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Talking Points Memo's Dylan Scott interviewed Mitch Stewart, the former battleground states director of President Obama's reelection campaign and now a member of the Hillary Clinton campaign-in-waiting known as "Ready for Hillary," about how the 2016 electoral map could be expanded in Democrats' favor if the former secretary of state is, as expected, the party's presidential nominee.

Stewart suggests two "buckets" of states that Clinton could make competitive in 2016 that Obama, for a several reasons, couldn't in 2008 or 2012. The first bucket is Arkansas, Indiana and Missouri. The second contains Arizona and Georgia.

The first bucket of states is ridiculous. The second is plausible -- but almost certainly not in 2016. Let's take them in order.

Stewart's explanation for Clinton's heightened competitiveness in Arkansas, Missouri and Indiana is that she can appeal to whites and, in particular, white working-class voters and, even more particularly, white working-class women voters in a way that Obama could not. (It's worth noting that the Clinton people have made a similar argument about the potential competitiveness of Kentucky.)

"Where I think Secretary Clinton has more appeal than any other Democrat looking at running is that with white working-class voters, she does have a connection," Stewart told Scott. "I think she's best positioned to open those states." As evidence, Stewart cited Clinton's success in the 2008 primary process in states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Fair(ish). But remember that Clinton's performance in those primaries was against an African American candidate named Barack Obama, not against a Republican in a general election. And that coming close isn't the same thing as winning. Yes, Clinton would almost certainly do better with white working-class voters than Obama did. But, in some of the states that Stewart puts in that first bucket, that's a pretty low bar.

Arkansas is a good example. It's easy to assume -- and the Clintons almost certainly are assuming -- that the former first couple of Arkansas have a special connection to the Natural State. After all, Bill Clinton spent years as the state's governor and used it as a launching pad for his presidential bid in 1992.

That was a very long time ago. And even in the past six years, Arkansas has moved heavily away from Democrats at the federal level. In 2008, both U.S. senators from Arkansas were Democrats, as were three of its four House members. Following the 2014 elections, all six are Republicans. ALL SIX. President Obama won just 37 percent of the vote in the state in the 2012 general election after watching someone named John Wolfe win 42 percent of the vote in the Democratic presidential primary against him.

Would Hillary Clinton do better than that? Yes. But the idea that the Arkansas that helped push Bill Clinton into the national spotlight has anything in common, politically speaking, with the Arkansas of 2014 is a fallacy. As for the idea that Obama's race was the fundamental reason for his poor showing among white working-class voters, here are two words for you: Mark Pryor. As in, the two term incumbent senator -- and son of a former governor and senator in the state -- who just lost badly in his bid for reelection. Pryor took just 31 percent among white voters and won an even more meager 29 percent among whites without a college education. (The exit poll didn't break down income level by race.)

Missouri and Indiana are slightly -- emphasis on slightly -- less clear-cut as such huge reaches when it comes to Clinton's presidential prospects. Obama's successes in both states in 2008 -- he won Indiana and lost Missouri by less than 4,000 votes -- would seem to provide significant encouragement for the Clinton forces. But subsequent election results in both states make 2008 look far more like the exception than the rule for Democrats.

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The ridiculousness of Hillary Clintons expand-the-map ...

DOWNTOWN MEMPHIS, Tenn. (FOX13) - It's been 20 years since former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Back then she was First Lady.

On Thursday she was at the Downtown Memphis hospital to help dedicate and open a new $200 million research, education and collaboration center.

This new facility will allow doctors and researchers from St. Jude and worldwide to share knowledge about treatments and cures for childhood cancer.

The Marlo Thomas Center for Global Education and Collaboration will also host a college graduate and post-doctoral fellow program to be a "degree-gaining institute." The facility is already in use - meetings were being held Thursday. In the last 20 years since Clinton visited st. Jude, the hospital's CEO says its doctors have discovered how to tailor medullablastoma therapies, started a genome project to understand pediatric cancers and established a life study program. This center will allow doctors worldwide to share and further cancer research.

"This is what healthcare should look like patients before profits, collaboration before competition, and that is particularly healthcare that every single child deserves," the former secretary of state said.

It was decided that the center would be named after Marlo Thomas because of her efforts there as a "proud beggar" for the st. Jude children. She'll receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom Nov. 24 for her advocacy work supporting the hospital.

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Originally posted here:
Hillary Clinton To Visit St. Jude Hospital

The Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation spent more than $8 million on travel in 2013 and received donations of $144.4 million, according to Internal Revenue Service documents. The bill led critics at a Republican PAC to question whether prospective 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton used the nonprofit organizations budget to pay for political trips.

At the Clinton Foundation, its unclear the line between charity and multi-million dollar political organization funneling money to subsidize the Clintons private political air travel and courting of prospective presidential campaign donors, Tim Miller, executive director for the Republican research arm America Rising and a former spokesman for the Republican National Committee, told Politico. Given the extravagant luxury travel and fundraising expenditures that could help a potential presidential campaign, the Clinton Foundation must be transparent about how these funds were spent, detailing flight costs, itineraries, manifests and other relevant information.

The Clinton Foundations travel budget amounted to 10 percent of its total expenses last year and nearly doubled travel expenses of previous years, according to the IRS documents. The Board recognizes that, due to extraordinary security and other requirements, William J. Clinton, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Chelsea Clinton may require the need to travel by charter or in first class, the determination of which will be made on a case-by-case basis, the foundation said in the IRS filings.

Clinton representatives denied that the foundations travel budget was indicative of Hillary Clintons political efforts. Her foundation travel in 2013 did not intersect at all with any political travel. There was no overlap. Period. The accusation is patently, but not surprisingly given its source, false, Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill said.

The Clinton Foundation received $144.4 million in donations last year, according to the IRS filings. The total nearly tripled the $51.5 million in funds received in 2012, CNN noted.

A former first lady and secretary of state from 2009 to 2013, Clinton ran for president in 2008 and is expected to announce her bid for the 2016 presidential race in the near future. In September, Clinton said that she will make a decision on whether to run by the end of 2014, CNN reported.

Clinton traveled more than any other secretary of state in U.S. history, visiting a record 112 countries during her time in office. She spent more than a year of her four-year term in transit, according to the Atlantic.

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Hillary Clinton President 2016: Clinton Foundation Spent $8M On Travel In 2013, Raised $144M In Donations

By Perry Bacon Jr.

Message to Hillary Clinton: focus on wage stagnation and income inequality in 2016, or lose.

At the annual conference of the Center for American Progress, the liberal think tank with close ties to both the Clintons and the Obama administration, some of the Democrats leading policy strategists and politicians almost universally agreed that offering specific policies to boost the income of middle-class Americans is the issue the party must confront in 2016.

There was little direct talk of Clintons candidacy at the event on Wednesday. But the conference was full of criticism of the partys message in 2014, which these Democrats felt was both overly cautious and too focused on issues like gender pay equity and the minimum wage instead of broader economic challenges. They urged a different approach in 2016, when Clinton is widely expected to be the Democrats presidential nominee.

"The issue that is going to animate the election is the wage squeeze, stagnant wages mixed with higher costs"

We need a message .... that as a Democratic Party, this is what were committed to. Were committed to higher wages, were committed to opportunity for everybody to share in the economy, said Ted Strickland, the former Ohio governor, who is now a top advisor at CAP.

There are clear conclusions you can draw from this election [2014] and apply to 2016, at all levels: It is to have a clear, blunt, progressive economic message, relentlessly put it out, and be willing to talk about the changes we need to do in our economy and our society to actually address what is a declining middle class, said New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, who participated in a question and answer session at the conference.

Neera Tanden, who has served as an policy aide to both Obama and Clinton and is now CAPs president, argued the wage stagnation had become such a big problem that candidates from both parties will need to address it in 2016.

The issue that is going to animate the election is the wage squeeze, stagnant wages mixed with higher costs, said Tanden. My own view is that whoever is running is going to have to figure out a way to address that, on the Republican and the Democratic side, because it is the issue that is causing the most anxiety.

Wage stagnation, these Democrats say, is the equivalent of the Iraq War and health care reform in 2007. Back then, Democratic activists demanded Clinton, Obama and the partys other candidates offer specific plans to get the U.S out of Iraq and create some kind of near-universal health system. There will be a similar pressure to offer proposals on the middle-class squeeze for Clinton or any other candidate.

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Key Dems say Wage Stagnation is the Issue for 2016 Campaign

Hillary Clinton Talking Nutcracker Tells All
After ordering this pop culture remnant from the web. Rob Dew makes a startling discovery. This Hillary Clinton nutcracker talks, and has a lot to say about American Foreign policy, drone attacks,...

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Hillary Clinton Talking Nutcracker Tells All - Video