Correct The Record Thursday November 6, 2014 Morning Roundup
Correct The Record Thursday November 6, 2014 Morning Roundup:
Headlines:
USA Today opinion: David Brock: “David Brock: GOP extremists riding to Democrats' rescue”
“The Clintons stood up for an inclusive national party, tirelessly campaigning across the Midwest and South. And Democratic donors and outside groups stood up, ensuring our candidates were financially competitive to the end.”
USA Today: “Clinton backers, Democrats gear up for 2016”
“Groups backing Hillary Rodham Clinton's likely candidacy, for instance, plan major gatherings with donors in the weeks ahead. On Nov. 20, a super PAC called Correct the Record will hold a lunch with current and prospective donors in New York City.”
Bloomberg: “Republicans Tie Hillary Clinton to Democratic Losses”
“‘Hillary Clinton worked for Democrats across the country because she believes in an all–inclusive Democratic Party,’ said Adrienne Elrod, communications director for the pro-Clinton super-PAC Correct the Record. ‘Hillary Clinton’s commitment to support, strengthen and grow our Democratic Party was clear as she made 45 midterm-related political stops where she stood with Democrats and shared her vision of what our nation needs for the future.’”
New York Times: “Swamped in a Red Surge, Southern Democrats Contemplate Their Rebuilding Plans”
“Burns Strider, a native Mississippian who has advised the Democratic Party on faith issues, spent Tuesday night watching the election returns with a couple of other Democratic consultants and a bottle of small-batch bourbon. It was that kind of night.”
“The super PAC Ready for Hillary spent the last two years mobilizing a grassroots network of activists on her behalf, while the opposition research group American Bridge has developed a team focused on rapid response on her behalf.”
Washington Post: “Why the Senate GOP takeover might actually help Hillary Clinton”
"'These two are the most popular Democrats in America, and they put that popularity on the line for folks in trouble in a bad year,' Begala said."
New Republic: “It's Up to You Now, Hillary”
“The GOP’s big showing yesterday ought to in some ways excite Clinton. An emboldened Republican Party is likelier than a one-vote majority to overreach, as it did in 2011, and set itself up for an unflattering contrast two years from now.”
Forbes senior political contributor Rick Unger: “Hillary Clinton Wins Big In 2014 Midterm Elections”
“Standing, metaphysically speaking, just out of view on the many stages where Republican winners gave victory speeches and inside the hotel ballrooms where happy Republican supporters ate, drank and were merry, was the one person who may have been the biggest winner of the night— Hillary Rodham Clinton.”
Reuters: “Election results could boost Republican governors, Clinton campaign for 2016”
“The sweeping Republican triumph in the midterm elections boosted the 2016 presidential prospects of three of the party's highest-profile governors, but Democrats on Wednesday said there also could be a silver lining for Hillary Clinton's White House hopes.”
The Hill blog: Ballot Box: “Ryan: Midterms show Clinton 'not inevitable'”
“Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said Wednesday that the election results mean Hillary Clinton is ‘not inevitable.’”
National Journal: “Elizabeth Warren's Supporters See Vindication in Dems' 2014 Debacle”
“Warren's supporters say the party fell short because it failed to emphasize the Massachusetts senator's message of economic populism—and that pushing that message is the road back to congressional control.”
Daily Caller: “With Eyes On Rand And Hillary, John Bolton Says He Is Mulling Presidential Bid”
“John Bolton, the former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, tells The Daily Caller he is considering a run for president in 2016 as a Republican.”
Articles:
USA Today opinion: David Brock: “David Brock: GOP extremists riding to Democrats' rescue”
By David Brock
November 5, 2014, 6:39 p.m. EST
[Subtitle:] With the Republican Tea Party Caucus on the loose, the public will not like what it sees.
At the risk of being seen as happiest in war, in the wake of the midterms I believe Democrats should avoid intramural recriminations, hew to the old adage that there's a silver lining in every cloud and focus now on the tremendous -- and potentially historic -- political opportunities before us in two years.
I won't dwell on what is already known: The 2014 midterms were fought on unpromising grounds for Democrats, to say the least. It was the second midterm of a presidency, when losses in Congress are almost inevitable. The Senate seats up this time were mostly in the South and border states. It was impossible for our candidates to articulate the case for President Obama's achievements in the face of Republican negativity and scare tactics.
So onto the good news: With few exceptions, our candidates ran strong races in this adverse climate and ably stood up for Democratic values. The Clintons stood up for an inclusive national party, tirelessly campaigning across the Midwest and South. And Democratic donors and outside groups stood up, ensuring our candidates were financially competitive to the end.
Republican candidates ran a wolf in sheep's clothing strategy, misrepresenting themselves as moderates to get power. Republicans like Cory Gardner, Scott Walker and Joni Ernst all disavowed their long history of opposing abortion in all circumstances. Republicans not only have no economic agenda, they claimed to support popular parts of the Democrats' agenda that they have long opposed. Republican candidates across the country shifted leftward on Medicare, Social Security, reproductive rights, energy policy, poverty and the minimum wage.
We have seen this movie before: In 2010, Republicans said they would stick to economics if they won the House, but among the first bills they passed were three that restricted women's rights.
Republicans had planned to run against Obamacare this year, but in recent weeks, their attacks lessened. Republicans struggled to articulate their opposition because they know Obamacare is here to stay. Americans want to keep it.
When the clock struck twelve Tuesday night, the Republican presidential contest began, and the 2016 Democrats had something to run against: the Republican Congress. Played right, both can be a gift that keeps on giving to Democrats. We are not in charge anymore, and the truth is that the recalcitrant Republican House frequently made being in charge an exercise in futility.
The Tea Party caucus in the House is now stronger. The Republican presidential primaries are weighted to the right – and Senators Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Marco Rubio will invariably tack in that direction, exercising a gravitational pull over the internal processes of Congress. They will set off vicious rivalries, both among themselves and with the Republican older guard, which itself may fracture over which establishment horse to back in blocking a Tea Partier from the nomination. Mitch McConnell may run the Senate, but it often won't seem that way.
The setup for Democrats is: Will Republicans reject extremism? On issue after issue – rolling back health care, women's reproductive rights, voting rights, immigrant rights and opposing nominations – the GOP can either be discredited or they can be split in this cycle.
The same dynamic will unfold with respect to all of the pseudo-scandals the Republicans will gin up and investigate; already, loose talk of impeachment permeates the outer reaches of the conservative movement.
First, extremism. Then, corruption. The special interests that paid for this victory know that in all likelihood it will be short-lived, and thus they will behave like pigs at the trough. Their real agenda will be revealed when they seek to undo and rewrite regulations for their own benefit, such as undermining environmental protections and seek all manner of goodies from Senate appropriators.
Once established, the extremism and corruption of the Republican majority can be used to define the Republican presidential field. Meanwhile the internal Republican turmoil can be pointed to as a constant lesson of Republican incapacity for governance across the board.
As a first order of business, Democrats can begin to come back by highlighting the GOP's extremism at every turn, exposing their subservience to special-interest masters, debunking their scandal hoaxes and exploiting their conflicts and divisions.
USA Today: “Clinton backers, Democrats gear up for 2016”
By Fredreka Schouten
November 5, 2014, 7:05 p.m. EST
[Subtitle:] Pro-Clinton super PACs plan major donor outreach this month
WASHINGTON — Democratic strategists and donors Wednesday sought to quickly pivot away from their coast-to-coast midterm defeats, and prepare for the 2016 political battleground that includes the high-stakes presidential fight and more than two-dozen Senate races.
Groups backing Hillary Rodham Clinton's likely candidacy, for instance, plan major gatherings with donors in the weeks ahead. On Nov. 20, a super PAC called Correct the Record will hold a lunch with current and prospective donors in New York City. A day later, top donors to another pro-Clinton group, Ready for Hillary, will meet for a strategy session.
"When the clock struck 12, the Republican and Democratic presidential races sort of started, even though we don't know what the field looks like," said David Brock, the founder of pro-Democratic American Bridge, an opposition-research group. Correct the Record is an American Bridge arm focused on defending Clinton's record.
Another pro-Clinton super PAC, Priorities USA Action, is starting outreach to contributors "to begin building for the 2016 cycle," said Peter Kauffman, the group's spokesman. The group had avoided fundraising until after the midterms.
The rapid buildup among Democrats comes after Republicans swept control of the Senate and captured their biggest House majority in more than 80 years.
The GOP takeover may provide a boost to Clinton, who could use Capitol Hill as an election foil, observers say. "With both houses of Congress now controlled by the GOP, there will be a clear contrast between the parties that Priorities USA Action will help define during the 2016 presidential campaign," Kauffman said.
Both parties already have set their sights on the 2016 Senate battleground.
Of the 32 seats up that year, Republicans are defending 19. The list includes six first-term Republican senators from states President Obama won in 2012 : Sens. Ron Johnson in Wisconsin, Mark Kirk in Illinois, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Marco Rubio in Florida, Rob Portman in Ohio and Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire.
A seventh, North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr, is competing in a swing state Obama captured in 2008.
Top Republicans and the leaders of outside groups that helped bankroll their victory said they were acutely aware that the GOP legislators only had a two-year window to prove themselves to voters, and were eager to avoid the kinds of confrontations that led to the 2013 government shutdown
Republicans "now have the opportunity to earn the trust of the American people by putting pro-growth legislation on the president's desk," said Steve Law, the president and CEO of American Crossroads, one of the leading Republican super PACs.
Republicans also have made it clear that they are ready for the White House fight, too. Early Wednesday, the RNC blasted a 10-page memo to reporters with the subject line: "Hillary's Policies Were on The Ballot."
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, a likely Republican president contender, taunted Clinton on Twitter, posting pictures of her stumping for an array of failed Senate candidates with the hashtag #HillaryLosers.
Bloomberg: “Republicans Tie Hillary Clinton to Democratic Losses”
By Jonathan Allen
November 6, 2014
Republican Senator Rand Paul yesterday tied Hillary Clinton to Democratic losses in the midterm elections, tweeting with the hashtag “HILLARYSLOSERS” as an opening shot in the 2016 presidential contest.
The Republican National Committee and the Republican super-political action committee America Rising echoed the Kentucky senator’s line of attack, which centered on blaming Clinton for the defeat of Democratic senators for whom she campaigned. The message: Voters rejected Clinton.
The sharpened focus on Clinton raises the question of whether her stock went up or down after the Nov. 4 elections. And it’s a sign that Republicans want to draw her out so they can test her reflexes at a time when Democrats are divided over whether she should jump into the race now or wait until next year.
“Early shots across the bow test whether she really has improved as a candidate,” Republican strategist Mary Matalin said. They also allow Republicans to “assess her response mechanism” if she responds, see what role former President Bill Clinton takes on in defending her, invigorate potential primary challengers and tie her to President Barack Obama, “for whom distancing herself for a 2016 run is mandatory,” Matalin said.
Nick Merrill, a Clinton spokesman, declined to comment.
Campaign Stops
Clinton appeared on behalf of five losing Democratic Senate candidates, in Colorado, Kentucky, North Carolina, Georgia and Iowa, and at least three victors, in New Hampshire, Michigan and Minnesota. Several Democratic operatives said Clinton’s stops for Democratic candidates in the final weeks of the campaign showcased her loyalty and will help her unify the party behind her for 2016.
“Hillary Clinton worked for Democrats across the country because she believes in an all–inclusive Democratic Party,” said Adrienne Elrod, communications director for the pro-Clinton super-PAC Correct the Record. “Hillary Clinton’s commitment to support, strengthen and grow our Democratic Party was clear as she made 45 midterm-related political stops where she stood with Democrats and shared her vision of what our nation needs for the future.”
Democrats lost at least seven seats in the midterm elections, including contested races in the presidential battlegrounds of Iowa and Colorado.
Clinton Conclusions
Clinton should draw two main conclusions from the results, according to a Democratic strategist who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid angering the former secretary of state at a time when she is laying low.
First, this strategist said, Democrats were defending tough turf that they might not need to win the 2016 election. Outside of Iowa and Colorado, Democratic Senate candidates lost in Republican-heavy states, places like South Dakota and Montana that Clinton wouldn’t need to win the White House.
Second, Clinton has to find a way to persuade the American public she’s a tougher leader than Obama without distancing herself from him so much that she alienates a Democratic base that remains very loyal to him.
There are more warning signs for Clinton in both voter surveys and the final results of the races, said a Democratic pollster who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid criticizing the woman who is expected to be the party’s presidential nominee in 2016.
Campaigns matter, this pollster said, comparing the dysfunctional operations run by some of this year’s losers to the drama-wracked outfit Clinton presided over when she ran for president in 2008. Clinton will also have to find a way to energize and motivate a Democratic base that showed underlying weaknesses over the last year.
Also, Clinton has to talk more about the economy than Democratic candidates did in this election cycle, the pollster said. Exit polls showed that the economy was the No. 1 concern of people who voted in the midterm elections, and she needs to win those people over with a cogent economic message, this pollster said.
New York Times: “Swamped in a Red Surge, Southern Democrats Contemplate Their Rebuilding Plans”
By Campbell Robertson and Richard Fausset
November 5, 2014
NEW ORLEANS — Burns Strider, a native Mississippian who has advised the Democratic Party on faith issues, spent Tuesday night watching the election returns with a couple of other Democratic consultants and a bottle of small-batch bourbon. It was that kind of night.
The Republican wave on Tuesday washed over the whole country, including Massachusetts and Maryland, but it was in the South that the swamping of statewide Democratic prospects appeared most complete.
The rout went well beyond the Senate races — Republicans won all of those in the South except for a squeaker in Virginia and one in Louisiana that has gone to a runoff that Republicans are favored to win — and down to the state level, smothering hopes for strong Democratic farm teams.
Republicans won all seven governor’s races in the South, nearly all by double-digit margins. They expanded majorities in five Southern state legislatures; in the Tennessee Senate, the Republicans now outnumber Democrats 28 to five.
In the foggy hangover of Wednesday morning, Democrats in the South maintained in interviews that such Republican gains should not be considered permanent. But neither were they kidding themselves about the length and difficulty of the road ahead.
“You don’t rebuild Atlanta in a day,” Mr. Strider said.
After decades of decline from once-total control of the South, Democrats already had little left to lose before the election. Names of successful candidates past, like Carter, Nunn and Pryor, showed up in the loss column on Tuesday; Senator Kay Hagan of North Carolina came close but was defeated as well.
In perhaps the most emblematic victory, a Republican, Rick Allen, beat John Barrow of Georgia, the last white Democrat in the House from a Deep South state. His defeat was a testament to just how rare white Democrats have become in the region, a rarity that cuts across categories. In Georgia, according to exit polls by Edison Research, 80 percent of whites who did not graduate from college voted for David Perdue, the Republican Senate candidate. Among white college graduates, that number was not much lower, at 70 percent.
For Democrats and Republicans alike, there was a common culprit.
“It’s Obama,” Mike Beebe, a Democrat and the departing governor of Arkansas, said in his office at the State Capitol on Wednesday. “It wasn’t just Arkansas. It was all over the country. There’s only one common denominator.”
Still, the series of Democratic defeats that Mr. Beebe attributed to President Obama have been particularly overwhelming in his state. Four years ago, Arkansas had a congressional delegation that was five-sixths Democratic, a Democratic governor, a Democratic-controlled legislature and an all-Democratic slate of statewide officials. It will now be Republican from top to bottom.
While Democrats in the South may agree that this election was a rejection of Mr. Obama, there is less agreement on how or where to build back here. The conservative Deep South was never going to be the heart of Mr. Obama’s culturally liberal coalition. But many Democrats saw this next-generational appeal making inroads in New South states with increasingly diverse populations, like Georgia and North Carolina.
Kasim Reed, the mayor of Atlanta, said he still believed that this was the way forward for Democrats in Georgia.
“We needed to change the electorate,” Mr. Reed said. He faulted the campaigns of Michelle Nunn, who was following in her father’s footsteps in running for the Senate, and Jason Carter, a grandson of Jimmy Carter who was running for governor, for not spending more time and resources to register and turn out what he said were roughly 600,000 unregistered black voters in Georgia, and 200,000 unregistered Latinos.
Democrats like Mr. Reed remain adamant that Georgia is a state that could be in play, in spite of the decisive Republican victories on Tuesday. Many also believe that the older, rural, white working-class voters who were once the bedrock of the Democratic Party in the South are now permanently out of reach, and that attempts to attract them are a waste of time.
But others contend Democrats are doomed if they cannot appeal to a broad swath of Southern whites.
“In order to have even a chance to compete, something’s got to change for the Democrats in the South,” said Geoff Garin, a Democratic consultant and pollster. “Even with increased African-American and Hispanic participation, it’s simply not a viable situation to struggle to get above the mid-20s with white voters.” Bill Fletcher, a Democratic consultant who was raised in rural Tennessee, agreed that this year’s race was mainly a rejection of Mr. Obama, adding that his presidency had given rise to “a nasty strain of racism that many of us thought and hoped had gone away.”
But he said socially moderate, fiscally conservative candidates could still win in the rural South, with the right candidate and a strong economic message. After all, Ms. Nunn and Ms. Hagan both led among voters whose household incomes were less than $50,000 a year.
“I don’t think we have to go all in with a one-size-fits-all strategy,” Mr. Fletcher said. “A strategy that works in San Francisco is going to be by necessity different than the strategy that we need in rural Tennessee, rural Georgia or, for that matter, rural Florida.”
But Democrats were not the only ones considering the way forward. Some Republicans, while flush with victory, were fully aware that the whiter and older electorate that gave Republicans such a resounding victory on Tuesday could not be counted on forever, and are already planning to secure and even expand on their gains in the South.
“If we just assume we’re safe, we’re wrong,” said Henry Barbour, a Mississippi-based lobbyist and a member of the Republican National Committee. “Mississippi, like the rest of the country, is changing. If Republicans don’t do a genuinely good job of engaging African-Americans, Hispanics and Asians, women and young voters, it becomes much more plausible for a statewide Democrat from Mississippi to win.”
Mr. Barbour pointed to several lessons in this year’s bizarre Senate primary in Mississippi. He held up State Senator Chris McDaniel, a Tea Party candidate who nearly won the primary runoff, as the kind of divisive Republican who could threaten the party’s general appeal. On the other hand, Mr. Barbour pointed to the runoff victory of the incumbent, Senator Thad Cochran, which was due in part to a high turnout among black voters, as a potential model for an expanded Republican base.
The Election Day victory of Tim Scott, a Republican in South Carolina and the first black senator to be popularly elected from a Southern state, is another sign that the South’s most solid political fact — the strict correlation between race and partisanship — may yet be malleable.
For now, Mr. Strider is patiently enduring another round of obituaries for the Southern Democrat. They have become rather common these days. But whether out of shock or denial or fortitude, he insisted that such reports were greatly exaggerated.
“I’ve probably heard more eulogies during the time I’ve lived in D.C., about the death of this party or the death of this cause, than a choir at a First Baptist Church,” he said. “They always rise from the dead.”
By Matea Gold
November 5, 2014, 3:28 p.m. EST
In the aftermath of Tuesday’s crushing defeats, the Democratic donor class is already turning its attention to the 2016 presidential contest and ramping up what is expected to be a massive outside flanking operation to back an expected White House bid by Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The work started first thing Wednesday morning, when Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg’s team began making calls to secure donations for Priorities USA Action, the super PAC that will serve as the big-money advertising vehicle for Clinton.
Andy Spahn, a political strategist who advises Katzenberg and other clients, said that he has started reviewing donor lists and calling wealthy Democratic backers to get their commitments. He and the DreamWorks Animation chief plan to travel around the country to meet with potential contributors in person.
“We will reaching out in the weeks ahead to set up one-on-ones and meet-and-greets to talk about the urgency of the task ahead,” Spahn told The Washington Post.
“Priorities will start today," he added.
Along with Katzenberg and Spahn, a slew of other Priorities USA officials are beginning the early donor outreach, including board co-chair and former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, executive director Buffy Wicks and senior advisers Sean Sweeney and Paul Begala.
As part of their pitch, Priorities officials plan to walk through the impact the group had in 2012, when the super PAC supported President Obama's reelection and played a key role in shaping early perceptions of GOP challenger Mitt Romney. The message: it will be essential in 2016 to have ample resources available early in the cycle.
The super PAC will not begin collecting contributions unless and until Clinton announces her candidacy.
"Priorities USA Action officials will be engaging supporters over the next few months to discuss the critical role we played in helping reelect a Democratic president in 2012 and to begin building for the 2016 cycle," said Peter Kauffmann, a spokesman for the super PAC.
The group’s rapid kick-off illustrates how Democrats have come to embrace independent groups such as super PACs -- a turn-about from the disdain many had for such vehicles during the last two elections. This year, one of the top-spending groups was Senate Majority PAC, a super PAC run by top advisers to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, which poured more than $60 million into trying to protect Democratic incumbents.
Despite Tuesday’s losses, Spahn said he does not believe Democratic patrons will be reluctant to give to Priorities.
“I think our donors will double down,” he said, adding that they will be driven not only by the presidential contest, but “by the ambition to retake the Senate.”
Katzenberg, in particular, is intensely focused on using the super PAC to bolster Clinton. After 2012, he drove the effort to refashion Priorities into the premiere pro-Clinton vehicle for 2016.
The group now has a board stocked with powerful party figures, co-chaired by Granholm and former Obama campaign manager Jim Messina.
Priorities USA, which was largely dormant during 2014, is part of a constellation of independent groups already working to support her bid. The super PAC Ready for Hillary spent the last two years mobilizing a grassroots network of activists on her behalf, while the opposition research group American Bridge has developed a team focused on rapid response on her behalf.
Washington Post: “Why the Senate GOP takeover might actually help Hillary Clinton”
By Anne Gearan
November 5, 2014, 3:28 p.m. EST
The Republican takeover of the Senate could be good news for at least one Democrat: Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Clinton campaigned hard this fall for Democrats, working to boost the party’s effort to preserve its Senate majority — an effort that failed dramatically in Tuesday’s GOP midterm rout.
But many Democratic strategists said the switch to Republican control may have a silver lining for Clinton, helping her better define herself as she shapes a potential 2016 presidential campaign. By providing a convenient foil for her and other Democrats, a GOP-run Congress would make it less imperative for Clinton to highlight her differences with President Obama, these strategists said.
Obama’s damaged, lame-duck condition also makes Clinton the strongest Democrat left standing.
A Republican Senate is likely to “spend a lot of time trying to repeal some of the progress made in the Obama administration,” Democratic strategist Erik Smith said. “That would be a great situation for her, because she could both make the case against the Republicans while currying favor with the Obama base.”
But GOP adviser Stuart Stevens, the chief strategist for Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, said the notion that an all-Republican Congress is good for Clinton will not bear out.
“I don’t buy it,” he said, because Congress will pass legislation that Obama will then veto, and that will not leave Clinton much running room. “What’s she going to say? ‘I would have vetoed it, too, so I’m going to be the third term of Barack Obama’?”
Two years before the 2016 presidential election, Clinton is in the enviable but precarious position of being the most popular, most famous and most scrutinized contender for a race that everyone assumes she is already running.
The shadow campaign began in earnest Wednesday, when Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg’s team began making calls to secure donations for the Priorities USA Action super PAC, which aims to serve as Clinton’s big-money advertising vehicle.
Andy Spahn, a political strategist who advises Katzenberg and other clients, said he has started reviewing donor lists and calling wealthy Democratic backers to get their commitments. “We will be reaching out in the weeks ahead to set up one-on-ones and meet-and-greets to talk about the urgency of the task ahead,” Spahn said.
First, however, Clinton will have to overcome the short-term damage from Tuesday’s Democratic losses. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a likely presidential candidate in 2016, said Wednesday on CNN that the election result was “not only a repudiation of the president but, I think, really a repudiation of Hillary Clinton.”
The midterm vote holds lessons for Clinton about which issues most resonate with the grumpy 2014 electorate and which are likely to matter in an election that is still far off, according to political advisers and analysts who are close to the former secretary of state or are watching her. Most agreed that she must fashion a way to run against Washington — a task that will be easier with a GOP Congress.
The losses also raise doubts about whether the “Obama coalition” of youths and minorities will turn out for anyone but Obama. No candidate, including Clinton, is likely to win as large a share of the black and Hispanic vote as Obama did in 2008 or 2012. But Clinton probably would do better among whites in many states, while possibly expanding Democratic margins among women.
Democrats are hoping the new Republican Senate majority will quickly annoy voters by overreaching or contributing to Washington’s political paralysis. That environment could benefit other potential Democratic 2016 candidates, but perhaps Clinton most of all, strategists and backers said.
“The likelihood that a Republican Congress does either nothing or does the wrong thing I think is an opportunity for her,” said Tracy Sefl, a Democratic campaign veteran who is advising the independent pro-Clinton super PAC Ready for Hillary.
In the week before the election, Clinton stumped for Senate candidates in states including Iowa and New Hampshire, which will hold the first nominating contests in 2016. The Democratic Senate candidate in Iowa lost, but the reelection of Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D) in New Hampshire was one of the few bright spots for the party Tuesday.
Clinton spent her final day of campaigning with Shaheen in the state, which she won in the 2008 presidential primary after losing badly to Obama in Iowa. Then, as now, Clinton was considered the heir apparent to the Democratic mantle — a whiff of coronation that did not serve her well.
“There’s a lot to be learned from failure. She wasn’t elected, as we all know,” said Madison Waters, 22, who came to a rally in Nashua, N.H., on Sunday to see Clinton. “I think she was great then, but she’s even better now. She’s sharper and more focused.”
As she did throughout her energetic speaking schedule on behalf of Democrats this year, Clinton sprinkled her Nashua stump speech with personal asides and a long view to the future.
“When you look 20, 25 years out and you think — ‘What’s the country going to be like when she’s starting her adult life? What’s the world going to be like?’ — it really does focus your mind on what’s important,” Clinton said, referring to Charlotte, her newborn granddaughter.
She added that she and Bill Clinton “were raised to believe that if you work hard, the American dream was in your reach. You should not have to be the grandchild of a governor, or a senator, or a former secretary of state, or a former president, to believe that the American dream is in your reach.”
Those themes of in-this-together populism and middle-class promise seem sure to be a central part of Hillary Clinton’s platform if she runs. “When she talks about her grandchild, that makes her very personable,” Kevin Smith, 51, said at the Nashua rally. He said he supported Obama in 2008 but is likely to support Clinton now.
The most recent pre-election polling puts Clinton far ahead of potential Republican opponents. The numbers in the latest Washington Post-ABC News survey also show that Clinton remains a polarizing, if nearly universally recognizable, political figure.
When asked whether she would make a good president, 51 percent said yes and 41 percent said no. Just 8 percent said they had no opinion.
Republicans fare less well. For former Florida governor Jeb Bush, the numbers were 26 percent favorable, 51 percent unfavorable and 23 percent with no opinion. For Paul, 21 percent said he would be a good president, 44 percent said he would not and 34 percent had no opinion.
Bill Burton, a former Obama campaign strategist, said that with little room to run as an “outsider,” Clinton probably would tune her message to those of her Republican rivals.
“Her foil has really got to be the Republicans running against her,” he said. “It’s going to be really easy to run against what Rand Paul and [Sen. Marco] Rubio and those other guys are saying.”
Paul is already working hard to contrast himself with Clinton. As the scope of the Republican wave became clear late Tuesday, he posted pictures of her and losing Democratic candidates on Twitter with the hashtag #HillarysLosers.
Also damaged Tuesday was Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D), a long-shot presidential aspirant whose handpicked successor, Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown (D), was trounced by Republican businessman Larry Hogan.
Many Democrats want Clinton to put off any head-to-head combat for several months. A few advisers, however, have urged her to defy convention with a fast announcement after the midterm elections.
Clinton appears unhurried. She has said she will decide on a candidacy after Jan. 1.
Democratic strategist Steve Elmendorf, who is not advising Clinton, said she can afford to wait.
“There’s plenty of time,” he said, adding. “The reasons that some people accelerate the timetable is that they want the money” available to official candidates.
Clinton headlined Democratic events that raked in millions of dollars for others this year, and she would be expected to break fundraising records for a general election. Paul Begala, a Clinton White House adviser who remains close to both Clintons, said the couple put “money in the bank” politically with heavy schedules promoting Democrats nationwide this year.
“These two are the most popular Democrats in America, and they put that popularity on the line for folks in trouble in a bad year,” Begala said. “I am quite sure all this campaigning will put a sizable dent in Hillary’s post-State Department stratospheric poll numbers.”
Clinton said almost nothing about her four years as secretary of state while campaigning for Democrats this fall, perhaps in part because it might remind liberal voters of her hawkish foreign-policy leanings.
The post-election season will allow Clinton to address national-security issues more directly and probably to draw sharper contrasts with Obama. Clinton has gone public with her disagreement with Obama over his first-term reluctance to arm Syrian rebels and is expected to air other criticisms if she runs.
That sets up a potential candidacy very much in the centrist Democratic mode that Clinton naturally inhabits, several strategists said — family checkbook issues, job and worker security, women’s pay and health-care equality, plus a muscular projection of American strength abroad.
“The issues terrain in this election looks like it’s going to be a very good fit for a Clinton candidacy,” Burton said. “Given her experience with foreign policy and national security, and the economic issues, I think that she is particularly well suited for this moment.”
But Stevens, the former Romney adviser, cast doubt on that thesis. Democrats, particularly the motivated and more liberal base voters Clinton would need in a primary season, are likely to take a bitter lesson from 2014 that would not benefit her centrist persona, he said.
“I don’t think they’ll look at this and say, ‘These candidates didn’t win because they were too liberal,’ ” Stevens said. “That inherent caution that Hillary Clinton has will be seen as more of the same.”
New Republic: “It's Up to You Now, Hillary”
By Brian Beutler
November 5, 2014
[Subtitle:] The Republican wave puts all the pressure on Clinton to win in 2016
Tuesday night we saw what happens when polls are uniformly biased against a party that’s favored to win nonetheless. Those polls get aggregated, aggregators project the likeliest outcome, and the winning party beats that projection. Before the returns came in, the overwhelming consensus was that Republicans would win the Senate, but with a one- or two-seat majority. In the end, it looks like their margin will be four.
This says less about the merits of poll aggregating than narrative-driving pundits would have you believe. But the error was nevertheless profound. The practical differences between a 51-seat GOP majority and a 54-seat GOP majority are tremendous. And the person who should be most concerned about the difference is Hillary Clinton.
The most conventional, but also most well-grounded, assumption before Tuesday night was that Republicans would win a narrow, and thus short-lived, majority. As late as 9:36 p.m. last night, conservative writer Tim Carney wrote a short article headlined “Tonight’s darker omen for the GOP: Losing the Senate in 2016.”
At the time, the logic was unimpeachable. Republicans would enter the presidential election cycle with a paper-thin majority, and too many vulnerable incumbents to defend.
With 54 (likely) members, Republicans don’t by any means have an unbeatable majority. But for Democrats to make Mitch McConnell a one-term majority leader, they can no longer count on the 2016 map to do it for them. They’ll need the turnout pattern of the last six years to repeat itself one more time, and propel Democrats to victory basically everywhere.
That presents Clinton with an immense burden. Yesterday the best bet in politics was on a Clinton presidency, a Democratic Senate and a Republican House. Today, it might be on a Clinton presidency and a Republican Congress. Whereas one day ago, Democrats had decent reasons to believe they could recapture the Senate even if Republicans won the White House in 2016, today, they must know that if a Republican wins the presidency, his party will control the entire government.
The practical differences between Clinton presiding over a divided Congress and a fully Republican Congress aren’t great. The possibility that she’ll be negotiating with two Republican houses instead of one shouldn’t deter her or discourage any Democratic presidential hopeful.
To the contrary, the GOP’s big showing yesterday ought to in some ways excite Clinton. An emboldened Republican Party is likelier than a one-vote majority to overreach, as it did in 2011, and set itself up for an unflattering contrast two years from now.
Likelier, but not guaranteed. Republicans could just as easily figure out to behave. If they do, Clinton's margin for error will be vanishingly small. No Democrat wants to lose the election that returns to power a Republican Party that has grown significantly more reactionary since they last controlled the government under George W. Bush. But those are now the stakes.
Forbes senior political contributor Rick Unger: “Hillary Clinton Wins Big In 2014 Midterm Elections”
By Rick Unger
November 5, 2014, 4:18 p.m. EST
There is certainly no getting around the fact that the 2014 midterm election was, indeed, a wave victory for the Republican Party.
How else can we possibly explain gubernatorial victories for candidates like Governor Rick Scott in Florida, Larry Hogan in Maryland and Gov. LaPage in Maine—candidates who could only have reached the winner’s circle by being swept up in the GOP wave that lifted all Republican boats.
But Republicans around the nation were not the only big winners last night.
Standing, metaphysically speaking, just out of view on the many stages where Republican winners gave victory speeches and inside the hotel ballrooms where happy Republican supporters ate, drank and were merry, was the one person who may have been the biggest winner of the night—
Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Yes, I am all too aware that a few candidates who were given the Clinton stamp of approval—complete with multiple campaign appearances by Bill and Hilary—went down in flames.
However, anyone who would imagine that these loses were somehow predictive of how Secretary Clinton might fare in a presidential primary race for the nomination of her party or the 2016 general election is truly deluding themselves.
It was not the Clintons who were on trial last night—it was the current occupant of the White House who was sent a message of disapproval in no uncertain terms. It was Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid who was rejected by voters throughout the nation, including a great many whom have likely never even heard of Harry Reid.
So, how does Hillary benefit from the Democrat’s “Shellacking II- The Sequel”?
In case you haven’t noticed, Hillary Clinton has felt the inevitable pull of moving to her left over the past few weeks. This should surprise absolutely nobody given the time-honored tradition in both parties of candidates racing to the far sides of their political party so as to please the base that shows up to vote during primaries. Once the nomination is secured, each then furiously races back toward the center where one has the best chance to win the general election and the big prize—unless, of course, you are Mitt Romney who appeared to never get the memo on this.
As a part of Clinton’s commencing operation “please the liberals”, she found herself saying things—such as suggesting that businesses don’t create jobs—that were no doubt extremely uncomfortable for her to utter and now rest among the stack of Clinton comments she would like the opportunity to take back.
Still, such a pronouncement is not completely surprising as Clinton looks over her shoulder to see progressives who support alternative candidates, like Senator Elizabeth Warren, breathing hard down the one-time Secretary of State’s neck—even as Senator Warren continues to suggest that being president is not an ambition that interests her.
But how does the hard left wing of the Democratic Party—a real concern for Mrs. Clinton two days ago–look and feel today?
If anyone out there woke up on election day believing that an Elizabeth Warren—someone whom I greatly admire—candidacy could succeed in a 2016 general election for the presidency in a country that skews right of center, it would seem sheer folly to hold onto such a belief in the more sobering light of today.
If we learned anything yesterday, it is that—while anything is possible in life—this nation is just not likely to be of a frame of mind to put a Democrat in the Oval Office in 2016 if that Democrat is perceived as coming from the far left wing of the party.
And unlike a Republican Party that fields potential presidential nominees who are more likely to be ideological purist (I refer you to the 2008 and 2012 Republican ‘Caravan of Clown Candidates’), leading the party to ultimate defeat, Democrats tend to me more pragmatic in that department, understanding that it is far better to put a Democrat in the White House that may be a little too conservative for their tastes than it is to put a Republican in the big chair who is way too conservative for their taste.
As a result, last night’s election results should go a long way toward taking the pressure off Mrs. Clinton to move to uncomfortable positions as more progressive Democrats realize that a challenge from Clinton’s left will only force her into a losing posture.
Relieving that pressure and letting Hillary be Hillary is precisely what makes her one of the big winners of the 2014 midterm elections.
While the left-wing of the Democratic Party likes to point to the surprising nomination of a challenger to Clinton from the left in the guise of Barack Obama in 2008, and his eventual success at winning the presidency, I would caution that comparing the midterm results in 2006 to the midterm results of 2014 provides an extremely instructive lesson and sounds an important caution that Democrats should hear loud and clear.
The 2006 midterms brought a huge Democratic wave wherein the Democrats captured control of the Senate and the House of Representatives while, at the same time, taking a majority of the governorships and states legislatures away from the GOP. This was the wave, with an assist from some disasters that befell the Bush Administration, that made Barack Obama possible.
Clearly, this was not the result of last night’s election where the GOP gained control of the Senate, added to their majority in the House, managed a net gain of four Republican governors where they were expected to lose a few and, yes, turned a number of state legislatures red.
The times are different and the Democratic response must be different than it was in 2008.
Last night’s GOP sweep will make it easier for Hillary Clinton to remind potential challengers of this very different environment and…let me say it again…make it easier to let Hillary be Hillary.
As my friend Lanny Davis notes in his column today over at The Hill, the Bill Clinton presidency “proved there is nothing liberal about running up debt for our children and grandchildren to pay, who gave the Democratic Party the historic legacy that a progressive government can turn hundreds of billions of dollars of deficits into a surplus of nearly $1 trillion, which strengthened Social Security for this and future generations while also creating 23 million jobs that uplifted and empowered the poor and the middle class.”
If that isn’t a prescription for a successful Democratic candidacy in 2016, I don’t know what is. And if Hillary Clinton is not the most likely person to follow in those footsteps and fill that prescription, I don’t know who is.
Meanwhile, Andrew Romano of Yahoo News provides an excellent analysis of why some of the bigger wins by the Republicans last night, including some where the Clintons campaigned actively for a losing candidate, will not cause Mrs. Clinton any real harm should she be the nominee of her party in 2016.
“Let’s start with the map. Sure, the GOP won a remarkable number of races last night. But take another look. How many purple states did Republicans actually pick up? There was Cory Gardner’s victory in Colorado…There was Joni Ernst’s victory in Iowa. And there was Thom Tillis’s victory in North Carolina. The rest of the GOP’s Senate flips (Montana, South Dakota, Arkansas, West Virginia) and gubernatorial flips (Arkansas, Maryland, Illinois, Massachusetts) were in states that won’t really be contested in 2016. The Democrats flipped the governorship of Pennsylvania as well.’
Romano goes on to do a little math as it pertains to the 2016 presidential election:
“The math is just as bad for Republicans — and just as good for Clinton. In 2012, Mitt Romney won 59 percent of white voters, a higher share than Ronald Reagan’s in 1980 and George W. Bush’s in 2004. But Romney still lost to Obama. Why? Because America’s minority electorate is growing every year. To hit 50.1 percent in 2016, the Republican nominee will have to win a whopping 64 percent of the white vote on Election Day — or significantly improve the party’s standing among nonwhite voters, especially Hispanics. Otherwise, he or she will lose just like Romney.”
Consider just how hard it will be for a Republican presidential candidate to hit a number like 64 percent of all white voters when women, with the opportunity to elect the first female president of the United States and with a history of being supportive of Democratic presidential candidates, will be among those white voters.
Frankly, the only think that would seem to be able to derail Hillary Clinton’s march to the White House would be the kind of inter-party challenge from the left that would leave Clinton beaten and broken as she heads into the general election saddled with a wealth of sound bites that make her appear to be to the left of the departing President.
Last night’s election results should go a long way toward warning potential Democratic opponents of Mrs. Clinton, and their supporters, of the perils of mounting a challenge more likely to make a point than produce an alternative candidate. This is particularly true given that the midterm results make clear that a New Democrat like Clinton is very much in tune with where the heart of the country can be found—liberal on social issues while conservative on fiscal matters.
And while left-wing challenges to Hillary Clinton may feel good to some Democrats, and even work to make the eventual party nominee a tougher candidate, those willing to launch such a challenge might wish to first take a look at the list of potential people who will be vying for the Republican nomination who would stand to benefit from any such challenge. I suggest this because we now know that there are lots of persuadable voters out there who have shown their willingness to do exactly that.
Inside the Clinton camp, the results of the 2014 midterms no doubt feel like a large steam valve has been turned, allowing all that left-wing pressure to release and dissipate—something that should serve the Democrats well when we arrive at the next November contest in 2016.
And while it may not quite feel like it today, make no mistake—it is Hillary Clinton who emerged from a brutal election cycle for her fellow Democrats as the big winner in the larger picture.
Reuters: “Election results could boost Republican governors, Clinton campaign for 2016”
By Gabriel Debenedetti
November 5, 2014, 8:36 p.m. EST
The sweeping Republican triumph in the midterm elections boosted the 2016 presidential prospects of three of the party's highest-profile governors, but Democrats on Wednesday said there also could be a silver lining for Hillary Clinton's White House hopes.
The broad Democratic losses could give the former secretary of state a chance to take over the role of party leader from a wounded President Barack Obama and sharpen her image as the Democrats' 2016 savior. The results were widely seen as more of a referendum on questions about Obama’s leadership rather than a sweeping rejection of Democratic policies.
But the Republican successes also could help launch presidential campaigns for Governors John Kasich of Ohio and Scott Walker of Wisconsin, who won tough re-election battles, and Chris Christie of New Jersey, who campaigned nationally for the party as head of the Republican Governors Association.
With Tuesday's elections out of the way, the political spotlight quickly turns to the 2016 race. Clinton is the clear Democratic frontrunner, while at least a dozen possible Republican contenders are pondering a run.
Clinton's allies said Republican control of both chambers of Congress for the first time since 2006 would give her an opportunity to draw distinctions with Republicans while distancing herself from Obama.
The task of creating some distance from Obama was simplified by the resounding nature of the Republican victory on Tuesday, said Democratic consultant Hank Sheinkopf.
"People are not in love with the president today, nor should they be," he said. "It's going to be easier now."
And if Tea Party-backed conservative lawmakers like Texas Senator Ted Cruz, another potential 2016 contender, clash with the new Republican Senate leadership, Clinton could capitalize on any political fallout, allies said.
“Given the challenges of a Republican Congress and the president finding common ground, there is likely to be continued paralysis and frustration at the lack of activity in Washington to address pressing needs,” said Chris Lehane, a Democratic strategist who worked in Bill Clinton’s White House. “By being out of office, (she) will have the ability to make clear she is not only someone with a big idea - but someone with a track record of getting things done.”
CAMPAIGN-TRAIL SETBACKS
But while Clinton is a popular draw with Democrats on the campaign trail, the candidates she supported did not necessarily fare that well.
Of the 26 candidates Clinton either raised money for or appeared in public with, 12 won and 13 lost. Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu, with whom Clinton campaigned in early November, is headed to a runoff.
Among the unsuccessful Senate candidates Clinton appeared with in the closing days of the campaign were Kay Hagan in North Carolina, Michelle Nunn in Georgia, Bruce Braley in Iowa and Alison Lundergan Grimes in Kentucky.
Also having served as Obama's secretary of state, Clinton won't always find it easy to distance herself from his image and policies.
Gleeful Republicans were quick to point out Clinton's failures and tie her to the Democratic losses.
"Today voters sent a message to Pres. Obama & Hillary Clinton, rejecting their policies & often, their candidates," tweeted Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, another likely 2016 contender.
The Republican National Committee issued a memo titled “Hillary’s Policies Were On The Ballot.”
For Republicans, victories in tough re-election races in the swing states of Wisconsin and Ohio boded well for Walker and Kasich, while Christie's RGA played a big role in several races that broke for Republicans.
“What was unexpected was how so many Republican governors won. The return of the blue state Republican governor is a story that came out of last night,” said Republican strategist Kevin Madden, in reference to the color associated with Democrats. Madden worked on the campaign of 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney, who lost to Obama.
Christie has used his RGA position to prove he is still politically viable after January’s Bridgegate scandal in New Jersey, during which officials close to Christie were accused of shutting lanes leading to the George Washington Bridge, causing big traffic jams, to punish a local mayor who had not endorsed Christie in the state election.
Christie's large fundraising hauls for the RGA's election campaign were complemented on Tuesday by high-profile victories in Democratic and swing states like Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Maryland, and Massachusetts.
Appearing on five morning television shows on Wednesday, a happy Christie swatted away questions about what the wins might mean for his national ambitions.
“It’s way off, and my view on all this is that my job this year was to elect Republican governors and re-elect Republican governors,” he said on CBS. He has raised $106 million for the group since taking over in November 2013, the RGA said.
Madden said the victories would be useful for Christie in proving his political value, if not necessarily in appealing to Republican primary voters.
Walker, meanwhile, won his third consecutive expensive and high-profile race in a Democrat-leaning state, while Kasich won by a 31-point margin in a state often considered the most important in presidential contests.
No senator who is considering a White House bid was up for re-election on Tuesday, and Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the lone House of Representatives member seen as a likely candidate in 2016, easily kept his seat.
The Hill blog: Ballot Box: “Ryan: Midterms show Clinton 'not inevitable'”
By Peter Sullivan
November 5, 2014, 5:38 p.m. EST
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said Wednesday that the election results mean Hillary Clinton is "not inevitable."
Radio host Hugh Hewitt asked Ryan about Clinton's heavy campaigning for Democratic Senate candidates who went on to lose.
"It just tells you that she’s not inevitable," replied Ryan, a possible 2016 opponent of Clinton's. "I think she’s very beatable. I really do."
He went on to point to Clinton's record as secretary of State. "She’s the architect of the Obama foreign policy for the first four years, and look at how awful that is," Ryan said.
He also reached back to Bill Clinton's presidency. "When she was a policymaker, when her husband was president, her signature issue was single-payer healthcare, I mean to the left of ObamaCare," he said.
The Clintons' proposal to Congress was for an employer mandate to provide health insurance to employees, not a single-payer system. Their plan died in Congress.
Ryan is not the only potential presidential contender to use the midterms to go after Clinton. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Tuesday night that the results meant Clinton was "soundly rejected."
"If we can focus in the next two years on unifying, and bringing people into the fold, into the tent, winning converts, instead of focusing on shooting at each other, than I really think we can become a majority movement in this country," Ryan said.
Hewitt then asked if Ryan was basically announcing a run for president.
"No, I’m just announcing what we have to do as conservatives," Ryan replied.
National Journal: “Elizabeth Warren's Supporters See Vindication in Dems' 2014 Debacle”
By Emily Schultheis
November 5, 2014
Don't blame Elizabeth Warren for the Democrats' midterm defeat. Follow her back to victory.
That's the message progressives have for their fellow Democrats after Tuesday's widespread losses. Warren's supporters say the party fell short because it failed to emphasize the Massachusetts senator's message of economic populism—and that pushing that message is the road back to congressional control.
"Elizabeth Warren was the most popular Democrat on the campaign trail this cycle—in red states, purple states, and blue states," said Adam Green, cofounder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. "And that's because her economic populist message ... resonates everywhere."
It's just an initial shot, but it's a sign of things to come. As the party autopsies its 2014 loss, factions promise to further fracture as they debate what went wrong, who's to blame, and where to go next. And for progressives, that means a concerted effort to pull the party to the left.
But for the movement to gain traction, it needs a high-profile candidate for the 2016 presidential contest, someone who would run to the left of Hillary Clinton. Warren is the obvious choice, but she has repeatedly said she won't run.
With Democrats on the outs in Congress, however, those calls promise to get louder.
Warren's allies point to Tuesday night's results as proof that their preferred candidate has national appeal.
Warren hit the trail for Democratic candidates across the map this year, in deep-blue states like Oregon and red ones like West Virginia and Kentucky. She spoke about economic populism issues such as the minimum wage, fixing student-debt problems, and expanding Social Security, a message that worked in states across the ideological spectrum.
While Republicans immediately jumped on both President Obama and Hillary Clinton as the major losers of the night, Warren appeared to have a better track record in the races where she personally campaigned for candidates.
Plenty of candidates whom Warren campaigned for, including Martha Coakley in Warren's home state of Massachusetts, lost their races Tuesday: Warren backed many of the same Democrats in tight races that other top party surrogates did, and Democratic hopefuls Alison Lundergan Grimes in Kentucky and Natalie Tennant in West Virginia, for example, lost by huge margins.
But progressives tout the easy victories for other Warren-endorsed Democrats, including Sens. Al Franken of Minnesota, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, and Brian Schatz of Hawaii, as proof that Warren's policies are successful on the ballot. (Those candidates were all heavy favorites anyway, so it's a stretch to assign Warren responsibility for their victories, but the correlation—at least—is there.)
Democracy for America, another progressive group that's among Warren's biggest cheerleaders, sent an email to its supporters touting Warren-esque candidates like Merkley and Schatz.
"The bright spots in this election come from candidates who understood that the path to victory is to run hard on a populist progressive economic vision—Elizabeth Warren's vision for fighting and winning across America," the email said.
On the issues, allies note that Warren's positions won out in some red states even if Democratic candidates there didn't. Minimum-wage measures passed in four states—Alaska, Arkansas, South Dakota, and Nebraska—even as voters there favored Republican Senate candidates (in Alaska, Democratic Sen. Mark Begich is trailing his GOP opponent, though the race hasn't been called yet).
Charles Chamberlain, DFA's executive director, said the fact that minimum-wage measures passed even as Democratic candidates fell in some states shows that Warren's messaging and stand on issues could have helped Democrats who ultimately lost on Tuesday.
"Look, the same voters [who] voted to raise minimum wage in South Dakota voted to elect [Republican] Mike Rounds," he said. "The problem isn't what we stand for, it's who stands for us. Those Democrats [who lost] were not strong enough on our issues."
So are the results of the midterms enough to make Warren reconsider a presidential run? It was a rough night for Clinton—and as Republicans jump on her midterm record ahead of 2016, there could be an opening for a Democrat who's seen as more of an outsider. And for Warren, who will soon be in the minority in the Senate, seeking national office would certainly give her a bigger platform to compensate for her diminished clout in the upper chamber.
"If I were Sen. Warren I'd be thinking about, what is the strongest way for me to advocate for the change I believe we need to see in America?" Chamberlain said. "When you think about it—languishing in the minority versus leading the entire country—I think that's a real strong calculation she's going to have to make."
Erica Sagrans, the treasurer for the draft-Warren group Ready for Warren, which is ramping up its activities on behalf of the senator (and with which Warren has denied all involvement), said Tuesday's result "does change the calculation" for Warren because a presidential bid could "give more of a voice to her ideas and values."
Regardless, supporters say she'll have a role in shaping the overall Democratic message in 2016 no matter what her decision is—and that her influence on Clinton, for example, is already clear.
"Honestly, I don't know," Green said. "I do believe her current intent is not to run—but that's not to say that she has no role in the 2016 election."
Daily Caller: “With Eyes On Rand And Hillary, John Bolton Says He Is Mulling Presidential Bid”
By Alex Pappas
November 5, 2014, 4:23 p.m. EST
John Bolton, the former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, tells The Daily Caller he is considering a run for president in 2016 as a Republican.
“I have not decided,” Bolton said in an interview. “And I don’t have a timetable on that.”
But Bolton, who flirted with running in 2012, expressed a desire for a Republican presidential candidate who is capable of taking on likely Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on national security issues.
“Obviously, if the Democrats nominate Hillary,” he said, “her principle ‘qualification’ is her time as secretary of state. So being able to dissect and explain to the voters why she fails as a leader, I think is going to be critical for whomever is interested in the Republican nomination.”
He also suggested he’s partly driven to consider a run because of the rising influence of “isolationism” in the party.
“I don’t think I have to make a decision as early as some others do,” Bolton said, “but I do think the threat of isolationism is still there in the party. And I think that’s something that is of very much concern to me.”
Asked if he was referring to the libertarian-leaning Sen. Rand Paul, who is also expected to run for president, Bolton said: “I don’t personalize it so much.”
But Bolton went on to question whether Paul shares the same views on foreign policy as his father, former Texas Ron Paul. He was expressed incredulity about how Ron Paul recently gave an interview to “Russian state television” and said America doesn’t have “true democracy.”
“It’s just unbelievable,” Bolton said.
(In that interview, Ron Paul said: “Here at home, we don’t have true democracy. We have a monopoly of ideas that is controlled by the leaders of two parties. And they call it two parties, but it’s really one philosophy.”)
Bolton suggested Rand Paul will have to answer for statements like that made by his father.
“Ok, so does Rand Paul agree with that?” Bolton said. “We don’t really have true democracy here? I’d like to know the answer to that. This is the threat of isolationism. I think what you hear from Ron Paul is what the isolationist think, and so just asking his son what he thinks of everything his father says could be a full time business.”
Bolton said he plans to observe who gets in the presidential race, but for now, he’s not very satisfied with those often mentioned as likely candidates.
“Honestly,” he said, “I don’t see yet in the field — or of the people the great mentioner in the sky mentions — anybody who is really prepared to address the national security issues in the comprehensive way I hope they will be. Now, we don’t know who is in and who is out yet, so I want to see a little bit of what happens.”
More immediately, Bolton said he plans to continue ramping up his activities in the John Bolton PAC and SuperPAC. For the midterms, his PACs raised a combined $7.5 million. He endorsed 87 Republican candidates, contributed $470,000 directly to campaigns and spent $5 million on advertising.
Speaking of the midterm election results, which gave Republicans a majority in the Senate, Bolton said: “I think it was an overwhelming rejection of the president’s policies, but I think what was particularly interesting was the role that national security played in both in several specific elections but more broadly across the country.”
He specifically mentioned three GOP Senate candidates — Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Joni Ernst of Iowa and Thom Tillis of North Carolina — who he supported and won.
“I think where candidates — either because of their own backgrounds or their beliefs — stressed national security, they tended to do very well,” Bolton said.
“I think the general concern across the country that the Obama administration was not protecting America — whether it is from international terrorism or border security or Ebola or just in general the impression the world was getting more disorderly and therefore more threatening — it was a very powerful theme across the country,” Bolton said.
Part of Bolton’s efforts are aimed at showing candidates that people do care about national security.
“Political operative have been wrong for so long,” he said. “You know, they say, ‘oh foreign affairs are so distant from people’s everyday lives and doesn’t affect them.’ I give American voters more credit.”
“I just think they’re practical people,” he said. “They know they’re not going to get involved in the intricacies of some foreign crisis — that’s what they expect the people they send to Washington to do — but what they expect from the people they send to Washington, the president especially, is to be able to resolve these problems in a way that protects America and its people and its interest. And so when they see that not happening, or fear that it’s not happening, they equate it with a failure of leadership, and they respond accordingly.”
Calendar:
Sec. Clinton's upcoming appearances as reported online. Not an official schedule.
· November 14 – Little Rock, AR: Sec. Clinton attends picnic for 10thAnniversary 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)