H4a news Clips [April 26, 2015] Summary of Today’s news


As S.C. Democrats wait on Hillary Clinton, likely foes plant seeds [By Philip Rucker and John Wagner, WaPo, April 25, 2015]



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As S.C. Democrats wait on Hillary Clinton, likely foes plant seeds [By Philip Rucker and John Wagner, WaPo, April 25, 2015]
Potential Democratic presidential candidates compete for attention in South Carolina while Hillary Clinton is absent.
COLUMBIA, S.C. — As Democratic leaders and activists gathered here Saturday for their annual state party convention, they chatted in corridors and at coffee stands about Hillary Rodham Clinton. Her campaign staffers buzzed around with clipboards to sign up volunteers. To many, the promise of the first female president seemed exhilarating.
But the candidate was missing. In Clinton’s absence, her longtime booster, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, did his duty again. But the response from the 1,000 convention delegates and activists was lukewarm. And when McAuliffe signaled for a video message from Clinton to play, there was a technical glitch. Then silence.
“It’s on her e-mail somewhere,” shouted one man from the back of the convention hall, referring to Clinton’s controversial use of a private e-mail server as secretary of state.
What soon followed were fresh reminders that, although Clinton is as dominant a front-runner for the nomination as any non-incumbent in recent history, the hearts of party activists are not yet hers.
Bernie Sanders, the socialist senator from Vermont toying with a primary challenge to Clinton, brought Democrats to their feet with a fiery sermon about the hollowed-out middle class and the rise of an “oligarchic form of society” controlled by billionaires.
The reception Sanders received — several delegates called him “electric” — surprised Rep. James E. Clyburn, the state’s most powerful Democrat, who took it all in from the back of the hall.
“I really did not anticipate that from Bernie,” Clyburn said. “It says something about people’s thirst and hunger for a real message.”
Delegates rose again for Martin O’Malley, the ambitious former Maryland governor, after he spoke with rhetorical flourish about the undying American dream and gave a muscular defense of such liberal ideals as increasing wages, expanding Social Security benefits and cracking down on Wall Street banks.
O’Malley, who lately has amped up his attacks on Clinton, took an apparent swipe at his more cautious and calculating rival in his speech: “Leadership is about forming a public opinion, not about chasing after it. It’s not about the polls. It’s about our principles.”
Sanders and O’Malley joined a small parade of lesser-known White House hopefuls who came through Columbia this weekend, seizing opportunities to undermine Clinton and deliver populist pitches constructed to enthrall the same activists who fueled an upset eight years ago, when Barack Obama trounced Clinton here, 55 percent to 27 percent.
As O’Malley left the stage, Democrats swarmed him asking for selfies. The scene led one former Obama campaign staffer, Jonathan Metcalf, to remark: “I started with Barack Obama when he was 38 points down in South Carolina. It was supposed to be impossible. Martin O’Malley can do this — he absolutely can.”
Later, when a reporter asked how his message differs from Clinton’s, O’Malley quipped: “Was she here? I guess it was different in every way.”
Lincoln Chafee, a former Rhode Island governor and senator, also addressed the convention, while former Virginia senator Jim Webb was represented by a surrogate.
South Carolinians are proud to hold the South’s first presidential primary and have grown accustomed to face time with candidates. Many delegates said Clinton made a mistake by not attending the convention, the largest annual gathering of local Democratic leaders.
“I’m disappointed that she doesn’t seem to be paying a lot of attention to South Carolina. I think she should be here. That’s one of the reservations with her,” said Bruce Sanders of Columbia, a delegate who works for a flooring company. “As it stands now, I’m probably for Hillary, but I’m willing to think about it a little more.”
Other delegates already had their minds made up. “It’s about time we had a woman, and here’s a very qualified woman,” said Rose Pellatt, 71, a Clinton supporter who works at a community college. “She may not be perfect, but who is? Why can’t we have a female president? I’ve worked too hard not to have this come to pass before I die.”
The wait to see Clinton will soon end. She is scheduled to make her first visit to South Carolina next month, aides said, and the campaign’s mantra here is the same as in the other early caucus and primary states: She will work to earn every vote.
The Clinton team is staffing up, with a half-dozen paid organizers across the state, and has built a volunteer corps of more than 600. A top national staffer, Marlon Marshall, was in South Carolina working delegates. On Friday, he and other Clinton aides mingled with activists at Clyburn’s famous fish fry, a rollicking party staged in a downtown parking garage with hip-hop music blaring and people dancing into the night.
In 2008, Clinton’s ties to Clyburn were damaged when Bill Clinton made a series of anti-Obama comments on the campaign trail that many in this heavily African American state interpreted as race-baiting. This year, Hillary Clinton extended an olive branch when she hired a Clyburn protege, Clay Middleton, to run her South Carolina campaign.
Clyburn, who recounted the painful 2008 episode in his memoir, said in an interview that he reserves “no venom” for the Clintons. “I have no problems with Bill or Hillary. I can be as enthusiastic about her candidacy as I have been for anybody. . . . [But] I will not endorse anybody before the Democratic primary in South Carolina.”
For now, Clyburn said, it is important that all presidential aspirants get a fair hearing. One of them is Chafee, an ex-Republican, who has signaled he would run against Clinton from the left on foreign policy. “Are we ready to end these wars?” he cried out to partygoers at the fish fry.
The next morning, Chafee took an apparent swipe at Clinton’s ethics. “We want to see someone who hasn’t had scandal after scandal after scandal,” he said. “I’ve never had an ethical blemish.”
Webb, another potential challenger, skipped the South Carolina convention to attend the White House correspondents’ dinner in Washington. He was represented on stage by adviser David “Mudcat” Saunders, who called Webb “a great American hero.”
At Saturday’s convention, once the audio-visual equipment was fixed, Clinton’s video played. She repeated the early themes of her campaign, saying, “South Carolinians need a champion, and I want to be that champion.”
Although delegates seemed to be half-listening. The video projection was so soft and the convention hall’s lighting so bright that they couldn’t make out the picture.
In closing, Clinton said: “I look forward to seeing you in person, too. Have a great evening.”
The problem was, it wasn’t evening. It was 10:35 a.m.
‘SNL’s Cecily Strong Asks Media Not to Talk About Hillary Clinton’s Appearance [Ted Johnson, Variety, April 25, 2015]
Cecily Strong asked the media in the room to “solemnly swear not to talk about Hillary’s appearance because that is not journalism.” Then Strong quipped that they should also say, “Cecily looks great tonight.”
Cecily Strong of “Saturday Night Live,” this year’s featured entertainment at the White House Correspondents Assn. dinner, actually had a semi-serious moment that reflected her role as one of the few women to have the gig.
She asked the media in the room to “solemnly swear not to talk about Hillary’s appearance because that is not journalism.” Then Strong quipped that they should also say, “Cecily looks great tonight.”
Strong, 31, was less biting than last year’s entertainer, Joel McHale. In interviews before the dinner, she said that she wanted to deliver a few zingers but by and large play to her sillier instincts.
Her sharpest quip was perhaps one aimed at the troubles with the Secret Service and the protests over police treatment of black suspects.
“The Secret Service — the only law enforcement agency that would get in trouble if a black man gets shot,” she said, to some audience ooohs.
Another was directed at Obama’s graying hair: “Your hair is so white now, you can talk back to the police.”
Ironically, Baltimore TV stations were broadcasting live on Saturday night with coverage of protests in downtown over the recent death of an African American man, Freddie Gray, in police custody.
Strong is one of the few women to have been the featured entertainer at the dinner, the last being Wanda Sykes in 2009.
Like Obama, she skewered the media, with jokes about the dire state of print journalism and the sensationalism of cable news.
“Fox News has been losing a lot of viewers recently, and may they rest in peace,” she said.
She also alluded to controversy at her own network. “And what can I say about Brian Williams. Nothing, because I work for NBC.”
She also made several jokes about the venue.
“It is great to be here at the Washington Hilton,” she said. “It’s something a congressman might say to a prostitute.”
Strong also skewered former Rep. Aaron Schock’s legal troubles and the Republican presidential field, and she made light of her preference for Hillary Clinton in 2016. She did, however, make a jab at one of Clinton’s early campaign controversies.
“Our relationship with Israel will be great in the next administration. Just as soon as Israel makes a generous donation to the Clinton Foundation.”
She began her routine by noting how she has the tough assignment of coming on after the president, again with a reference to Clinton. “It feels right to have a woman following President Obama, doesn’t it?”
Hillary Rodham Clinton plans May fundraising stop in Bay Area [Carla Marinucci, SF Gate, April 24, 2015]
Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will hold her first fundraisers in San Francisco as a presidential candidate on May 6th and 8th.
The fundraising trip will be preceded by a May 1 Bay Area visit by John Podesta, chairman of Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, sources say. Podesta, former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, will hold private meetings with key supporters and potential major donors — and arrives as the candidate has been battered by headlines after the publication of a new book examining the finances and donations of her family’s Clinton Foundation.
Clinton’s trip is part of a statewide fundraising swing, which includes three Hollywood events on May 7, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
In San Francisco, Clinton will star at a May 6 event arranged in part by her longtime friend and key backer, Susie Tompkins Buell.
On May 8, Clinton will hit Silicon Valley for a lunch at the Portola Valley home of a key tech leader, eBay President and CEO John Donahoe, and his wife, Eileen Donahoe, who in 2009 was appointed by President Obama as ambassador to the U.N. Human Rights Council.
Tickets for the events are expected to be $2,700 per person, the maximum donation for the 2016 presidential primary.
Podesta is expected to talk with potential donors and backers about the campaign — and will address the rash of recent stories about the Clinton Foundation after the publication of “Clinton Cash” by Peter Schweizer, a former fellow at Stanford University’s conservative Hoover Institution. Pre-publication stories about the book’s contents have created a firestorm in the conservative media.
But one key Clinton supporter, speaking on background, said that while many in the donor community are keenly aware of the brouhaha, there’s no panic among most deep-pocketed check writers — at least not yet.
Obama Jokes About Hillary Clinton, ‘Blackish’ at White House Correspondents Dinner [Ted Johnson, Variety, April 25, 2015]
President Obama quipped about Hillary Clinton: “I have one friend who was making millions of dollars a year and now she is living out of a van in Iowa.”
WASHINGTON — President Obama once again threw out cutting zingers at this year’s White House Correspondents Assn. dinner, skewering cable news, the Republican presidential field and even Hillary Clinton’s just started presidential campaign.
And in a nod to his takedown of Donald Trump in 2011, he noted Trump’s presence at this dinner. “And Donald Trump is here. Still.”
After welcoming the cast of ABC’s “Blackish” comedy, he warned: “(But) being ‘Blackish’ only makes you popular for so long.”
One of his biggest laughs came when he noted that people ask him, “Mr. Obama, do you have a bucket list? Well, I have something that rhymes with bucket list.”
His quip about Hillary Clinton came when he noted that some Americans were going through tough times. “I have one friend who was making millions of dollars a year and now she is living out of a van in Iowa.”
He also added a twist to his delivery, bringing on “Luther, the anger translator,” aka Keegan-Michael Key, to shed light on his true feelings about media coverage of the job he is doing.
One of his biggest laughs came when he talked about his close relationship with Vice President Joseph Biden. “We’ve gotten so close that in some places in Indiana they won’t serve us pizza anymore.”
The event has gained a reputation for being “Washington’s wildest week,” as a new documentary, “Nerd Prom,” dubbed it, for the unusual mix of celebrity, media figures and government officials. In fact, the White House Correspondents Assn. has grappled with the fact that so much of what goes on during the weekend has little to do with their mission, freedom of the press and access to the president.
This year, a number of reporters wore “Free Jason” lapel pins, and in her remarks at the event, the president of the WHCA, Christi Parsons, cited the case of Washington Post Tehran correspondent Jason Rezaian, under arrest in Iran since July 22 and being held on charges related to his reporting.
Jane Fonda, Bradley Cooper and Laverne Cox were among the show biz figures attending, with the celebrity quotient noticeably muted from past years, when it was hard to keep track of all of the A-listers and tabloid darlings who populated the event. Still, there was a red carpet at the Washington Hilton, with political reporters like Bloomberg Politics’ Mark Halperin interviewing, E! style, the likes of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and potential presidential contender Martin O’Malley.
As usual, the pre-parties at the Washington Hilton offered unexpected moments. At the Yahoo-ABC News party, Justice Antonin Scalia sipped a martini and posed for photos near Katie Couric. Asked whether this was his first dinner, Scalia said that he’d been several times before, including as a guest of Fox News, but took a break. The trouble was that one of the featured comics told too many dirty and offensive jokes, he said. He couldn’t remember who the comic was, though, “I waited five years. It was safe to come back,” he quipped.
At the CBS News-The Atlantic party, Bob Schieffer, recently retired as host of “Face the Nation,” brought along Tea Leoni, star of “Madam Secretary.” Leoni’s co-star, Tim Daly, escorted former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
Trump worked the press line, even as most attendees were being told to get through security into the cavernous ballroom in the basement of the Hilton.
“This is an opportunity to see these political figures like human beings,” said singer JC Chasez, at his fourth dinner. “It feels like, at least from the outside looking in, that this is the one moment where everybody seems to let their guard down a little bit, put things off one the issues a little bit. They are just willing to be happy and have a little bit of fun. If you can poke fun at yourself, it is a good thing.”
At the Washington Post pre-party was an Oculus display of a virtual reality White House. While it had its share of takers willing to test the demonstration, the focus was still on celebrity.
Bryan Singer flew in from Montreal with “X-Men: Apocalypse” co-stars Sophie Turner and Tye Sheridan. The movie starts production on Monday.
“By night, we enjoy the festivities,” said Singer, in for his third dinner. “By day, we are actually working on our final touches.”
He offered his take on the co-mingling of D.C. and showbiz.
“Both are part of the media by the very nature of their jobs, and we don’t get to cross mingle very often,” he said. “It is an opportunity for people on our side of the media, entertainment, to be able to interface with those in politics and government. It’s just a very rare moment.”
The Insiders: How do the Clinton scandals end? [Ed Rogers, WaPo Post Partisian, April 24, 2015]
Hillary Clinton has three strategies to manage the stream of scandals that may continue to come out during her campaign: stonewalling, "whaack-a-mole" and scorched earth.
In a compelling read, The Post’s Chris Cillizza just declared that Hillary Clinton “had the worst week in Washington.” Fortunately for Clinton, we all know that things in Washington can turn on a dime. Bad news recedes from the headlines, momentum shifts and today’s scandals and gaffes fade into distant memories. But given the long list of unanswered questions about the multitude of Clinton scandals, how will they come to an end? How can Clinton put a period at the end of the sentence and move on? It’s actually hard to see how that will be possible, simply because there is not one source of trouble. There are questions about her e-mails, Clinton Foundation donations, tax records, foreign influence — and that’s just this month. And given what we know about the Clintons, there is more to come and more shoes that will be dropping. Plus, all the new problems prompt fresh looks at all the old problems. Anyway, every week I have to tell someone that in Washington being innocent is only an advantage. Likewise, being guilty is only a disadvantage. Neither is determinative. But it’s safe to say Clinton is operating at a distinct disadvantage.
So what are Team Clinton’s options on how to manage the campaign politics? Some problems are solved and others are managed. The scandals currently in the public view won’t be solved, so the Clinton brain trust will have to find a way to manage them. Doesn’t the constant drip, drip, drip of damaging revelations deflate her supporters? Maybe the Clinton managers’ hope is that voters will just become numb to all of the questionable dealings that swirl around her universe. But I don’t see how Clinton’s supporters can be both numb and enthusiastic at the same time. Enthusiasm drives turnout. Numbness has got to suppress it.
The way I see it, Clinton has three realistic strategies to manage the reality of her circumstances.
First, she can employ a “whack-a-mole” strategy. The Clinton forces could have a team that tackles every new ugly mole as it pops up, whacking it down with talking points, surrogates and whatever other tactics they have at their disposal so it doesn’t distract the rest of the campaign.
Next, she can deploy a strategy of permanent stonewalling. But this is untenable. As the campaign moves forward, she will have to have regular encounters with the media. Clinton will need to get to a place where she can take on all questions, not be intimidated, not tell whoppers that will dig the scandal hole deeper and actually impress people with her command of her story and the facts.
Clinton’s third option is a scorched earth policy. A recent Quinnipiac poll shows that Clinton is viewed as untrustworthy by 54 percent of the population, which makes her strategy simple. She will just need to make sure her opponent — whoever it is — is viewed as untrustworthy by 60 percent of the electorate. So the Clinton campaign has to start now by attacking the Republican brand. They will need to load the kitchen sink and get ready to launch it at their Republican opponent as soon as that person emerges. This means the 2016 campaign will get down in the gutter faster than in most previous campaigns.
None of this bodes well for the next president. The 2016 campaign needs to establish a credible case for governing, if not a mandate. Having a campaign that goes negative in the spring of 2015 will make that almost impossible. Call me a cynic, but I don’t think Clinton has much of a choice in the matter.
Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were both elected when voters were upbeat and enthusiastic. Bill Clinton was the man from Hope who didn’t want you to stop thinking about tomorrow. Barack Obama was full of hope and change. What is it Hillary Clinton will realistically expect voters to affirmatively hope for in 2016?
Clinton's May schedule: Trips to Nevada, South Carolina; fundraisers in California [Dan Merica, CNN, April 25, 2015]
Hillary Clinton's May schedule will include trips to Nevada and South Carolina, three days of fundraising in donor-heavy California, and, once those are finished, her first rally and campaign speech.
(CNN)Hillary Clinton's May schedule will include trips to Nevada and South Carolina, three days of fundraising in donor-heavy California, and, once those are finished, her first rally and campaign speech.
Clinton will kick off the three-state swing when she visits Nevada on May 5, according to a campaign aide, who added that the presidential candidate's events will look similar to the small roundtables that Clinton headlined in Iowa and New Hampshire earlier this month.
The events will give "people one-on-one time with her to ask questions, answer questions, and share ideas," said the aide, who did not specify where, exactly, Clinton would be visiting in Nevada.
Clinton will also head to South Carolina, a senior campaign official told CNN on Saturday, though the official did not say when she would visit. The statement was released on the same day that three other likely 2016 Democratic presidential hopefuls -- former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders -- are in The Palmetto State for an event organized by the state party. Clinton is not at Saturday's event, but she did tape a video that aired for the assembled Democrats.
Campaign aides would not detail why Clinton did not make the trip to Columbia, South Carolina herself.
Amid ethics questions about Clinton and her family foundation, Clinton's campaign aides have tried to remain focused on what they are calling the campaign's "ramp-up" period, where Clinton's organization is being put together and the candidate travels to early voting states for small events that are organized to make her look like a more humble candidate than she was during her failed 2008 White House bid.
Next, Clinton will headline a series of fundraisers in San Francisco on May 6, Los Angeles on May 7, and Silicon Valley on May 8, according to an email invitation obtained by CNN. The events are part of the Clinton campaign's "Hillstarter" fundraising program that asks donors to find at least 10 people to give $2,700 each.
California was a regular stop on the 2013 and 2014 paid speaking circuit for Clinton. Since the start of 2014, Clinton has visited Silicon Valley a total of five times, including headlining an event at Google in July. Clinton has also headlined a marketing summit in San Francisco, keynoted a sales conference in the area and spoke at the offices of Facebook and Twitter.
The California fundraisers will not be the first of her campaign. Clinton is scheduled to headline the first fundraisers of her new bid for the White House in New York on April 28 and Washington on April 30.
Despite the Clinton team's attempt to run a frugal campaign, the expectation is that the 2016 effort will cost more than the roughly $1 billion President Obama's 2012 campaign spent. At early campaign briefings, Dennis Cheng, Clinton's finance director, has told donors that they will need "at least $100 million in the primary."
Once Clinton completes her early state tour, aides have said that Clinton "will hold her first rally and deliver the speech to kick off her campaign" in May, though they declined to provide further details, including where and when the event will be held.
Hillary Clinton's Machine Sputters [Margaret Carlson, Bloomberg View, April 25, 2015]
In addition to parrying the attacks from Republicans, Hillary Clinton must fend off attacks from the press and about her former public image.
You might as well make yourselves comfortable.
That’s advice Republican presidential candidates might want to follow, given how often they will be summoned to Iowa over the next nine months or so to explain themselves to the state's notoriously demanding voters.
This weekend, they'll be turning up to prove their evangelical fervor at the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition, part of the national organization created by Ralph Reed in 2009, after his fall from grace as head of the Christian Coalition.
Reed has sufficiently rehabilitated himself to have some status as a Republican power broker. So the party's candidates and would-be candidates have to make repeated appearances in Iowa and take positions on issues such as abortion, gays, guns, educational standards and climate change that they end up regretting in the general election.
This time, though, Republicans may not have to bow so low. They have an ace in the hole: Hillary Clinton. Her name can be used as a magic incantation to change the subject at will, get out of any tricky situation and instantly make the toughest Republican crowd forget all that nitpicking about conservative bona fides or a lack of agenda.
Unfortunately for the former first lady and secretary of state, it doesn't work in reverse. There are just too many Republicans to pick one to go after and she has no primary opposition worth mentioning (apologies to Senator Bernie Sanders and former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley).
And that's not Clinton’s only challenge. In addition to parrying the attacks of the Republican pack, she has to fend off the press and her prior selves.
But Extreme Makeover Hillary Clinton 2016 Edition began to sputter almost from the moment she formally announced her candidacy via a cameo in a video on April 12. As she sought to prove she's one of us by driving (well, with a driver) from New York to Davenport, Iowa, she made a stop in a Chipotle. The grainy security camera footage showed a dour woman in huge dark glasses who could either been upset about the upcharge for guacamole or holding up the place.
Her aides must have decided Everywoman needed a rest because their candidate flew first class from New Hampshire this week to meet with wealthy donors at lawyer Vernon Jordan’s house in Washington.
To be fair, the press isn't helping. Reporters didn’t even give the Normality Tour a chance to look normal, as they chased Hillary's Scooby van with a fervor usually reserved for O.J. on the Los Angeles Freeway or the final stage of Tour de France.
It got worse. No sooner had she left Iowa for New Hampshire, a feeding frenzy began over the imminent publication of “Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich,” by Peter Schweizer. The press reverted to its default position, which is to be suspicious about how the Clinton Foundation, and the once "dead-broke" Clintons, piled up huge amounts of cash.
The New York Times got a copy of the book in advance of its May 5 publication and summarized its basic charge on Monday: Countries, potentates and governments -- some of them unsavory -- funneled money to the Clinton Foundation and to Bill Clinton through donations and high speaking fees ($13.3 million for 54 appearances, mostly abroad, earning the premium amount of $500,000 for 11 speeches during his wife’s tenure at state). Schweizer asserts, with multiple examples, that those who paid up were simultaneously seeking favors from the State Department.
Schweizer is being attacked by Democrats as a conservative writer with an axe to grind, although he’s writing a similar book about Jeb Bush’s financial self-dealing.
What the book has done is unleash the press to dig deeper for disturbing if not illegal benefits that accrued to donors to Clinton Inc. On Thursday, the Times showed in meticulous detail how cash from Canadian mining entrepreneurs at Uranium One found its way to the Clinton Foundation as the Canadians were selling their company to the Russian state-owned nuclear energy company. The deal gave Russia control of one-fifth of the world’s uranium and required approval by the federal government, including the State Department. The donations, which included $2.35 million from the chairman of Uranium One, weren't publicly disclosed by the foundation, even though Hillary Clinton had signed an agreement with the Obama administration requiring disclosure of all donors as a condition of becoming secretary of state.
Shortly after the deal, Bill got $500,000 for a Moscow speech from a Russian investment bank promoting Uranium One stock.
Hillary's spokesman, Brian Fallon, has pointed out that there's no evidence the secretary delivered anything of value to those who forked over the speaking fees and donations. Did she do something she wouldn’t have done but for the money changing hands? The difficulty of proving such quid pro quos is the reason more politicians aren’t driven from office or in prison.
It should be easy to check, right? There are e-mails, right? Oops.
In New Hampshire, Clinton called all of it a “distraction” and said how much she “looked forward” to getting back to the issues. That may be a tall order even if she dropped Everywoman for Superwoman. A Quinnipiac poll released Thursday found that 54 percent of those surveyed thought the former secretary was "not honest and trustworthy."
If the past is a guide, Hillary won’t deal with the claims one by one, but blame a vast right-wing conspiracy. She may have a secret weapon of her own: It's a fair bet that Republicans will pile on so hard this weekend that she'll end up looking like the underdog.
GOP's latest Benghazi-related inquiry could benefit Hillary Clinton [Evan Halper, LA Times, April 25, 2015]
As Congress pursues its latest investigation of Hillary Rodham Clinton's missing emails and the role they may have played in the security lapses in the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, not every Republican is delighted by the prospect of dragging her to Capitol Hill for a skewering.
As Congress pursues its latest investigation of Hillary Rodham Clinton's missing emails and the role they may have played in the security lapses in the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, not every Republican is delighted by the prospect of dragging her to Capitol Hill for a skewering.
Some see danger.
The Clintons have proved adept over the years at turning allegations of misdeeds in their favor. Voter uneasiness with their conduct has, in the past, yielded to voter distaste for the zealousness with which Republicans exploited it.
There are still memories of President Clinton's approval rating soaring above 64% within months of his impeachment by the House in December 1998. Voters punished Republicans in the midterm election a month before the impeachment vote.
"Republicans have to be cautious and not look too overeager, politically, on this one thing," said Katie Gage, a GOP strategist focused on messaging that candidates might use against Hillary Clinton as she runs for president.
"Trying to turn this into a political issue and putting it all at her feet will allow her an opportunity to seem like she is being bullied," Gage said of the Benghazi investigation.
The Clinton team appears to be doing everything it can to get Republicans overheated.
Last week, a request by the House Select Committee on Benghazi for an interview with Clinton in a closed-door hearing was cast by her aides as a setup, timed so Republicans could leak parts of her testimony in the heat of the 2016 election.
Clinton campaign Chairman John Podesta characterized news that the committee may not wrap up its work until next year — election year — as "the latest example in a broad, concerted effort by Republicans and their allies to launch false attacks" on Clinton.
There have already been several government investigations into the 2012 attacks in Benghazi that killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. The reports did not support allegations from some Republicans that mismanagement by Clinton precipitated the tragedy.
Trying to turn this into a political issue and putting it all at her feet will allow her an opportunity to seem like she is being bullied.  - Katie Gage, Republican strategist
But Republicans are focusing on Benghazi anew after Clinton acknowledged this year that she had conducted all of her government business on a personal email account while secretary of State, handpicking which messages to preserve for the public record. She erased other messages on the account, which was run from a server in her home.
Those details are tempting to Republicans eager to embroil Clinton in a major scandal. And on the campaign trail, the situation is providing plenty of red meat for GOP contenders.
But back in Washington, Republican lawmakers are being urged to keep their cool.
Nobody wants to relive those days in the 1990s when a top Republican insisted that Clinton aide Vince Foster, whose death was ruled a suicide, was actually murdered. Then-Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.) suggested he disproved law enforcement's finding that Foster shot himself in the head by launching his own forensics investigation, during which he shot a bullet into a melon.
As Clinton's email scandal emerged, Republican media strategist Rick Wilson cautioned Republicans not to blow it. "Try for once to play the long game and help Hillary Clinton take on water," he wrote in Politico last month. "They want you to jack the volume to 11."
The chairman of the Benghazi committee, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), seems to be heeding the advice.
"I have made no presumption of right- or wrongdoing on anyone's part with respect to the Benghazi terrorist attacks," he said Thursday.
The remark came as he sent a detailed letter to Clinton's attorney that calmly suggested it was not his committee, but Clinton herself and the Obama administration, that were dragging the process out.
He accused them of refusing to turn over all the documents the committee was requesting. He said the hearing need not be behind closed doors.
"With her cooperation and that of the State Department and administration, Secretary Clinton could be done with the Benghazi committee before the Fourth of July," Gowdy said.
He pointed out that the State Department initially failed to tell investigators that Clinton was routing her government email through a personal account and controlling which messages got preserved, suggesting that earlier investigations may have missed something as a result.
Democrats quickly followed up with their own timelines, questioning Gowdy's assurances that he was merely seeking to follow the facts wherever they led. They note his committee's inquiry is on track to last longer than the investigations into President Kennedy's assassination, Watergate and the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
"The Republicans' multiyear search for evidence to back up their Benghazi conspiracy theories has turned up nothing," said Rep. Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the select committee.
He called the effort an attempt "to drag out this taxpayer-funded search for anything they can use against Hillary Clinton, while their political arm raises campaign funds off the deaths of four Americans."

South Carolina is ready ... to be courted, Democrats say at statewide Democratic Convention [Jeremy Borden, Charleston Post and Courier, April 25, 2015]


South Carolina Democrats have a message for their standard bearer and early primary favorite Hillary Clinton: we want some love.
COLUMBIA — South Carolina Democrats have a message for their standard bearer and early primary favorite Hillary Clinton: we want some love.
Among the chattering classes, there are few who would say the behemoth that is the Clinton operation faces much of a real challenge so far. Lesser-known potential challengers such as former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley or Vermont independent U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, among others, are still on the fence about running and face fundraising and other stiff challenges.
As South Carolina Democrats gathered for their annual convention Saturday — without Clinton but with several other potential candidates and surrogates — there was much to lament. The party, like others around the South, received a shellacking in last year’s mid-term election and face dwindling numbers in the Statehouse. But the state’s first-in-the-South primary is a bright spot that puts the state’s devoted Democrats in a position to potentially play king-maker for the highest office in the land.
Among at least some delegates who gathered, Clinton was seen as an inevitable if flawed candidate months before the February primary.
Rudy Williams, a convention attendee from Columbia who was wearing a seersucker suit and speaking loudly over the din of music at Friday night’s fish fry hosted by Rep. Jim Clyburn, said he believes Clinton can beat any Republican. But he said there are drawbacks.
“There’s always drama, drama, drama with the Clintons,” Williams said. “All the baggage. But it is what it is. She’ll get the votes.”
Other potential candidates hope, of course, that could mean an opening for them. O’Malley, perhaps the best known of the potential candidates who has long flirted with a run, delivered a speech to delegates that hit on several progressive cornerstones, including sustained funding for education, the minimum wage and improving childhood hunger.
He said he would build on President Barack Obama’s economic success to ensure a stronger middle class.
O’Malley helped Democratic gubernatorial candidate Vincent Sheheen last year raise money and campaign around the state. “People here (in South Carolina) want the same thing we all want,” O’Malley told reporters after his speech. “When we work hard, we want to be able to get ahead. There’s this deep pessimism as people look over the horizon and wonder what it’s going to be like if wages don’t go (up). That’s very acute here in South Carolina. They know they’re working harder ... other things are going up but not their paycheck.”
Asked about differences with Clinton, O’Malley noted that she wasn’t at the convention. “I guess it was different in every way,” he said.
Boyd Brown, a former Democratic S.C. House member who attended the convention and is supporting O’Malley, said he doesn’t want to see another Clinton in the White House. “O’Malley is going to be in people’s living rooms, not just for a photo op,” Brown said, dismissing Clinton’s early efforts to be approachable. “The Clintons were perfect in 1992. But this isn’t 1992. We’ve crossed that bridge.”
He said he’s skeptical Clinton has learned from her 2008 mistakes. “The Clintons have always been known to repeat their mistakes,” Brown said.
Clinton campaign officials and surrogates say the former senator and Secretary of State is ready for the tough slog in South Carolina and elsewhere. Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a longtime Clinton supporter and a Hillary Clinton surrogate at the event Saturday, said she has learned her lesson from 2008 when Obama surprisingly won the South Carolina primary.
He said Clinton’s move to meet with smaller groups in Iowa is evidence of what she plans to do in South Carolina. “Small interaction — that is exactly what she needs to be doing,” McAuliffe told reporters. He said she has never forgotten her humble roots and plans to share her story in early primary states and across the country. Clinton also addressed South Carolina delegates through a pre-recorded video, saying she hoped to be their “champion” across the state.
Sheheen, the former gubernatorial candidate, said in an interview that Obama and other national Democrats have “failed” the South for avoiding visits and speaking directly to southern Democrats. “Retail politics still matter,” said Sheheen, who has not yet endorsed anyone. He attributed Obama’s 2008 primary victory in the state to traditional campaigning and an aspirational vision. “He was here, mixing it up,” Sheheen said. “He spoke to people’s desires.”
Bakari Sellers, a well-known Democrat and Clinton supporter, said he would push the Clinton camp to make the right moves. “I think they understand what happens when you take things for granted,” he said.
Some of the party’s most colorful national characters also came to Columbia Convention Center on Saturday. Sanders, the Vermont senator, delivered a fiery speech about inequality in America. “America does not belong to the billionaire class, it belongs to all of us,” Sanders said.
Appearing for potential presidential hopeful Jim Webb, a former Virginia senator, political operative David “Mudcat” Saunders hit on that theme as well.
Webb doesn’t yet know whether he’ll have the funds to mount a successful campaign. “If it’s not Mrs. Clinton, it’s frozen,” Saunders said of campaign money on the Democratic side. “South Carolinians are just plum fed up as well... with money primaries. (It’s) coin operated government. You stick your money in the juke box and out play your song.”
Along with Sen. Sanders, O’Malley and Webb, potential candidate former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chaffee also addressed South Carolina delegates.


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