to talk about an issue she has been passionate about for a long time. It’s a great opportunity for her to talk substantively about an area that she knows really well.”
Major green groups also generally praise Clinton’s environmental background — although some have been clamoring for her to take a stand on the Keystone XL oil pipeline, which the State Department spent years studying under her watch. She has declined to discuss the issue publicly since late 2010, when she caused a stir with an off-the-cuff comment that the administration was “inclined” to green-light the project.
She’s not expected to bring up Keystone in her remarks Thursday. Supporters hope she will offer specifics on issues like renewing the expired wind production tax credit and curbing climate-warming pollutants.
“The audience will include hundreds of clean energy business people and advocates,” said Daniel Weiss, senior vice president for campaigns at the League of Conservation Voters, who was an organizer for Reid’s event when he directed climate strategy at the Center for American Progress. “They are interested in hearing her specific ideas about driving additional investments in clean energy in Nevada and elsewhere.”
In one environmental passage from her new book, Clinton reminisces about an incident in which she and Obama barged uninvited into a meeting among then-Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and leaders of India, Brazil and South Africa at the 2009 United Nations climate talks in Copenhagen. Obama had traveled there at the tail end of the gathering at Clinton’s urging and helped forge a voluntary agreement by major polluters to propose national plans to cut greenhouse gases.
“But there’s a lot more to do,” Clinton writes. “Building a broad national consensus on the urgency of the climate threat and the imperative of a bold and comprehensive response will not be easy, but it is essential.”
Speaking at a Clinton Global Initiative University panel in March, she said climate change requires a mass movement to demand political change, and that young people were more committed than their elders to addressing the problem.
CAP’s Tanden is one of several of Thursday’s scheduled speakers who have ties to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign, Bill Clinton’s presidency or the couple’s current work on the Clinton Global Initiative. They include Podesta, who is now a senior counselor to Obama on climate issues, and Clinton Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros. Clinton Climate Initiative CEO Dymphna van der Lans is also speaking.
“This is probably one of those Woody Allen political moments where 80 percent of it is just showing up and being there,” said Lehane, who has attended Reid’s event twice, including with Steyer last year. “If you consider this an incredibly important issue, your physical presence there is representative and conveys that thought.”
By Dan Friedman
September 3, 2014, 1:34 p.m. EDT
Hillary Clinton will mark the 13th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in part by headlining a fundraiser for a group that monitors federal programs designed to help Sept. 11responders, survivors and family members.
The group, 9/11 Health Watch, announced Wednesday that the former First Lady will be a special guest at the Sep. 16th event, which is hosted by the New York State AFL-CIO and other groups.
It will be held in the United Federation of Teachers' Manhattan headquarters.
Clinton’s appearance at the 9/11 event will occur shortly after Hillary and Bill Clinton return from a Sep. 14 steak fry hosted by Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin in Iowa, a stop that is fueling expectations Hillary will launch a 2016 presidential bid.
She’s said she will make a decision on whether to run this year.
The Sept. 16 fundraiser will avoid overt electoral politics, but it has political significance.
Though she was Secretary of State when the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act passed in 2010, Clinton represented New York in the Senate on Sept. 11, 2001, and worked to win benefits for responders and family members of victims -- work of which she'd surely like to remind voters.
The Zadroga Act expires in 2016, making the renewal of the legislation a potential presidential campaign issue.
By Anne Gearan
September 3, 2014, 4:29 p.m. EDT
Hillary Clinton, making her first return to the State Department since stepping down as secretary of state early last year, was among five of the seven living former secretaries of state gathered Wednesday to break ground for a new Diplomacy Center.
Loop fans may have thought that the State Department already was the Diplomacy Center, but apparently no — that title is reserved for a long-delayed museum that will sit just outside the hulking Foggy Bottom headquarters and will, unlike the main building, be open to tourists.
The museum, described by State as “an extraordinary glass jewel box that will be pleasing to the eye by day and softly illuminated through the evening,” is still a work in progress. The $50 million or more in private sector donations to build it aren’t all in yet, and the speakers at Wednesday’s fete avoided being too precise about when the center might actually open. (In May, the Loop shared some cool artifacts that will be displayed.)
While Clinton’s every move is always a news event these days (maybe she’ll drop another 2016 hint!), it was 91-year-old Henry Kissinger who pretty much stole the show as he hoisted his shovel into the dirt and hammed it up for the crowd.
“We want people who come to this center to understand what diplomacy is all about,” Clinton said, including how the art form has evolved “from Benjamin Franklin to John Kerry and beyond.”
Madeleine Albright, who hatched the idea for the center in 1999, beamed. Colin Powell and James Baker were also there to help shovel.
“Humbling company,” Kerry tweeted as the program began.
“This day has been a long time in the making,” Albright said, a delicate reference to the project’s early years, when the Bush administration largely ignored it.
After the museum plan languished during the Bush years, Albright pressed Clinton to jump-start the project, and Clinton assigned staff to spearhead the fundraising.
Former secretaries George P. Schulz and Condoleezza Rice did not attend on Wednesday. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said they were invited but could not make the event.
CNN: “Henry Kissinger loves joking about Hillary Clinton 2016”
By Dan Merica
September 3, 2014, 4:49 p.m. EDT
Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger used a short speech at the State Department on Wednesday to joke about the prospect of Hillary Clinton running for President in 2016.
Standing on stage with five other former or current secretaries of state, Kissinger -- who served as secretary of state under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford -- highlighted the work of diplomats and foreign service officers as he spoke at the groundbreaking for the United States Diplomacy Center, a museum set to honor diplomatic work.
He then, however, dropped a slight joke about the prospect of Clinton running for president.
"We all know that we will never do anything more challenging in our lives than to serve these objectives," Kissinger said. "I would say all of us, except one."
Clinton, who served four years as President Barack Obama's top diplomat, is widely considered the frontrunner for the Democrat's presidential nomination in 2016. She has hinted at thinking about running for the job and has a cadre of groups organizing around the possibility that she runs.
Joining Kissinger and Clinton on stage for the groundbreaking were former secretaries James Baker, III, Madeleine Albright, and Colin Powell -- along with current Secretary of State John Kerry.
During her short remarks, Clinton heaped praise on her colleagues and told the audience that Kissinger has "written the book on diplomacy."
While Kissinger's joke was not an obvious joke about Clinton, the former top diplomat has been known to tease his successor about running for president.
Shortly after Clinton left the State Department in 2013, Kissinger gave a nod to Clinton 2016 while presenting an award to the former first lady.
"At least four secretaries of state became president," Kissinger joked during remarks at the annual Atlantic Council awards dinner in Washington. "And that sort of started focusing my mind even though there was a constitutional provision that prevented me from doing it. I thought up all kinds of schemes to get around that."
Then, adopting a more serious tone, he continued. "I want to tell Hillary that when she misses the office, when she looks at the histories of secretaries of state, there might be hope for a fulfilling life afterwards."
Clinton did not directly respond to Kissinger on Wednesday, but did do so in 2013.
"When I became secretary of state, I spent a lot of time thinking about my illustrious predecessors -- not primarily the ones who went on to become president," Clinton said to laughter.
Kissinger recently told NPR that although Clinton "would be a good President," he would still vote for the Republican nominee.
Associated Press: “Christie and Clinton Making Visits to Mexico”
By Ken Thomas
September 3, 2014, 5:53 p.m. EDT
Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie are making overlapping trips to Mexico this week, signifying the importance of connecting with Hispanic voters ahead of potential presidential campaigns in 2016.
Clinton and Christie are not expected to cross paths in Mexico.
Christie arrived in Mexico City on Wednesday for three days of events with business leaders and a meeting with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto.
Clinton is scheduled to be in Mexico City on Friday to attend an annual event hosted by a financial supporter of the Clinton Foundation, billionaire Carlos Slim. The event will honor scholarship students helped by Slim's foundation.
Christie will be in Puebla on Friday, and a Christie spokeswoman says the governor and Clinton are not crossing paths.
Bloomberg: “Hillary Clinton Follows Christie to Mexico for Carlos Slim Event”
By Patricia Laya and Eric Martin
September 3, 2014, 3:54 p.m. EDT
Billionaire Carlos Slim’s contribution to the Clinton Foundation is paying off.
Hillary Clinton will be on hand Sept. 5 for Slim’s annual event to honor his own charity’s scholarship students. Clinton, the former U.S. Secretary of State and First Lady, will become the second potential 2016 presidential candidate to visit Mexico this week, following New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who arrived today.
A press official for Slim’s foundation confirmed Clinton will be a speaker at the event, which also features Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg, soccer star Ronaldinho and actor Antonio Banderas.
A Slim-backed charity contributed at least $1 million to the Clinton Foundation’s drive to raise $250 million for its endowment. U.S. law bans foreigners such as Slim, who was born in Mexico and continues to live there, from giving to political campaigns, so a possible Clinton presidential run wouldn’t be competing for his dollars.
Potential Republican and Democratic candidates are lining up to court Hispanic voters who proved pivotal in President Barack Obama’s 2012 election victory. Christie arrived in Mexico today for a three-day trade mission, and Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, an eye surgeon, went to Guatemala last month as part of a pro bono medical team that performed operations to restore the sight of poor patients.
“We have a really full schedule and a lot of extraordinarily interesting folks to meet with -- to be having conversations with -- in the government and private sector,” Christie said today in Mexico City at the start of a meeting with U.S. ambassador Tony Wayne. “I think this will be really productive not only for the state but for me to listen and learn while I’m here.”
Telmex Foundation
Slim, the world’s second-richest man, funds health, education and public-welfare initiatives through his telecommunications company’s Telmex Foundation and through the separate Slim Foundation. Slim trails only Bill Gates among the world’s richest people, with a fortune of $82.4 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Slim was honored in 2012 with a Global Citizen Award by the Clinton Global Initiative, one of the Clinton Foundation’s arms.
Politico Magazine: The Politico 50: “34: Allida Black & Adam Parkhomenko”
[No Writer Mentioned]
September 2014
[Subtitle:] The obsessives who started 2016 early.
Adam Parkhomenko has been ready for Hillary for more than a decade. Now, he’s trying to bring along the rest of us. Dazzled by the first lady as an elementary school kid in Virginia back in the 1990s, he tried to get her to run in the 2004 campaign, launching VoteHillary.org when he was just 17. He tried again as an actual staffer on her failed 2008 primary bid, then started an independent expenditure committee encouraging Democratic nominee Barack Obama to pick Clinton as his running mate—again, unsuccessfully. But this, at last, might be Parkhomenko’s moment. And his long obsession seems to have resulted, if not yet in a Clinton presidency, then in a genuine election innovation: an external, grass-roots campaign-before-the-campaign.
This latest version of Project Clinton started on the night of the 2012 election, when Parkhomenko exchanged emails with a friend from the 2008 Clinton team, George Washington University historian Allida Black, about an idea for a PAC—free from contribution limits and officially independent of Clinton herself—that would rally support and money while letting the would-be candidate stay mum on her presidential ambitions. By January 2013, Parkhomenko, 28, a reserve police officer who made a failed run for Virginia delegate in 2009, and Black, 62, an Eleanor Roosevelt scholar, had launched Ready for Hillary, the country’s first super PAC organized around a candidate who has yet to declare. It gives a whole new meaning to the “permanent campaign,” which now comes with donations, voter rolls and even a traveling bus (if not yet, officially, a candidate).
Black and Parkhomenko’s model is already being imitated by supporters of Sen. Elizabeth Warren and is drawing in Obama campaign veterans, including field directors Jeremy Bird and Mitch Stewart, as well as 2012 campaign manager Jim Messina, whose own super PAC, Priorities USA, is working closely with Ready for Hillary. Money—including from the likes of George Soros—is pouring in too, and the group has raised more than $8.2 million from some 90,000 donors and identified more than 2.5 million supporters to add to Clinton’s databases. So the campaign is ready for Hillary. Now, the question is, is she ready for it?
National Journal: “Elizabeth Warren Just Gave Republicans a Gift”
By Emma Roller
September 3, 2014
[Subtitle:] Whether she meant to or not, she criticized Hillary Clinton by omission.
In an interview with Katie Couric on Wednesday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren gave her reliable spiel about economic inequality, about raising the minimum wage, lowering student loan interest rates, and vanquishing the moneyed interests who are able to "tilt the playing field" against middle-class Americans.
When Couric asked her about former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's new job, making upwards of $3.4 million for the investment bank Moelis & Co., Warren just shook her head.
"How wrong can this be, that basically what's happening here is that people worked in Washington, and man, they hit that revolving door with a speed that would blind you...not because they bring great expertise and insight, but because they bring access," Warren said.
Softball. Couric then asked Warren if she thought Hillary Clinton is "too cozy" with Wall Street.
"I worry a lot about the relationship between all of them—regulators, government, and Wall Street—" Warren said.
"But what about Hillary Clinton in particular?" Couric interrupted.
"Well, I worry across the board," Warren responded.
The 2016 question inevitably came up in Couric's interview, but the question was a new twist on an old classic: if Hillary doesn't run, are there any circumstances under which Warren would even consider it?
Warren gave the same response she's been giving for months. "No, I am not running for president," she said. "It is absolutely critical right now that we focus on the 2014 elections."
Within minutes of the interview airing, the GOP's rapid response team published the Hillary clip, headlined, "Warren: 'I Worry' About Cozy Relationship Clinton And Others Have With Wall Street".
That characterization isn't unfair, but Warren certainly didn't single out Clinton in her comments. Then again, Warren didn't do anything to separate Clinton from people like Cantor.
Politico: “Cantor's ticket to Wall St: A one-way ride?”
By Ben White
September 4, 2014, 5:09 a.m. EDT
NEW YORK — Eric Cantor made it clear to potential Wall Street employers that he wants to return to political life. But given where Wall Street currently stands in the regard of the American people, that may be an impossible fantasy, experts say.
The corridor between Wall Street and Washington once allowed bankers and politicians to move relatively easily back and forth, filling up on cash in the financial world then shuttling back to positions of power and influence. Now it is much more of a one-way street.
Leave for the lucrative world of investment banking and you may never be able to go home again. Just ask Mitt Romney, whose millions from Bain Capital helped derail what many viewed as a potentially winning presidential campaign against a vulnerable incumbent running in a very weak economy.
The nation is very much in the grip of a populist, anti-Wall Street sentiment that runs deeply through both political parties — much the way it did after the crash of 1929. And it makes moving between the two worlds extremely difficult, if not impossible, historians say.
“In the 1920s, the House of Morgan had enormous influence in Washington and basically ran economic policy,” said Charles Geisst, a Wall Street historian at Manhattan College. “After the crash, you did not see that kind of influence again for at least 30 years. That is what is happening now. If you go and you take Wall Street money, that can be the end for you.”
Larry Summers found this out in a very painful way when his candidacy to lead the Federal Reserve fell victim to a campaign by liberal Democrats enraged by his work for and close ties to Wall Street. Among Hillary Clinton’s biggest headaches are her ties to New York financiers and the millions she has earned in speaking fees from the likes of Goldman Sachs and other big banks.
Clinton keeps trying to come up with ways to talk about her wealth, and how she earned it, without turning people off. She has not found a way. And that may be because there isn’t one. Clinton supporters now say her best bet is to not talk about her money at all. And while Wall Street cash may not keep the former secretary of state out of the White House, it will make getting there much harder.
The difficulties extend from elective to appointed office.
When Tim Geithner left the Treasury Department to join private equity firm Warburg Pincus, he endured taunts that he was cashing in on his government experience and connections. Geithner, viewed as a potential future candidate for chairman of the Fed, felt compelled to say when he left government service that he had absolutely no plans to return.
Even current Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, a career government worker who spent a brief period in largely noncontroversial positions at Citigroup, found his Wall Street tenure a subject of intense derision during his confirmation process. And Fed Vice Chair Stanley Fischer, one of the most respected central bankers in the world, came in for heavy criticism after his nomination last year over his tenure at Citigroup. Ruth Porat, the highly respected chief financial officer at Morgan Stanley and among the most powerful women on Wall Street, withdrew her name from consideration for the No. 2 job at Treasury when it became clear her confirmation process could turn into a nightmare.
All this is the result of a financial crisis that wiped out trillions in wealth, drove unemployment up to 10 percent and crushed the value of Americans’ most prized possession: their homes.
Every crisis that comes out of the housing sector leaves much more lasting scars than other downturns, economic historians say. The big stock market crash of 1987 quickly vanished from memory because it did not deeply punish most Americans. That meant that in the 1990s, the likes of Goldman Sachs’ Robert Rubin could become stars of the Bill Clinton White House and part of Time magazine’s famous “Committee to Save the World” cover spread, along with Alan Greenspan and Larry Summers.
But the 2008 crisis struck much deeper. And the public lays blame right at the feet of Wall Street banks that packaged up piles of risky mortgages bought with borrowed money and sold in complex securities that failed with devastating impact.
Couple that with the lack of prosecution of any senior bankers and the general perception that Wall Street reform has done little to change the industry and you have a clear explanation for why having “banker” on your résumé right now can be a political career killer.
According to a Harris poll in 2012, four years after the crisis, 70 percent of Americans believed people on Wall Street would be “willing to break the law” if it meant they could make more money. More recent surveys have not shown much improvement in perceptions of Wall Street, according to Karlyn Bowman, who follows public opinion for the American Enterprise Institute. In an NBC News/Wall Street journal poll conducted in July and August of this year, 21 percent had a positive impression of Wall Street.
“The mood about Wall Street has not improved significantly even as optimism about the economy has increased,” Bowman said. “You rarely see the kind of fear we saw in public opinion in 2008 and 2009, and it takes the public a long time to recover from something like that — and people are still very sour toward Wall Street.”
But Cantor supporters argue that the former House majority leader is going to a different kind of bank in Moelis, a smallish boutique that focuses on advising companies or mergers and acquisitions and does not have the kind of high-flying trading desks or rely on borrowed money to fund operations in the ways that Wall Street reform aimed to fix. Moelis is hardly “too big to fail,” these people say.
And Ken Moelis hired Cantor, people close to the matter say, because of his ability to make complex deals — not because of any influence he could peddle with regulators or members of Congress.
It was something Cantor emphasized in his talks with Wall Street executives: He did not want to lobby on regulation or join the kind of bank that often finds itself as the punching bag of politicians like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on the left or Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on the right. And analysts say the former Hill power broker will certainly add some value.
“Washington is motivated by power. Wall Street by financial success. They don’t speak the same language. Cantor serves as the translator,” said Brad Hintz, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Hintz added that “Cantor is being hired for the insights he can provide clients on the political landscape and its potential impact on their merger plans.”
And Cantor defenders say he is not exactly raking in massive cash.
The former congressman’s initial pay package, with a minimum value of around $4 million over two years, is indeed hardly mammoth by the inflated standards of Wall Street, where top executives and traders can make over $40 million a year and hedge fund titans sometimes top $1 billion annually.
And Cantor could wind up having a successful run at Moelis. There are plenty of examples of former politicians who made the move to Wall Street and found success as client ambassadors and executive operators rather than mere influence peddlers. Former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm’s tenure at UBS fits this model as does Bill Daley’s at JPMorgan Chase and more recently Peter Orszag’s tenure at Citigroup.
But Daley’s latest attempt at a return to Washington, as President Barack Obama’s chief of staff in 2011, ended in disaster and resignation in just a year. Orszag takes constant criticism that his lucrative pay package is the result of his ties to the Obama administration, something he roundly rejects.
And Cantor’s hopes for a return to politics as soon as the 2017 Virginia governor’s race seem especially audacious.
While he likely won’t find himself trading mortgage-backed securities or pursuing leveraged buyouts, Cantor will almost inevitably find himself working on deals that wind up slicing some jobs while he earns the kind of pay that will make for easy attack ads in a primary or general election for governor even in a relatively conservative state like Virginia.
“I’d say he would still have a good shot in a state like Virginia,” Geisst said. “But you have conservatives there now who oppose the Export-Import Bank and anything like it, and they could wind up blocking him.” Cantor was once a key advocate for the Ex-Im bank.
And the voting public is not likely to make the kind of fine distinctions between what Moelis does and what other Wall Street banks do. “People are not going to think of it that way,” Bowman said. “They view all of Wall Street the same way.”
All of which means Cantor better enjoy his new career because he may be stuck with it.
Calendar:
Sec. Clinton's upcoming appearances as reported online. Not an official schedule.
· September 4 – Las Vegas, NV: Sec. Clinton speaks at the National Clean Energy Summit (Solar Novis Today)
· September 5 – Mexico: Sec. Clinton speaks at Carlos Slim’s charity event (Bloomberg)
· September 9 – Washington, DC: Sec. Clinton fundraises for the DSCC at her Washington home (DSCC)
· September 12 – New York, NY: Sec. Clinton headlines a DGA fundraiser (Twitter)
· September 14 – Indianola, IA: Sec. Clinton headlines Sen. Harkin’s Steak Fry (LA Times)
· September 16 – New York, NY: Sec. Clinton headlines a 9/11 Health Watch fundraiser (NY Daily News)
· September 19 – Washington, DC: Sec. Clinton fundraises for the DNC with Pres. Obama (CNN)
· October 2 – Miami Beach, FL: Sec. Clinton keynotes the CREW Network Convention & Marketplace (CREW Network)
· October 6 – Ottawa, Canada: Sec. Clinton speaks at Canada 2020 event (Ottawa Citizen)
· October 13 – Las Vegas, NV: Sec. Clinton keynotes the UNLV Foundation Annual Dinner (UNLV)
· October 14 – San Francisco, CA: Sec. Clinton keynotes salesforce.com Dreamforce conference (salesforce.com)
· October 28 – San Francisco, CA: Sec. Clinton fundraises for House Democratic women candidates with Nancy Pelosi (Politico)
· December 4 – Boston, MA: Sec. Clinton speaks at the Massachusetts Conference for Women (MCFW)