Correct The Record Wednesday September 3, 2014 Morning Roundup
Correct The Record Wednesday September 3, 2014 Morning Roundup:
Headlines:
Media Matters for America: “Reported Central Contentions Of New Benghazi Book Already Debunked”
“A new book that seeks to damage Hillary Clinton over the 2012 attacks in Benghazi reportedly relies on long-debunked conservative myths.”
Wall Street Journal: “Maryland Governor Inches Toward Presidential Run”
"Aides to Mr. O'Malley said it is possible donors misconstrued the governor's unwillingness to rule out a bid against Mrs. Clinton as a clear statement he would run against her. "Right now, he is thinking long and hard about this, and he will make his decision irrespective of what other people do," an O'Malley aide said."
MSNBC: “Glenn Beck: ‘Hillary Clinton will be the next president’”
“Beck, who left Fox News in 2011 to start his own media empire, predicted this week that the former secretary of state will be the next president, and not through any kind of trickery or skullduggery.”
The Blaze: “Why Glenn Beck Said Hillary Clinton ‘Will Be the Next President of the United States’”
“‘There’s no vision,’ Beck said of the GOP. ‘It’s all about the past, past, past. Where is the vision for the future?’”
National Journal: “6 Things to Watch When Hillary Heads to Vegas”
“Hillary Clinton is about to give her first energy and climate speech of a publicity tour that many believe is the springboard to a presidential campaign.”
The Advocate opinion: Kerry Eleveld: “Clinton’s New Challenge: The Millennials”
“While LGBT voters have a long history with Clinton, millennials are still just getting to know her. She needs to give them a reason to go to the polls, and looking like a leader on LGBT issues is one way to do it.”
“This all may qualify as one of those white women’s problems, but it is entirely possible that Hillary is the lens through which many of us see ourselves.”
Politico: Roger Simon: “Is Mitt Romney really a loser for life?”
“Republicans are already looking past their biggest weakness — the current Republican field — to what they believe will be their biggest strength: Hillary Clinton as the standard-bearer for Obama’s third term.”
Politico: “Bill Clinton to raise money for Mary Landrieu”
“Bill Clinton is set to headline a fundraiser for Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu on Saturday, capping a whirlwind week of campaign appearances that will take the former president from the Northeast to the South.”
New Haven Register (Conn.): “Bill Clinton rallies party faithful in New Haven event for Gov. Malloy”
“Alluding to her [Sec. Clinton’s] expected run for president in 2016, New Haven Mayor Toni Harp welcomed the ‘homecoming for the first President Clinton.’”
BuzzFeed: “What Exactly Is Amy Klobuchar Up To?”
“Furious travel schedules like these are usually meant to do one thing: produce a big spike in a politician’s influence.”
The Daily Beast: “Gail Sheehy Books Passage to the Past”
“She [Sheehy] nevertheless declares herself to be sympathetic to the former secretary of state. ‘I don’t find her to be particularly likeable, but I am a great admirer and I always like to see her succeed.’”
Articles:
Media Matters for America: “Reported Central Contentions Of New Benghazi Book Already Debunked”
By Matt Gertz
September 2, 2014, 4:16 p.m. EDT
A new book that seeks to damage Hillary Clinton over the 2012 attacks in Benghazi reportedly relies on long-debunked conservative myths.
On September 9, WND Books will publish Aaron Klein's The REAL Benghazi Story: What the White House and Hillary Don't Want You to Know. The book's release is the latest salvo from a conservative cottage industry that aims to make money and political hay out of both Benghazi and Clinton smears.
Klein, a senior reporter for the birther site WND, is not a credible author -- one of his recent books portrayed President Obama as a "Manchurian Candidate" whose autobiography was ghostwritten by Bill Ayers.
The Washington Examiner's Paul Bedard, who reviewed an advance copy of Klein's Benghazi book, reported that Klein argues "Clinton was unwilling to provide additional security to the diplomatic outpost and even played a role in sending Stevens to his 'doomed mission.'"
Klein's contention that Clinton "was unwilling to provide additional security to the diplomatic outpost" seems to reference the long-debunked conservative claim that the then-Secretary of State personally signed off on cables rejecting requests for additional security. When congressional Republicans first made that claim in April 2013, diplomatic reporters noted that every cable sent to the State Department from overseas facilities is addressed to the secretary, and every cable sent from the State Department is signed by the secretary, even though the secretary rarely reviews them.
In her 2014 memoir, Clinton wrote that she had never seen the cables in question, stating, "That's not how it works. It shouldn't. And it didn't."
Klein's claim that Clinton "played a role in sending Stevens" to his death in Benghazi has also been debunked. The State Department's Accountability Review Board reported that Stevens "made the decision to travel to Benghazi independently of Washington, per standard practice," with the trip's timing "driven in part by commitments in Tripoli." Gregory Hicks, who was Stevens' deputy, also testified before Congress that the ambassador "chose to go" to Benghazi.
Wall Street Journal: “Maryland Governor Inches Toward Presidential Run”
By Peter Nicholas
September 2, 2014, 7:57 p.m. EDT
[Subtitle:] Fundraisers Say Gov. Martin O'Malley Tells Them Hillary Clinton Candidacy Wouldn't Stop Him
ANNAPOLIS, Md.—Democratic fundraisers say Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley has told them he would enter the presidential race even if front-runner Hillary Clinton is a candidate, suggesting she would face at least some competition for her party's nomination from an established elected official if she runs.
Mr. O'Malley's camp had signaled earlier this year that the governor likely wouldn't join the field if Mrs. Clinton sought the Democratic nomination. But some party fundraisers say they have come away from private conversations with Mr. O'Malley with a clear impression that he wouldn't stand down should Mrs. Clinton run.
As is the case with Mrs. Clinton, the governor says he is still deciding his course. Asked if he would compete against Mrs. Clinton, Mr. O'Malley, in a recent interview in the State House, said: "I'm not inclined to talk about that at this point. But I don't blame you for asking."
Despite his public reticence, Mr. O'Malley's message to fundraisers and other recent actions show him to be making the sorts of moves that would position him for an eventual run.
He will be the keynote speaker at a Sept. 26 Democratic Party fundraising dinner in New Hampshire, the state that holds the nation's first primary, and has dispatched a couple of dozen campaign staffers to states with competitive races in the midterms. He is planning a trip to California later in the month to raise money for a political-action committee he has used to give money to candidates and party committees in states that loom large in presidential races.
His PAC gave $5,000 to the New Hampshire Democratic Party in May and $2,500 to a New Hampshire Democratic congresswoman in July, federal election records show.
"He's building up a series of IOUs and he's showing a willingness to serve the party, and he thereby creates goodwill," said Lou D'Allesandro, a Democratic state senator in New Hampshire.
A two-term governor who leaves office in January, Mr. O'Malley signed a law raising the state's minimum wage to $10.10 an hour by 2018. Last year, after the shootings at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., he signed legislation banning various kinds of assault weapons and imposing new limits on the size of gun magazines. The same year, he pushed through the first state gas-tax increase since 1992, which supporters said was needed to improve the state's aging transportation network.
This summer, Mr. O'Malley said unaccompanied minors illegally entering the U.S. shouldn't be returned to home countries where they would be in danger—a position at odds with the White House, which was warning that children who weren't eligible to remain in the U.S. would be sent home.
"He should have been more of a centrist if he really thought he was going to run for president," said Kathy Szeliga, GOP whip in the state house of delegates.
An O'Malley supporter disputes that. "The proof is in the pudding," said Maryland state Sen. James Rosapepe, a Democrat. "We lead the region in job creation, we have the best rated schools in the United States…So I think that's a very mainstream record that will appeal to people across the country.
Doug Goldman, a major fundraiser for President Barack Obama who lives in San Francisco, said he met with Mr. O'Malley privately in the spring. "Martin O'Malley is making it pretty clear that his ultimate goal is president of the United States," Mr. Goldman said. He said the governor indicated that, "Yes, that's the next step for him, that he is running."
Another Democratic fundraiser said he asked Mr. O'Malley in recent months what he would do if Mrs. Clinton entered the race. This person said he asked because he didn't want to spend time assisting with Mr. O'Malley's fundraising if in the end the governor would retreat in the face of a Clinton candidacy. He "told me flat out he's going to run either way," the person said.
A third Democratic fundraiser said Mr. O'Malley told supporters at an event last year in California without qualification that he was running for president.
Aides to Mr. O'Malley said it is possible donors misconstrued the governor's unwillingness to rule out a bid against Mrs. Clinton as a clear statement he would run against her. "Right now, he is thinking long and hard about this, and he will make his decision irrespective of what other people do," an O'Malley aide said.
Mr. O'Malley's deliberations come as Democrats debate whether Mrs. Clinton would clear the field should she run. Some of Mr. O'Malley's supporters, along with prominent Democrats nationally, say the better course would be to have a meaningful primary-election debate about the party's direction.
"Competition is really good," said Terry Lierman, who has raised campaign money for Mr. O'Malley. "It's good in business, it's good in sports and it's essential in politics. It makes better candidates.…I don't think Martin O'Malley or any candidate should be scared by another candidate."
A spokesman for Mrs. Clinton, Nick Merrill, said Tuesday: "She as much as anyone knows that running for president is a very personal and weighty decision that people need to make on their own, based on whatever factors they want to take into account."
For Mr. O'Malley, a major hurdle is building a national profile. A July Gallup Poll showed that, among Democrats and those who lean toward the party, 84% had either never heard of or had no opinion of him. Polls have consistently shown Mrs. Clinton with far more support than Mr. O'Malley, Vice President Joe Biden and other Democrats.
"In 2008 Hillary Clinton was the favorite to win," said Bill Burton, who was part of the 2008 Barack Obama campaign team that defeated Mrs. Clinton. "But in 2016 her infrastructure is so much bigger and her resources will be so much grander and the ability to spend money will be so much more vast than it was in '08 that it would be very tough for a primary contender to beat her."
MSNBC: “Glenn Beck: ‘Hillary Clinton will be the next president’”
By Alex Seitz-Wald
September 2, 2014, 5:53 p.m. EDT
He may have once called President Barack Obama the racist puppet of a vast global conspiracy, but conservative talk show host Glenn Beck seems to be more sanguine about his potential replacement, Hillary Clinton.
Beck, who left Fox News in 2011 to start his own media empire, predicted this week that the former secretary of state will be the next president, and not through any kind of trickery or skullduggery.
“Hillary Clinton will be the next president of the United States,” he said on his radio show Monday, citing a conversation he said a friend of his had with some “Hillary people” who outlined her alleged 2016 campaign plans. Beck said that as he heard the strategy laid out, he thought, “Oh my gosh, she’s going to win the presidency.”
While the right will be “fighting on Benghazi and everything else,” Beck said, “Hillary is going to [say], ‘Do you remember when America was good? Do you remember when we had jobs and we were building towards a brighter future, and things were really happening? The Clinton administration, we had it under control.”
He continued: “Things were good, and … we’re going to do better.” Beck said he understood the strength of the strategy because he understood the appeal of the first Clinton administration. “I would so gladly take Bill Clinton right now,” he said he’s often thought.
Always a heterodox, Beck’s take is a different one from the standard conservative line, which is that Clinton is old news. Instead, the pundit said that the potential candidate has a “vision for the future” while the GOP is “all about the past,” with a focus on issues like the Benghazi incident and the IRS scandal.
Beck’s sourcing is, of course, dubious, and Clinton doesn’t have any kind of full-scale political strategy team around her yet. Still, many expect the former first lady, who has said she will decide on a potential 2016 presidential run by the end of this year, to draw on the popularity of her husband’s administration.
The Blaze: “Why Glenn Beck Said Hillary Clinton ‘Will Be the Next President of the United States’”
By Erica Ritz
September 2, 2014, 3:36 p.m. EDT
Glenn Beck said on his radio program Tuesday that “Hillary Clinton will be the next president of the United States.”
Beck said he received information from a friend of his, who is also friends with the “Hillary people,” about Clinton’s campaign strategy in 2016. Beck said that when he heard it, he said, “Oh my gosh, she’s going to win the presidency.”
Beck said Clinton’s “people” told his friend: “The right is so stupid. They just don’t get it. You guys are going to all be fighting on Benghazi and everything else, and here’s what Hillary is going to do. [She is going to say], ‘Do you remember when America was good? Do you remember when we had jobs and we were building towards a brighter future, and things were really happening? The Clinton administration, we had it under control. Things were good, and … we’re going to do better. We’re going to replant our flag in the traditional things that you understand.’”
“And this is what made me say, ‘Oh, my gosh, she’s going to win,’” Beck said. “Pat and I both have said in the past, ‘I would so gladly take Bill Clinton right now. Don’t those years seem simple and good [compared to today]?’”
“And what we will do is play the game of technicality, technicality — all of them valid,” Beck said. “But that’s what it would be viewed as. We already have friends on the left who say, ‘Will you guys just shut up about Benghazi?’ They’ve won that. Same with the IRS. All of it. And while we’re talking about technicalities and the past, they’re going to be talking about a past that was brightly remembered, and they will talk about the America we will become. She will win.”
Beck co-host Stu Burguiere pointed out that Clinton was unable to transmit that vision in 2008.
“She would have done it, had it not been for Barack Obama,” Beck said. “It was the wild card.”
“She had a lot of opportunity, Glenn,” Burguiere said. “And remember, this is the same person who had a 75 percent approval rating as of a year ago, and now that she’s been talking again, she’s down to under 50. As soon as we start hearing from Hillary Clinton, we realize we don’t like Hillary Clinton.”
“Until we start hearing before from John Boehner, Jeb Bush,” Beck responded.
Burguiere agreed: “All the strategy against Jeb Bush, she’ll win by 60 points.”
“There’s no vision,” Beck said of the GOP. “It’s all about the past, past, past. Where is the vision for the future?”
Watch the complete discussion, below:
[VIDEO]
National Journal: “6 Things to Watch When Hillary Heads to Vegas”
By Ben Geman and Jason Plautz
September 3, 2014
Hillary Clinton is about to give her first energy and climate speech of a publicity tour that many believe is the springboard to a presidential campaign.
Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nod if she runs, will be the keynote speaker Thursday at Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's annual energy conference in Las Vegas.
She's not the only bold-faced name at the event, which includes remarks from Reid, White House adviser John Podesta, and others. But Clinton's speech is sure to be the biggest draw and attract the most scrutiny.
Here what the energy world is watching for:
Will She Split With Obama?
One of the biggest stories of Clinton's summer of media appearances was her criticism of elements of President Obama's foreign policy in an interview with The Atlantic. It's unclear whether any ruptures are in the offing on energy and climate policy. Back when both were running for president in 2008, they split over a gasoline-tax holiday (Clinton favored it, Obama didn't).
More recently, Clinton has praised Obama's carbon regulations for power plants, but energy and climate policy are sprawling topics, so there's plenty of room for differences—eventually.
Do Climate Deniers Get an Olive Branch or a Baseball Bat?
Obama has minced no words of late when he talks about opponents to his climate-change efforts, poking at members of Congress who "stubbornly and automatically reject the scientific evidence about climate change." Clinton has likewise been dismissive of climate deniers, but will she try to strike a more conciliatory stance to keep open the prospect of cooperation with Republican foes?
At a June speech at a Biotechnology Industry Organization conference, Clinton instead went after the media for creating a "false equivalency" by bringing on climate deniers to balance the beliefs of 98 percent of scientists. "It isn't a debate," Clinton said. "The debate is settled. What is not settled is what we're going to do about the debate."
Finessing the Fracking Boom
The U.S. oil and gas surge is a potential minefield for anyone facing Democratic primaries, even a juggernaut like Clinton. Many environmentalists don't like Obama's "all of the above" mantra that embraces oil and gas drilling. But at the same time, the production boom has given the U.S. more leverage on the global stage when it comes to issues like oil sanctions against Iran and the longer-term possibility of using U.S. gas exports to counter Russia's influence in Europe—topics Clinton understands well.
Clinton, for her part, has praised the natural-gas surge while acknowledging environmental concerns with fracking and methane emissions, calling for "smart regulations." How Clinton addresses oil and gas development, not to mention whether the U.S. should export crude oil, is something to watch this week (if she broaches it) and going forward.
We'll Always Have Paris … to Look Forward To
Clinton devotes a chunk of Hard Choices, her recent State Department memoir, to detailing her and Obama's work at the 2009 United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen, which ultimately produced a voluntary agreement among countries to cut emissions. She's since said that she wants the 2015 U.N. meetings in Paris to net a stronger deal, writing that her hope is for "a new legal agreement on emissions and mitigation that is applicable to every country in the world." Clinton made climate change a focus of her State Department tenure and has talked up the international implications on her book tour, so she'll likely keep the pressure high as leaders prepare for a climate summit in New York this month.
Details or Platitudes?
The crowd of energy executives, environmentalists, and clean-tech insiders at Reid's summit will be hungry for specifics on Clinton's energy plans.
There's plenty to wonder about, like Clinton's take on the future of energy tax credits (beyond the broad-brush support for "targeted incentives" from her recent book) and whether Clinton, who cosponsored cap-and-trade bills as New York senator, would try to push major climate and energy legislation. The plans of a Clinton Environmental Protection Agency are a key topic too, including whether she would push for carbon-emissions rules for sources like refineries and big factories that won't face regulation on Obama's watch.
But the crowd may go home disappointed: There's nothing to stop Clinton from playing it safe by speaking only in broad strokes about the economic benefits of leading in green-energy markets, climate risks, and energy security.
Clinton may be more likely to stray into the world of energy diplomacy. Hard Choices touts formation of the department's Bureau of Energy Resources on her watch. The book counts energy among the topics that must be at the "heart" of American diplomacy. How she applies that idea to hot spots like Ukraine going forward is something that will surface sooner or later on the stump.
Don't Get Your Hopes Up About Keystone
Clinton has so far artfully dodged weighing in on the controversial Alberta-to-Gulf Coast oil-sands pipeline, declining to mention the Keystone XL in her book and sidestepping direct questions about it. Take this answer from a June interview with the Toronto Globe & Mail: "[T]his particular decision is a very difficult one because there are so many factors at play. I can't really comment at great length because I had responsibility for it and it's been passed on and it wouldn't be appropriate, but I hope that Canadians appreciate that the United States government—the Obama administration—is trying to get it right."
It's unlikely that Clinton will break her silence on the pipeline this week, especially since the State Department will weigh in on the pipeline's permit after the November midterms and before her own campaign would start in earnest, giving her some measure of cover.
The Advocate opinion: Kerry Eleveld: “Clinton’s New Challenge: The Millennials”
By Kerry Eleveld, former Advocate White House reporter
September 3, 2014, 4:00 a.m. EDT
[Subtitle:] Millennials are more progressive on LGBT rights than Hillary was in 2008. Can she inspire them to the polls in a 2016 run?
If there’s one thing no one expected, it’s that Hillary Clinton would make one of her first campaign missteps over the gays. But there it is. Clinton went after NPR’s Fresh Air interviewer Terry Gross in June during a seven-minute exchange about same-sex marriage, DOMA, and whether Clinton had an actual change of heart on marriage equality or simply changed her political calculation as voter attitudes shifted.
Not all seven minutes were a disaster. Clinton lost her cool only in the last minute and a half. It’s also not clear that her main offense was substance so much as it was tone, though some publications, such as The Atlantic, argued otherwise. But after Gross tried several times to nail down Clinton’s true motivations for changing her marriage position, Clinton’s patience waned.
“You know, I have to say, I think you are being very persistent, but you are playing with my words, and playing with what is such an important issue,” Clinton said.
Gross pressed gently forward. “I’m just trying to clarify so I can understand — ” Then came Clinton’s worst moment.
“No, I don’t think you are trying to clarify,” she charged. “I think you’re trying to say I used to be opposed and now I’m in favor and I did it for political reasons. And that’s just flat wrong. So let me just state what I feel that you are implying and repudiate it. I have a strong record. I have a great commitment to this issue. And I am proud of what I’ve done and the progress we’re making.”
Up to that point, Clinton had played the happy warrior most of the way through the marriage questioning, telling Gross “I think we have all evolved” and “I’m proud of our country.”
The interview was sliced and diced and reinterpreted to death by the Beltway media. It was, in fact, interesting to see Clinton stumble on a key issue involving a constituency that has mostly adored her for years. After all, a November 2007 poll by Hunter College found that lesbian, gay, and bisexual likely voters preferred Clinton (63%) over Obama (22%) and Edwards (7%), which roughly corresponds to what 2008 exit polls in New York and California wound up showing.
Most interesting is the media’s fascination with Clinton’s past positions on LGBT issues — as if this movement’s aims are complete and all that remains is to explore the subject in historical terms. Clinton’s past is the least interesting part of her positions and probably the least of her worries on same-sex marriage and LGBT issues.
What lies ahead could very well be a marriage case at the Supreme Court in either 2015 or 2016. If people think questions about Clinton’s previous stances were thorny, try these: Do you support full marriage equality across the nation? As president, would your administration write an amicus brief supporting the freedom to marry nationwide? Now that ENDA is on the outs, do you support an amendment adding gender identity and sexual orientation to the Civil Rights Act of 1964?
If your only audience is the LGBT community, the answers are easy: Yes to all. But from Clinton’s perspective, answering that way on the marriage questions could give a mainstream audience pause. In fact, during her interview with Gross, Clinton reiterated her 2008 stance, saying, “for me, marriage had always been a matter left to the states.”
That answer may have worked in 2008 in the shadow of a proposed federal amendment that would have banned same-sex marriage nationwide. But it won’t seem appealing to queer rights activists today, and it’s uncertain from the interview whether Clinton thinks any differently now than she did then.
The question about the Civil Rights Act, meanwhile, is still gaining traction in the LGBT community and has yet to debut with the broader Democratic base — in particular, African Americans. So just as people wondered in 2008, How do you plan to repeal DADT?, this election cycle they will wonder, How do you plan to secure employment and housing protections for LGBT Americans?
The difference between LGBT issues in 2008 and now is that the answers are less clear-cut. And there isn’t complete consensus within the LGBT community on the path forward. Additionally, Clinton isn’t yet running amid a pack of other candidates, so she doesn’t have the cover of comparisons to her opponents. She is being judged against herself.
In the last contested Democratic presidential campaign, for instance, as early as June 2007, all eight Democratic candidates supported repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell.” And by August 2007, the big three — Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Barack Obama — had settled comfortably into a consensus of supporting civil unions, repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell,” passing ENDA, and overturning the Defense of Marriage Act. Trying to differentiate between their policy positions was a matter of splitting hairs. For the candidates, that meant that wooing the LGBT community was largely about outreach and access; it was more tonal than substantive.
Now we’re in uncharted territory as the LGBT movement pushes past the remnants of its 2008 issues. And Clinton, for the time being, must confront the dual challenges of tone and substance.
The question now becomes, is it possible for her to be a leader and a candidate at the same time? Candidates typically don’t lead. They follow...the polls. They take positions that both they and a majority of the public can feel good about. Then they work on being likable and instilling confidence in their ability to run the country. Obama, for instance, didn’t provide a road map to change in 2008; he offered a vehicle — himself — and asked the nation to trust him.
Beyond name recognition, Clinton’s head start in 2016 clearly lies in her ability to govern. The only candidate who comes close to matching her grasp of foreign and domestic policy or her 360-degree view of Washington from the White House to Congress to the federal agencies is Vice President Joe Biden. Yet even he doesn’t have the benefit of having served as Secretary of State.
But Clinton still needs to inspire people to jump on her bandwagon in the same way Obama did in 2008. And insofar as LGBT issues are concerned in 2016, one of her biggest audiences won’t simply be the queer community; it will be millennials who voted for Obama at a rate of 66% in 2008 and 60% in 2012. If Clinton is to re-create Obama’s voting blocs in the general election, she needs to win their vote by large margins, but she also needs to inspire them to turn out at the polls in numbers similar to 2008 and 2012, when they made up 18% and 19% of the electorate, respectively.
If Clinton wants to do that, LGBT rights is the place to start. Fully 51% of millennials consider themselves supporters of gay rights, according to the Pew Research Center, as opposed to just 37% of Gen X’ers and about a third of older adults. In fact LGBT rights is one of the most galvanizing issues for millennials. By comparison, 49% describe themselves as patriotic, just 36% as religious, and only 32% as environmentalists. This group matters for Clinton in both the primaries and the general election. In Iowa in 2008, Obama took 57 percent of voters under 30, shocking the Democratic establishment with a win that would fuel his eventual victory.
Though some gays are intent on rehashing the ’90s, the millennials likely won’t be. They’ll be looking for authenticity on the issues of today, as will many LGBT Americans. And while LGBT voters have a long history with Clinton, millennials are still just getting to know her. She needs to give them a reason to go to the polls, and looking like a leader on LGBT issues is one way to do it.
It’s unclear that relying on the states’ rights fallback on marriage equality is going to fill the bill. And sooner or later, journalists will start asking the marriage question in a way that forces Clinton to choose between states’ rights and full federal equality.
By Michele Willens
September 2, 2014, 2:29 p.m. EDT
A significant number of Republican women — 49% — find their party “stuck in the past.” That’s according to an internal memo from the conservative groups Crossroads GPS and American Action Network that made the rounds last week.
This would seem to be the perfect moment, then, for a female presidential candidate of any stripe. The problem is there is only one on the horizon, Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has to overcome a queasiness that polls don’t quite know how to measure. Is it a combination of political cynicism, feminist angst, post-menopausal petulance and postponed pride felt by many of us who want to embrace this woman as well as what she represents?
I keep recalling the words of a friend in Massachusetts who said recently, “Every time I get right up to the point of finally liking Hillary, she does something that knocks me right back down again.”
I am not alone in my hesitancy to put my arms around Hillary, but neither am I necessarily the norm. Judging by the long lines at the bookstores, there are real fans, or at least many who want to say they shook hands with potential history. So why, when I should be celebrating the possible coronation of one of my own, am I instead filled with conflicting emotions?
- The feminist in me applauds any “mature” woman who lets her years of accomplishment, and lines of experience, speak for themselves. The narcissist in me wishes Hillary would lose 15 pounds and get to the dermatologist.
- The fighter in me is impressed that as secretary of State, she was the toughest one in those White House meetings. The liberal in me wishes she’d lean out when it comes to warfare. And lean in on issues like Ferguson before her consultants calculate it is OK to do it.
- The Ms. in me accepts she has a unique marriage that works. The Mrs. wishes she would draw a few boundaries. (Did he really have to deliver the eulogy for the man who funded all those anti-Clinton programs?)
- The professional in me is envious she is making a zillion dollars an hour for her first-class time. The private citizen in me is offended by her tone-deaf idea of what is fair.
- The boomer in me is thrilled to see an older woman succeed. The realist in me is concerned she would be 69 as she begins the toughest job in the world.
- The historian in me appreciates the commitment of families like the Adamses, the Roosevelts and the Kennedys. The voter in me is really tired of the Clintons.
This all may qualify as one of those white women’s problems, but it is entirely possible that Hillary is the lens through which many of us see ourselves.
What really rankles, though, is the Clinton sense of entitlement. For some reason, I think back to a classmate who was elected student body president of Lincoln Junior High in Santa Monica three straight years. I don’t remember anyone particularly liking her — she was that girl who got high scores and never once detention —but she made us feel that we should honor her. A friend in Seattle, a longtime Democrat barely getting by as a landlord, summed it up with, “Well, I guess we’re stuck with Hillary.” That sense of inevitability not only conjures up resentment toward those who always got in, but it also reminds us how many of us felt left out.
Is all this too much to place on one person’s shoulders? Of course it is, not to mention asking her to embody an idea whose time has come. Barack Obama did it, but he had an arguably greater personal story, and he was new school. Hillary has paid her dues, stood by her man and devoted most her life to public service. But one thing feminism has taught us is not to settle, and in that spirit, I wonder if others aren’t as qualified, including Claire McCaskill and Elizabeth Warren — maybe even someone from the party still “stuck in the past.” Hey, maybe my former classmate is available.
Ah well, Hillary is the ultimate survivor, and for that alone, I will likely give her my vote, if not a hug.
Politico: Roger Simon: “Is Mitt Romney really a loser for life?”
By Roger Simon
September 3, 2014, 5:13 a.m. EDT
Unlikely as it might seem, Mitt Romney actually put it best.
“I have looked at what happens to anybody in this country who loses as the nominee of their party,” he says. “They become a loser for life.”
Here he makes a gesture with his right hand, forming his thumb and index finger into an “L” and holding it up to his forehead as if it were a branding iron.
“We just brutalize whoever loses,” Romney says. “I know that. I know that.”
This is from the documentary “Mitt,” which was released this year and covers Romney’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns.
Romney was aware that if he ran for the nomination in 2008 and failed to get it, this would not be fatal. Numerous failed nominees have gone on to get the nomination in future contests.
But if one gets the nomination and then fails to win the presidency, that is a different story.
Republican Thomas Dewey did it, losing in both 1944 and 1948. Democrat Adlai Stevenson did it, losing in both 1952 and 1956. And Richard Nixon did it, losing the presidency in 1960, but winning it in 1968.
But this is ancient history in political terms. In modern times, if you get your party’s nomination and then lose the general election, nobody wants to hear from you again.
“Mike Dukakis is mowing lawns,” Romney says.
But Romney enters the fray anyway, losing the nomination in 2008, winning the nomination in 2012, but losing the general election.
So Romney should be, by his own analysis, a “loser for life.”
But odd things are happening. Republican candidates have been asking him to stump for them in the November elections, and he has been glad to oblige.
A CNN/ORC poll released in late July asked people whom they would vote for if the 2012 election were held again. Romney won by 9 percentage points, 53 percent to 44 percent. (In the actual election, Romney lost by 3.9 percentage points.)
One can dismiss this as typical buyer’s remorse: Presidents never quite live up to expectations, and challengers always look better in retrospect. But one senior Republican strategist told me dryly: “I don’t remember anyone urging John Kerry to run for president again after he lost.”
Is anybody really urging Romney to run again, however?
Iowans seem to like the idea. A recent Suffolk University poll of Iowa caucus-goers showed Romney topping the field with 35 percent and Mike Huckabee an almost invisible second with just 9 percent.
“I’d love to run for president; I loved running for president,” Romney told radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt last week. “Had I believed I would actually be best positioned to beat Hillary Clinton, then I would be running.”
Romney says, however, that some player to be named later could be a better candidate. “I actually believe that someone new that is not defined yet, someone who perhaps is from the next generation, will be able to catch fire, potentially build a movement and be able to beat Hillary Clinton,” Romney said.
Republicans are already looking past their biggest weakness — the current Republican field — to what they believe will be their biggest strength: Hillary Clinton as the standard-bearer for Obama’s third term.
“I think Hillary is going to own the Obama record,” Stuart Stevens, who was Romney’s chief strategist in 2012, told me. “In many ways it looks like 2016 will be a referendum on Obama in the same way 2008 was a referendum on [George W.] Bush.”
Which is the race Republicans would like: to bury Hillary’s popularity under Obama’s unpopularity. But Hillary could upset that strategy by distancing herself from Obama, couldn’t she?
Stevens doesn’t think so. “When Hillary says something even mildly critical of the Obama administration, the Democratic base erupts with hostility,” Stevens said.
Hillary Clinton is no dope, however. She will find a way to distance herself from Obama where she can. But this plays right into the Romney game plan, said one former top Romney aide.
“Hillary Clinton doesn’t want to be Barack Obama? Fine,” said the aide. “The person who is most not Barack Obama is Mitt Romney. If he decided to run, he’d have a good chance.”
Washington Post senior correspondent Dan Balz, author of “Collision 2012: The Future of Election Politics in a Divided America,” just released in paperback, said Romney was not a particularly good campaigner in 2012 but “he had some things to say in the campaign that look smarter in retrospect than they did at the time.”
Balz says that Romney’s campaign statements about Russia being “a geopolitical foe” today looks “more astute than he was given credit for.”
But Balz is not predicting that Romney will run in 2016. He said Romney seems “genuinely resistant” to running.
So what could cause Romney to change his mind?
“It could only happen if the field looks weak or if it looks like no one from the establishment wing is getting any traction,” Balz said. “One reason there is interest in Romney today is that the 2016 field looks so unsettled.”
Romney laid out his own scenario for running. “Let’s say all the guys that were running all came together and said, ‘Hey, we’ve decided we can’t do it. You must do it,’” Romney said in the interview with Hewitt. “That’s the one out of a million we’re thinking about.”
One out of a million might seem like very long odds to you and me. But what’s a million to Mitt Romney?
Politico: “Bill Clinton to raise money for Mary Landrieu”
By Maggie Haberman
September 2, 2014, 2:54 p.m. EDT
Bill Clinton is set to headline a fundraiser for Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu on Saturday, capping a whirlwind week of campaign appearances that will take the former president from the Northeast to the South.
The “save the date” for the Big Easy Committee, a joint fundraising committee between Friends of Mary Landrieu and the Democratic State Central Committee of Louisiana, is for Sept. 6 in New Orleans.
Landreiu is facing a tough reelection battle. Clinton will campaign for her a day after he appears for Florida Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Charlie Crist.
Landrieu was hit last week by a Washington Post report saying she is registered to vote at her parents’ home in Louisiana, prompting questions about how much time she spends in Washington versus her home state.
New Haven Register (Conn.): “Bill Clinton rallies party faithful in New Haven event for Gov. Malloy”
By Mary E. O’Leary
September 2, 2014, 4:26 p.m. EDT
Former President Bill Clinton revved up the true believers in a weekday rally putting the onus on them to get a second term for Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.
In a reprise of help he gave Malloy in 2010, Clinton was back in the state, this time in New Haven — a city he knows well, having graduated from Yale Law School in 1973, along with his wife, Hillary Clinton, and U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal. Clinton stopped by Katalina’s bakery before heading to the Omni New Haven Hotel at Yale.
The 42nd president of the United States said party members only have a few weeks to determine how this tight race turns out, with some polls showing Republican contender Tom Foley pulling ahead.
“The polls ... are based on an assumption that the turnout in a mid-term election will be very different than a turnout in a presidential election. If that happens, shame on us,” Clinton said.
The president offered an analogy.
Remembering his time in a cottage in Milford more than 40 years ago, he said he would watch as people walked out to a nearby island, but then forgot about the tide.
“I love Connecticut. You have been good to me in personal and political ways. I don’t want you to take your eye off the tides in this election,” Clinton said.
Clinton said based on Malloy’s record, he “should be re-elected by 10 points or more, going away,” which brought cheers from several hundred party regulars, elected officials and campaign staffers in the hourlong pep rally.
“You have a job to do,” he told them again and again.
There were also references to Hillary Clinton and what the next two years mean for her.
Alluding to her expected run for president in 2016, New Haven Mayor Toni Harp welcomed the “homecoming for the first President Clinton.”
Clinton said he was “captivated” by Malloy in 2010, learning how he overcame his personal challenges of dyslexia.
Malloy is an example of a true leader, who will make the hard decisions, Clinton said.
“We want somebody who won’t look at the polls, but will look at the future and think about what is good for the children. ... Are things coming together or being torn apart?” Clinton asked.
“By those tests, this man has more than earned the chance to finish the job he started four years ago,” the former president said, also to cheers from the crowd.
Clinton said a leader has vision, a strategy, executes that strategy and handles “incoming fire.” He said Malloy hits all those targets. He said the Republican mantra is the promise to cut taxes.
“I have been listening to this for over 30 years. They talk tough, but they govern soft,” Clinton said.
The Connecticut Republican Party, in a statement, said the event was “poorly attended.”
“It seems like Bill Clinton can fill any room in the country, unless he’s sharing the stage with Dan Malloy,” said CT GOP spokesman Zak Sanders. “At this point even Democrats can sense that Gov. Malloy is falling far behind, and enthusiasm in his campaign is waning.”
“Dan Malloy has proved that he is willing to do or say whatever it takes to get re-elected and, with desperation setting in, he’s decided to make his campaign about cheap personal attacks instead of the real issues facing our state. Voters know that we need new leadership and a new direction for Connecticut’s future – and that’s why they’re supporting Tom Foley and Heather Somers,” Sanders said.
Clinton said he was the last president to make headway on gun control by passing the Brady Bill, the assault weapons ban and by eliminating ammunition clips. He said he countered the criticism then by pointing out to gun owners that they can still hunt, sport shoot and protect their families.
He said that is the message in Connecticut and added that “you have to have universal background checks, you got to.”
Clinton said the agenda of Malloy and Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman is specific.
“Their opponent basically says they made too many hard decisions, too many people said ‘ouch.’ ‘Vote for me I will make it easy on you. I’m just going to cut everybody’s taxes. Hold on, I’ll tell you later where we are going to go,’” Clinton said.
Scott McLean, political science professor at Quinnipiac University, said outside surrogates are needed by both campaigns.
“Both Clinton and (New Jersey Gov. Chris) Christie are in our state not only to raise cash, but also to give much-needed charisma transplants to the gubernatorial candidates,” McLean said.
“Polls show voters just aren’t enthusiastic for either (Tom) Foley or Malloy,” McLean said.
The party faithful with tickets paid $50 for the privilege to hear Clinton, while shortly before the rally started a small group of bigger donors met with the president, but there was no comment on how much they raised.
Malloy and Foley have multiple debates scheduled before Nov. 4, while independent expenditure groups are pouring millions into Connecticut for their own ads.
Clinton is in demand as a speaker in a party that fears it will lose control of the U.S. Senate in November.
The elected party leaders took turns praising Malloy and denigrating Foley.
“There are always things we can do better in this state, but I am sick and tired of Tom Foley telling me how terrible my state is. I am sick and tired of the constant incessant daily pessimism that comes out of Republican candidates and at some level, they are living in alternate reality,” U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy said.
The senator delivered the harshest criticism of Foley, saying his motivation is to “pad his resume,” rather than acting through a passion for governing.
He said Foley’s reluctance to expound on his positions “is half political strategy and half indifference.”
Murphy said Malloy is “somebody who loves the state and wants to make it even better, versus someone who talks down the state at every opportunity.”
Murphy said he was “damn proud” of the boost in the minimum wage and the 60,000 private sector jobs brought on during the administration.
The junior senator said he was happy to be from the state that says it should be the law of the land “that if you are so sick that you can’t show up for work, you should be able to stay home for work and still get compensated occasionally for it.”
He said during the Clinton years, poverty and unemployment dropped and “all boats were being lifted,” a model for states.
Not to dampen the achievements of Clinton, Murphy said unemployment nationally dropped by 2 percentage points in four years’ time. Under Malloy, it is down almost 3 percentage points in the same timeframe, Murphy said. It was 9.3 percent in 2011 and is now 6.6 percent.
The message from all the speakers was that Malloy has a “great story to tell,” as they listed a dip in crime and a start on universal pre-kindergarten and he challenged the Republican candidate to match Malloy’s record.
“Are you ready to go out and tell the story to the people of Connecticut?” Murphy asked.
Blumenthal and Wyman continued the analogies between Clinton and Malloy.
All of them emphasized the strict gun reform bill adopted in April 2013 in the wake of the killing of 20 first-graders and six educators in Newtown in December 2012 that has become a point of contention with Foley.
Murphy called it Malloy’s “deepest” achievement, while the governor characterized it as “great.”
He said it has been a tough four years given Newtown, the economy and the numerous devastating storms.
Malloy described Foley as a “guy who prays for rain on a sunny day. This is the guy who purchased a seat in the cheap section and has been making cheap shots ever since the last election was over. He actually feels that he is entitled to be the governor of the state of Connecticut.”
“I got news for you, you run to be the governor of the state of Connecticut,” he said.
Continuing the theme of a negative picture of Connectiuct, Malloy said, “You don’t put down the state I was born in.”
He predicted Foley will cut funding to schools and cut funding to towns so there will be municipal cuts, based on his tax and budget proposals.
Foley, however, has said he would not do either, but he hasn’t said where he would cut as he holds funding flat for two years with a projected $1.4 billion deficit in fiscal 2016. He wants to eliminate the business entity tax and cut the sales tax from 6.35 percent to 5.85 percent.
Malloy said Foley would “stack the pardons and parole board to do what he wants done” on gun control.
“This is worth having a fight over. We have to make the people of Connecticut as safe as we possibly can and that is what we will do,” Malloy said.
The gun issue is expected to play a part in the election with the 15,000-member Connecticut Citizens Defense League endorsing Foley.
Foley disagrees with the punishment for not registering the weapons that have been added to the greatly expanded list of banned firearms. He has said he would recommend to the state’s attorney that he not prosecute violators and he would impact the law by the people he names to the pardon board.
Malloy said Foley will end up cutting jobs just like he did at the Bibb Co. when he ran it in the 1990s. The Democrats continue to hammer him on Bibb, something they also did in 2010 when Malloy ran against him the first time.
Foley has said he added 3,000 jobs at Bibb before it went into bankruptcy under his management. It closed after it was sold.
“He is not a job creator, he is a job destroyer,” Malloy said.
In a quick press conference after the event, Malloy asked Foley where he would have cut in 2010 faced with the $3.6 billion deficit.
BuzzFeed: “What Exactly Is Amy Klobuchar Up To?”
By Kate Nocera
September 2, 2014, 10:04 p.m. EDT
[Subtitle:] The relatively unknown Minnesota Democrat has been all over the country this year.
A few weeks ago at a Washington cocktail party, Sen. Amy Klobuchar was chatting with someone who asked why she was going to Iowa again.
“I was invited!” Klobuchar insisted, laughing, an attendee who heard the conversation recalled.
The Democratic Senator is being invited a lot of places these days — which is surprising considering her name I.D. outside of her home state of Minnesota isn’t exactly sky high. Klobuchar has crisscrossed the country in the last few months, keynoting Democratic Party Dinners, fundraising for Senate candidates (her PAC has maxed out to several candidates), and building up her profile with the party base. She’s toured a popcorn store with Bruce Braley in Iowa, co-chaired an economic roundtable with Jeanne Shaheen in New Hampshire, and spoke at the Sanford Hunt Frye in North Carolina on behalf of Sen. Kay Hagan. All told, Klobuchar has traveled to more than 10 states this cycle.
Furious travel schedules like these are usually meant to do one thing: produce a big spike in a politician’s influence.
One Democratic operative compared Klobuchar’s 2014 to what Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand has done in recent cycles.
“Gillibrand had a little bit more of a profile — she was starting at a slightly higher base than Amy does,” the operative said. “Gillibrand was using her ‘off the sidelines’ project to build a national base and now she is, if not a household name, a Democratic base-hold name and I think Amy wants to do the same thing.”
Like Gillibrand, Klobuchar maintains the relentless campaigning is in service of a bigger goal: electing more Democratic women to the Senate.
“I’ve gone this around the country a lot because we don’t have that many women in the Senate, though about a year ago we had a traffic jam in the women’s bathroom for the first time in history,” the senator said in an interview. “So I’ve been helping them. It goes back to when I headed up the women’s Senate network for the last two cycles of the [Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee].”
Klobuchar has been deeply involved with Emily’s List, a group that works to help elect women supportive of abortion rights. She co-chairs the group’s “impact series” — quartly events that highlight the work of women supported by Emily’s List are doing in Congress. During the 2012 cycle, when Klobuchar was up for re-election and doing well, she worked in both Wisconsin and North Dakota to help with the elections of Tammy Baldwin and Heidi Heitkamp.
She went to Georgia to help Michelle Nunn this time around — a weird place for a progressive midwestern senator. What does a Minnesota senator have in common with the voters of Georgia? A lot if you ask Klobuchar, who argued Georgia and Minnesota are more alike than different in terms of their business and farming communities.
That trip speaks to a core reason for Klobuchar’s schedule: no one would be inviting her anywhere if they thought she wasn’t any good. Operatives describe Klobuchar as approachable and likeable on the stump.
“People may not know who she is, but they walk away from her liking her and understanding her message,” said a campaign staffer for one Democratic candidate in a tight race.
And while Klobuchar’s certainly cognizant of the big priority (keeping the Senate in Democratic hands), the progressive senator emphasized the importance of moderate, red state Democrats in the Senate.
“A lot of it is trying to elect good people trying to move the country forward and not just stand in corners of the boxing ring,” she said. “For me that’s very, very important. The majority people that are up would be considered moderate Democrats and they do try and find common ground.”
“They are people that want to get things done for the country and that’s why this election to me is so important and of course getting these women elected, knowing how fragile this is,” she continued. “We lose them, we lose a good part of the women in the Senate.”
Klobuchar ticked off the accomplishments of her female colleagues this past congress: Patty Murray’s work on the budget negotiations, Debbie Stabenow’s work on the farm bill, Barbara Mikulski’s work as appropriations chairwoman.
She left herself off the list. But, like Gillibrand, she’s likely got some next thing in mind.
“Every one of these senators thinks that he or she can be the next president of the United States,” said Jim Manley, a Democratic strategist and Harry Reid’s former communications director. “Clearly she has ambitions; I don’t know what they are right now. Is she building chips in the caucus as she moves up the ladder in the Senate or is it broader than that? I just can’t tell.”
The Daily Beast: “Gail Sheehy Books Passage to the Past”
By Lizzie Crocker
September 3, 2014
[Subtitle:] The legendary journalist and ‘Passages’ author talks about her new memoir, the glory days of the new journalism, and the denizens of Grey Gardens.
In the summer of 1971, reporter Gail Sheehy fled Manhattan every weekend for East Hampton, seeking an escape from what had become a six-month investigation into prostitution in New York City. But instead of tending to her verdant tomato garden, Sheehy found herself drawn down the road to Grey Gardens, a decaying mansion overrun by howling cats and home to Big Edie and Little Edie Beale, dotty and reclusive relatives of former first lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy.
Just a few miles away and 43 summers later, Sheehy sits in a Sag Harbor rental cottage and reflects on “The Secrets of Grey Gardens,” her now-infamous New York magazine cover story about the Beales, outcasts from the wealthy WASP culture that was their birthright. “WASPs are like the Alawites of America, a rare breed,” says the now 70-year-old Sheehy. Looking youthful in jeans and a turquoise linen t-shirt, a helmet of red hair framing her animated face, she is diminutive, quick-witted, and disarmingly warm. (She addresses me in various terms of endearment, as one would an old friend, and invites me to swim in her pool after lunch). It’s a quality that surely worked to her advantage while interviewing the Beales.
“Oh God, that was so much fun,” Sheehy says, wedging a cookie between two heaping scoops of ice cream—dessert. “It was one of my favorite stories, not only because of the characters but because it was a social history, going back to the grandfather who was a paterfamilias and managed everybody’s lives and then cut them all off as heirs. And the Kennedy’s were in the White House!”
It was one of Sheehy’s breakout pieces of “new journalism,” establishing her as a worthy contemporary of writers like Tom Wolfe, Hunter Thompson, and Joan Didion. As a pioneering female journalist in the ‘60s and ‘70s, she covered everything from the culture wars—with particular focus on feminism and the sexual revolution—to the emerging civil war in Northern Ireland. Between 1968 and 1977, she would file more than 50 stories for New York magazine. She’s since written 17 books, including the best-selling Passages, which the Library of Congress declared one of the most influential books of our time; blurring the boundaries between self-help and pop psychology, the book was embraced—particularly by American women—as a new way of thinking about adulthood and its accompanying crises. It also established Sheehy as a celebrity author and household name (she milked its success in four subsequent books that were all variations on the Passages theme).
In Daring: My Passages, Sheehy now chronicles the ups and downs of her own life, from the fallout of divorce and single motherhood in her late ‘20s to her sudden and dizzying success in her ‘30s, and a life-changing second marriage in her late ‘40s.
Much of Daring is a tribute to Sheehy’s second husband, the late New York magazine founding editor Clay Felker, and the narrative style of the “new journalism movement” that he tirelessly promoted. (The movement’s stars—like Wolfe and Gay Talese—were among the original members of the New York family, many of whom Felker brought with him from the New York Herald Tribune.) Sheehy recalls fondly the excitement of writing social commentary in the ‘60s and ‘70s, two decades that “spawned more new lifestyles than could be contained in any magazine.” While radical activists were attempting to change society, New York and its stable of writers were permanently altering the direction of journalism. “Only in retrospect did we appreciate our good fortune in being part of a utopian experiment in American journalism,” she writes. “At the time, we were too busy having fun.”
In Sag Harbor, Sheehy breathlessly recalls the staff feeding off each other’s ideas during weekly editorial lunches. “There was this incredible cross-fertilization at the table. We’d be there for two hours and get so hyped that we would literally run out of the meeting to start doing our research.”
She remembers how the small staff of Felker’s fledgling magazine would gather at The Palm near the United Nations building, which played host to journalists, dignitaries, and future presidents. “George H.W. Bush was our representative to the U.N. [at the time] and would always be at a table in the corner, late, and with a different girlfriend every time,” she says, grinning.
It was an auspicious time to be a reporter, especially as a Columbia Journalism School student studying under cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead. “You had the Black Panthers scaring the shit out of the white radicals, who were desperately trying to compete,” she says of the privileged white students who fancied themselves revolutionaries. “And then you had the early feminists who were making their young husbands shrivel up because they could never do anything right.”
“The earliest [feminists] were the most extreme: the radical redstockings and the Ti-Grace Atkinsons. They were really hard-nosed. And that was before Gloria [Steinem] got into it, too. I was writing about it early on, but I was writing about it in a somewhat satirical way. Because that was sort of the safe way, and it was fun to make fun of it.” But Sheehy wanted to be taken seriously by her feminist colleagues, particularly Steinem, who was fast becoming a leader in the movement. (In 2013, Sheehy wrote about the survival of “the feminist spirit” for The Daily Beast).
But Daring is more than just a personal memoir; it’s a fast-paced romp through the second half of the 20th century, told through the prism of stories that shaped Sheehy’s career: her first political piece on Bobby Kennedy’s presidential campaign in California; an award-winning series on prostitutes and their pimps; a brush with death in Northern Ireland on Bloody Sunday, which was the impetus for writing Passages; the forgotten Cambodian refugee children who survived Pol Pot’s genocide; profiles of political figures like Margaret Thatcher, George H.W. Bush, and Hillary Clinton.
Her political writings weren’t received without controversy. When Sheehy’s biography of the former First Lady came out in 1999, the Clintons went into attack mode. “Hillary had [Clinton aide] Sidney Blumenthal call people before my book came out, trashing it,” she says. “They are vicious when it comes to trying to silence anyone who has been critical of them.” But she nevertheless declares herself to be sympathetic to the former secretary of state. “I don’t find her to be particularly likeable, but I am a great admirer and I always like to see her succeed.”
At the heart of Daring is Sheehy’s Pygmalion-like romance with her mentor, editor, and husband, Clay Felker. But she acknowledges that their partnership wasn’t always romantic. “It was a creative intimacy from the very beginning,” she explains. Over time, their potent mentor-mentee relationship evolved into a passionate on-again, off-again love affair. But it was intellectual ferment that Sheehy craved above all else. “When we lived together, the most fun we had was reading the papers in the morning over breakfast, digesting the world and spitting it out and arguing about it.”
Like Sheehy, Felker had also been previously married and they were both leery of commitment. Sheehy was in her mid-thirties when she broke off the relationship.
“I thought that was the most daring decision of my life,” she remembers. “Because I loved him and didn’t want to lose him. And it could have gone wrong. But I knew I had to strike out on my own and prove myself without a mentor.”
Sheehy reunited with Felker after she finished Passages, which sat on the New York Times bestseller list for three whole years. The two were married in 1984, 22 years after they first met, and remained so until Felker’s death in 2008.
Today, Sheehy is a poster girl for young female journalists: a dogged reporter who seduced wary subjects by charming her way past their defenses and then winning their confidence—pretty much the same way she disarmed this intimidated protégé.
As she gears up for a publicity tour on her most personal work, Sheehy says she’s more emotionally equipped than ever before to dodge the slings and arrows that come with promoting a book.
“I’ve had the experience of having a book praised but then it doesn’t sell. Or not praised but then it sells. Every combination you can think of, so I guess I’m sort of bulletproof at this point.”
She pauses, laughing at herself.
“Well, not really.”
Calendar:
Sec. Clinton's upcoming appearances as reported online. Not an official schedule.
· September 3 – Washington, DC: Sec. Clinton will make remarks at the groundbreaking ceremony for the U.S. Diplomacy Center (Politico Playbook)
· September 4 – Las Vegas, NV: Sec. Clinton speaks at the National Clean Energy Summit (Solar Novis Today)
· September 9 – Washington, DC: Sec. Clinton fundraises for the DSCC at her Washington home (DSCC)
· September 14 – Indianola, IA: Sec. Clinton headlines Sen. Harkin’s Steak Fry (LA Times)
· 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)