A new Quinnipiac poll finds Hillary Clinton leads New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) 46% to 40% among American voters in an early look at the 2016 presidential election.
Obama Veterans to Lead Clinton Group
“Ready for Hillary, the group encouraging Hillary Clinton to run for president in 2016, is hiring a new team of old rivals: a pair of President Obama’s top strategists who helped defeat her and put him in the White House,” ABC News reports.
The daily operations of a campaign-in-waiting for Clinton “will be overseen by Jeremy Bird, the national field director for the Obama campaign who was pivotal in building an army of grassroots supporters. Joining him is Mitch Stewart, who was one of Obama’s earliest campaign aides and led his effort in battleground states during the 2012 re-election campaign.”
Wall Street Journal: “Mr. Bird’s prowess as one of the pre-eminent field organizers in presidential politics lends the Ready for Hillary push further credibility as the movement attracts growing support. It also sends yet another signal to other Democrats pondering a bid that Mrs. Clinton would enter the contest with much of the party’s top donors and talent.”
Too Much Focus on 2016
Charlie Cook
is tired of speculation about the 2016 presidential race.
“Far more immediately important (and less
hypothetical) is what will happen in next year’s midterm elections. Even
though those elections are just over 16 months away, we still don’t
know whether Republicans will be playing defense as they were last year,
when they had profound problems with minority, young, women, and
self-described moderate voters. And, conversely, we don’t know if
Democrats, as the party in the White House, will be on defense, as is
usually the case during second terms and in so-called six-year-itch
elections, halfway through a party’s second term in office. The
potential for the Affordable Care Act to become radioactive again, as it
was in 2009 and 2010, makes this scenario sound less theoretical and
more plausible.”
Perry Sets Sights on 2016 Bid
“Let the Texas-size political shake-up begin. With Rick Perry stepping
aside after more than a decade as governor, a host of statewide
candidates can finally try to move up. And the governor freed himself to
focus on another possible run for president.” the Dallas Morning-News reports.
Tom DeFrank:
“Rick Perry is stepping down as the longest-serving governor in Texas
history to clear the decks for a 2016 presidential campaign, according
to several well-placed Republican sources. They said Perry is stepping
down to make sure his declining popularity among Texas Republicans won’t
complicate his Oval Office ambitions.
Mark Barabak:
“Although leaving office in January 2015 could diminish his fundraising
capacity, it would also allow Perry more preparation time than he took
in the lead-up to his gaffe-filled 2012 campaign, the only election loss
of his more than three-decade-long political career.”
Hillary Clinton’s Response to the Has-Been Charge
“Republicans in search of an attack line against Hillary Clinton have begun to cast her as a tired relic of the past — an implicit contrast to their own bench of up-and-comers like hip hop-listening Marco Rubio and libertarian-leaning Rand Paul,” Politico reports.
“But Democrats are confident that giving voters the chance to make history by electing the first female president — by definition a forward-looking act – would trump any argument that Clinton is too 20th century and give her a ‘change’ mantra of her own.”
Said Democratic operative Stephanie Cuitter: “If Secretary Clinton runs, she’ll be the nominee — the first female nominee of either party. That breaks through the ‘old’ tagline that the Republican geniuses are cooking up because, if handled correctly, women of all ages will absolutely be inspired by that. I don’t recommend that be the totality of her message or platform, but there’s no way to hide that fact and it certainly shouldn’t be discounted.”
What if Hillary Clinton Doesn’t Run?
Politico: “Democrats openly describe their surprise at seeing such consensus around a candidate so early. The hope of retaining the White House in an open-seat election is very real — and the letdown that will set in among Democratic activists and operatives will be very deep if Clinton takes a pass on a campaign, as she may well do.”
“She has said she has yet to make up her mind, but few in the party believe that. The Clintons’ ambition and the chance to make history as the first female president, they figure, will overpower any reticence about another grueling campaign or spending her golden years carrying the burdens of the world’s weightiest job.”
“But if they’re wrong, there is no obvious replacement. And the party would be looking at a mad scramble to fill the Clinton void.”
How Hillary Can Push Back on the Age Issue
Matt Lewis asked Ronald Reagan biographer Craig Shirley to shed some light on “how the age issue really impacted Reagan’s candidacy — and what lessons Republicans might learn as it pertains to Hillary Clinton.”
Said Shirley: “It was only after Reagan took control of his own campaign and went out on the road, endlessly campaigning, saying interesting and compelling things, taking it to George H. W. Bush in the primaries and then to Carter in the summer and fall, was it banished.”
Republicans Paint Clinton as Old News
New York Times: “The 2016 election may be far off, but one theme is becoming clear: Republican strategists and presidential hopefuls, in ways subtle and overt, are eager to focus a spotlight on Mrs. Clinton’s age. The former secretary of state will be 69 by the next presidential election, a generation removed from most of the possible Republican candidates.”
“Despite her enduring popularity, a formidable fund-raising network and near unanimous support from her party, Mrs. Clinton, Republican leaders believe, is vulnerable to appearing a has-been.”
The Strongest Non-Incumbent in History
Nate Silver on Hillary Clinton: “From the standpoint of the party primary, it’s almost as though she’s an incumbent president, right, where she even trumps, kind of, the VP, who very often wins nomination after a president is term-limited. If you look at polls, you know, 60 to 70 percent of Democrats say they prefer Hillary to be the nominee. There’s no kind of non-incumbent in history with those types of numbers.”
McCain Says GOP Can’t Win Without Immigration Reform
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) was asked by TPM if Republicans can recover in 2016 if the immigration overhaul falters. He took a deep breath and shook his head.
“No,” he said.
McCain added: “All I can say is that maybe they ought to look back at what happened in 2012 and 2008 with the Hispanic voters and then maybe they ought to reevaluate what they are saying. There’s plenty of issues that separate Republicans and Democrats but… 70, 80 percent, depending on which polls you judge by, are in favor of what we’re trying to do.”
Jeb Bush to Give Award to Hillary Clinton
Hillary Clinton (D) will receive the 2013 Liberty Medal this fall from Jeb Bush (R), “who many speculate could be a hypothetical 2016 presidential challenger to the former first lady,” TPM reports.
The National Constitution Center’s website notes Clinton will be honored “in recognition of her lifelong career in public service and her ongoing advocacy efforts on behalf of women and girls around the globe.”
Paul Makes High Profile Visit to South Carolina
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) will visit South Carolina today to help the Republican Party raise money and meet with activists and state GOP donors, the Columbia State reports.
Paul said his main focus will be talking to party activists “about a vision for a bigger Republican Party.” He will decide in 2014 if he will run for president and in the meantime, he will “continue to travel to early primary states with the understanding that I’m interested,” because in those states “people pay attention.”
Peter Hamby looks at Paul’s delicate balancing act.
Pelosi Urges Clinton to Run for President
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told USA Today “there’s a great deal of
excitement” about a potential Hillary Clinton candidacy for president in 2016, adding that she
personally hopes Clinton enters the race.
She added: “I don’t know why she wouldn’t run. She’s prepared, she’s well known, she’s highly respected. She knows she would be able to do the job so very, very well.”
How Social Data Will Change Presidential Campaigning
Gurbaksh Chahal: “Social data drove the 2008 presidential elections and big data drove the 2012 election. In 2016 it will be the marriage of the two that will determine the next President of the United States.”
“With over 10 billion sharing events taking place each month over social media, big data is being created every second with each like and share, and wherever we travel across the globe with our mobile devices… Social data is fundamentally changing how advertisers approach the art of marketing. Now, we can track pretty much anything online — our campaign decisions are influenced by factors that extend far beyond the impression and conversion metrics that permeated the ad industry just five years ago.”
Perry’s Rehabilitation Tour Seen as Start of New Campaign
“The Rick Perry national rehabilitation tour has begun,” the Dallas Morning News observes.
“If the Texas governor’s highly publicized, job-poaching trips to California and Illinois weren’t evidence that Perry is setting the stage for another run for president, last week’s trip to New York offered a blueprint how he hopes to fix his damaged political image. The governor bungled his White House bid last year, capped by an on-air “oops” moment when he couldn’t remember three agencies he vowed to abolish. But Perry insiders say he believes that if voters give him a second chance, they’ll be surprised that he’s not the dense, tongue-tied Texas cowboy he seemed to be in 2012. For one thing, Perry hopes to be better prepared, won’t be recovering from debilitating back surgery and faces pretty low expectations – so if he can just avoid mistakes, voters might think he’s not so bad after all.”
Trump’s Iowa Trip Sparks 2016 Speculation
“Two-time-almost-but-not-quite presidential candidate Donald Trump will make his very first trip to Iowa in August to speak to religious conservative activists sizing up a lineup of possible 2016 candidates,” the Des Moines Register reports.
“Trump accepted an invitation to the Family Leader’s second-annual leadership summit, an event the organizer says he hopes will help Iowa conservatives coalesce early on in the next presidential nominating cycle.”
Time to Take Martin O’Malley Seriously?
Jill Lawrence: “He was a middle-class, suburban Washington kid who chose to build a political career in one of the grittiest, most troubled cities in America, with all the challenges and risks that entailed. He spent eight years on the Baltimore City Council and seven as mayor before moving to Annapolis to begin two terms as governor in January 2007. O’Malley has been closely identified with statistics-based governing in both of his executive positions: CitiStat to improve management and services in Baltimore; StateStat to do the same across Maryland; even BayStat to revive the Chesapeake Bay. Fusing passion with dispassion, he has deployed numbers to fight crime and pollution, to win approval for gambling casinos and gun restrictions, to pass tuition breaks for illegal immigrant students, and even to repeal the death penalty.”
“At the same time, over the past few years, he has steadily ascended in national politics–as a key supporter of Hillary Rodham Clinton and later Barack Obama in 2008, as chairman of the Democratic Governors Association in 2011 and 2012, and as a prominent media spokesman for Obama and Democrats during the 2012 presidential campaign. He continues in a DGA leadership role as finance chairman, an ideal job for someone who might need to raise a lot of money for a presidential campaign in a year or two.”
Clinton Advisers Worry About Super PAC
“The upstart super PAC, called Ready for Hillary, is fast emerging as the quasi-official stand-in for potential 2016 presidential contender Hillary Rodham Clinton, scooping up advisers and gathering big donations more than three years ahead of election time,” the Washington Post reports.
“But the group is also making some advisers in Clinton’s orbit decidedly nervous about its potential impact on her own efforts, which for now consist of philanthropic pursuits and remaining mum on a presidential bid. Some allies also fear a repeat of 2008, when an assumed air of inevitability contributed to Clinton’s loss to fresh-faced challenger Barack Obama.”
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