For more coverage of Hillary Clinton at Daily Kos, visit the Hillary Writers Circle. For breaking news, follow First Amendment.
Today’s Hillary News & Views begins with another round of endorsements.
Miami Herald endorses:
Mr. Sanders, despite his unrealistic economic plan, is leading a movement of like-minded followers. The party needs someone who can attract a bigger following.
That role belongs to Ms. Clinton. She has broader appeal both among Democrats and the wider American electorate. She also boasts a better track record of success on Capitol Hill than her opponent from Vermont.
She has mastered the detailed approach to policy on a wide range of issues, everything from healthcare to foreign policy. She speaks for generations of women who have suffered discrimination in the workplace, energetically defends healthcare reform (when she ran in 2008, her proposal would have covered everybody), and has the character to confront critics in Congress — or work with them in a spirit of compromise.
No candidate in either party can match her résumé for the job of president.
Bernie Sanders is the candidate for those who want to send a message about inequality. Hillary Clinton is the candidate for those who want to fix it. In Florida’s Democratic primary, our choice for presidential nominee is Hillary Clinton.
Hillary Clinton is receiving the endorsement of the United Farm Workers, the largest farmworkers union in the country.
The union, active in 10 states, has a largely Latino membership, a key voting bloc for Clinton in both the primary and general elections. She received their endorsement over then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama in the 2008 primary.
United Farm Workers President Arturo S. Rodriguez said the group spent a year discussing the race and recently interviewed Clinton for an hour on her positions. He said Clinton is "the strong, most respectful leader our country needs now."
Starkville Daily News reports:
Mayor Parker Wiseman joined nearly 50 other Mississippi mayors in endorsing former New York Senator and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday.
"Some of the first memories I have of politics in general are of her husband running for president in 1992," Wiseman said. "I was a child then and I've watched her transition from her role as a very active first lady to a United States Senator and ultimately Secretary of State. I'm impressed with her ability to successfully pursue public policy and provides the best opportunity for success for all Americans."
The most important House endorsement isn't here yet, but it’s coming.
Politico reports:
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Thursday the timing isn’t yet right for her to endorse Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.
The California lawmaker is the only remaining senior Democrat in Congress who hasn't thrown her support behind the former secretary of state. Pelosi told reporters Thursday that she is waiting for more voters to cast ballots in future primaries before announcing any endorsement.
Still, Pelosi has made her preference for Clinton known for months. She has repeatedly referred to the next president with the female pronoun “she” and has profusely praised Clinton.
Even Thursday, Pelosi touted Clinton’s general election chances against likely Republican nominee Donald Trump.
“I think it’s important to note that with all the whoop-dee-do on the Republican side, with all the voting that's taken place, Hillary Clinton has gotten more votes than Donald Trump,” Pelosi said. “Did you know that?”
And she added that the “math is clear” for Clinton to clinch the nomination against Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who is also running for the Democratic nomination.
“Bless him for all the young people he’s attracting and people who might not be paying attention to the political scene that he’s attracted. … I think it’s very wholesome for our country, but I think he’d have to do very well in those 35 states to overcome the advantage that Hillary Clinton has in pledged delegates," Pelosi said.
Fun fact: Before Hillary Clinton’s 2008 run for the presidency, only one woman in history had won a state presidential primary: Shirley Chisholm, New Jersey, 1972.
So every time Clinton won a state in 2008, with the exception of NJ, she became the first woman to do so. Now, as she racks up wins in states that she lost in 2008, she is making history again.
Clinton is so experienced and familiar on the national and international stage that her making history again is barely noticed. But some are starting to pay attention.
Mic reports:
Women made all the difference in Clinton's domination of Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, Texas and Massachusetts. The candidate won women by a 15-point margin in Massachusetts; about a 2:1 ratio in Georgia, Virginia and Texas; and secured the votes of two-thirds or more women in Alabama, Tennessee and Arkansas, ABC News reported Tuesday.
African-Americans and women particularly boosted Clinton's victories, a hardly surprising turn of events given the recent show of support from black voters, particularly black women. Clinton received 78% of the black female vote in Saturday's South Carolina primary, for example, a state where black women make up 37% of eligible voters, according to the Telegraph.
The support has perhaps been bolstered by Clinton's effort to incorporate powerful and influential black women's voices into her campaign, including policy expert Maya Harris, director of African-American outreach LaDavia Drane and feminist writer Zerlina Maxwell. The presidential hopeful also gave a notable speech on systemic racism in February and presented a $125 billion proposal to combat the issue.
"We're sophisticated voters, sophisticated thinkers, we're not just going to hand out our vote to anyone," Drane told Mic's Jamilah King in February. "I believe that [Hillary's] earning black voters' trust, [and] she's been doing it for a long time now."
Clinton's campaign is a historic accomplishment in and of itself. The candidate has overcome plenty of unwarranted, sexist attacks during her time in the public eye, but has still triumphed to become the first woman to win the Iowa caucus and arguably the closest woman to become the nation's first female president.
Clinton’s economic proposals are getting some attention.
Politico reports:
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has proposed $1.1 trillion in tax increases, according to a new report, though she plans to call for a tax cut for the middle class.
Her tax increases would target the nation’s wealthy, the Washington-based group said today in an analysis of her tax plans, with the top 1 percent taking the bulk of the hit. The very top 0.1 percent of taxpayers would see their tax bills go up by $519,741 under her plans, the group said, while overall the top 1 percent would pay an additional $78,284.
She’s also proposing a number of tax hikes on businesses, especially those squirreling away profits overseas, out of reach of the tax man.
Altogether, the report shows, Clinton has proposed at least 18 separate tax increases. But two-thirds of the revenue raised would come from just four proposals: her plans to impose a surcharge on incomes above $5 million, create a 30 percent minimum tax on millionaires, curbing the ability of the wealthy to take itemized deductions and raising taxes on capital gains.
Other proposals target companies attempting to slash their tax bills through so-called inversions, by making those transactions more difficult; targeting a related tax avoidance maneuver known as “earnings stripping”; and imposing an “exit tax” on foreign acquisitions of American companies. She also wants to levy a “risk fee” on large financial institutions, impose a new tax on high-frequency trading, target tax preferences associated with executive compensation and dump tax breaks for the oil and gas industries.
The Tax Policy Center also said Clinton’s campaign disclosed she would allow the remnants of a mishmash of temporary tax breaks known as the “extenders” to expire as scheduled.
The Washington Post reports:
The Republican attack on Clinton's plan is simple: She's raising taxes to fund more big government. We're cutting them -- and the economy's going to boom when we do.
The Clinton attack is this: I'm making the rich pay their fair share -- and they're blowing a hole in the budget to give billions to the 1 percent.
Set aside the growth argument for a second. The Center's analysis supports all the other claims. It finds, for example, that Clinton would raise taxes by a lot on the very rich, and by almost nothing on the middle class.
Voters aren't telling pollsters this year that they're prioritizing huge tax cuts, but they do say they're worried about the budget deficit, and they're mad that the economic system seems to favor the rich. To parry Clinton's attacks, Republicans are going to need to make a hard sell on the growth argument -- that tax cuts will massively speed up economic expansion. They need voters to believe their cuts will super-charge the economy and kick out a lot of revenue for the government. They'll also need to detail more spending cuts than just "waste, fraud and abuse."
That may be a tough sell. Voters remember the swelling deficits that followed the [IBush tax cuts a decade ago.
In a piece about Republican voters’ general dissatisfaction with their choices, FiveThirtyEight slips this data point in (emphasis mine):
On average, just 49 percent of these actual Republican voters said they’d be satisfied with Trump. The numbers for the other two candidates were better, but not by much: 53 percent of voters said they’d be satisfied with Rubio, and 51 percent with Cruz.
You might wonder whether this sort of thing always happens during a nomination campaign. The short answer is that it doesn’t. By comparison, 79 percent of Democrats this year have said they’d be satisfied with Hillary Clinton as their nominee, while 62 percent have said so of Bernie Sanders.
A surprisingly touching piece from Politico about how Clinton and her team weathered the post-NH, pre-NV storm:
On the eve of her 22-point loss to Bernie Sanders in New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton had been fretting about her strategy, questioning her staffing choices and generally flash-backing on her 2008 defeat.
It was at this point, however, that the once-and-future Democratic front-runner huddled with her aide-de-camp Huma Abedin and decided to make a statement that this time would, indeed, be different.
When the staff trudged up the steps in the chill, they were surprised to find Bill and Hillary Clinton, tired but smiling, at the hatch to offer hugs, handshakes, solace and offerings of “I appreciate what you did,” according to three people who were on the night flight.
It was a time when Clinton finally learned the most important lessons of her loss in 2008, according to a dozen Clinton insiders POLITICO interviewed for this story: Don’t panic, trust your team — even when you think they screwed up — and stick with the plan.
“She just got back to work,” says her campaign chairman, John Podesta, who served as Bill Clinton’s White House chief of staff in the 1990s, of the candidate’s post-New Hampshire approach. “The thing that sets her apart from everybody else is her capacity to just get back up. ... After New Hampshire she didn’t just take the loss or get all down. It’s something people have always said about her, but this whole experience really proved the point. … What grit she has.”
“This one is going to work out just fine [for her],” says David Plouffe, Obama’s 2008 campaign manager, who now serves as an informal adviser to campaign manager Robby Mook and other campaign officials.
“Iowa, a very close win. Bernie wins New Hampshire, and I think there must have been a sense of, ‘Oh, here we go again,’” Plouffe added. “But they’ve stabilized. … I think on the morning of March 16, she will be able to look back and say, ‘You know what? My team weathered the storm. The strategy worked.’ And that’s how you build trust. And you go through something like that, you’re just more likely to trust the team the next time you have a moment of trial or tribulation.”
[In Nevada], aides say, Clinton exhibited a level head — and made a show of confidence in her people, as she had that night in New Hampshire. After the caucuses ended, and Clinton had scored a far-better-than-expected 5-plus-point victory, the candidate made a point of bringing her state director, Emmy Ruiz, onstage. Ruiz was nervous; she had never spoken in front of such a large crowd. But the candidate was insistent. “People need to hear from my captain!” Clinton said of Ruiz, an important vote of confidence to her close-knit Nevada team.
While Clinton is still struggling mightily with younger voters, she is gaining ground with white progressives: Her aides think it’s because her “barriers” message, which incorporates an anti-Wall Street component, appeals more broadly to progressives because it taps into Democrats’ deeper sense of their party as bulwark against prejudice, bigotry and economic unfairness.
Winning helps too. And Clinton, at this particular moment in an uncommonly turbulent political life, is enjoying genuine momentum and, with it, a measure of peace. How long it will last, no one knows.
“The bottom line,” said one longtime Clinton friend, “is she never lost her sh--. And now she’s going to win.”
Clinton’s post-Super Tuesday fundraiser was a star-studded affair that I’m still annoyed that I didn’t buy a ticket for.
Perhaps Hillary Clinton knows what it feels like to be a plastic bag, drifting through the wind, wanting to start again. Or when she’s in need of a pick-me-up—like, say, on the morning of the Benghazi hearing—the former Secretary of State rolls out of bed, cranks “Roar” up to 11, and does her best punch-dance at the mirror. Either way, one thing is certain: Hillary is a huge Katy Perry fan, selecting the “Teenage Dream” singer as the headlining act of her star-studded concert-fundraiser in New York City.
And the love is mutual as Perry, donning a Wonder Woman-esque red-and-white jumpsuit—with an “H” emblazoned on the lapel—gave a speech in praise of Hillary to the sold-out crowd at Radio City Music Hall.
“This election feels very personal to me, and I think it feels very personal to a lot of people here, and I know there’s a lot at stake,” said Perry. “So I think we need to elect a president that can do all parts of the job, including being commander-in-chief. A person that is strong but also a human… that looks out for us and our needs, our basic human rights and needs, which I can’t believe are still in question in 2016.”
“I do believe this woman believes in unconditional love. She sees equally, all parts.”
The “I’m With Her Concert” benefited the Hillary Victory Fund, Clinton’s Super PAC, with tickets ranging from $125 to $2,700. Sponsors of the event gave over $100,000 as well. And, despite parting with some serious cheddar, the mood inside was festive, with the mostly female crowd regularly chanting, “Hillary! Hillary! Hillary!” at various intervals. Things kicked off with Oscar-winning actor Jamie Foxx, who criticized the “trash-talking” amongst the Republicans before introducing Grammy nominee Andra Day, who brought the house down with her hit song “Rise Up,” before dedicating the Sam Cooke classic “A Change Is Gonna Come” to Hillary.
Following Day’s performance, Oscar-winning actress Julianne Moore came out to introduce Chelsea Clinton, and during her intro speech, spoke out against gun violence in America.
She added, “Hillary has always fought for us, and now it’s our turn to fight for her.”
Chelsea then strolled out to introduce Sir Elton John, who, for whatever reason, served as the opening act for Katy Perry. The slight seemed particularly egregious given the strength of his set, with Sir Elton belting out hits like “Tiny Dancer” and “Rocket Man” to the rapt crowd.
Hana Schank writes for Salon:
I heard a clip on the radio of a young man questioning Clinton at a town hall meeting in Iowa. “I’ve heard from quite a few people my age that they think you’re dishonest,” he said. “But I’d like to hear from you on why you think the enthusiasm isn’t there.”
It was subtle, but there was something in his tone I recognized. It was not a tone you would use to speak to someone who was a former secretary of state and senator. It was the tone you reserve for that dumb chick in your meeting who probably doesn’t know what she’s talking about. It was a tone I’d heard countless times over the course of my career, and in that moment I suddenly saw Hillary Clinton in an entirely different light.
I played his comment back in my head, trying to pinpoint exactly what I found so irksome, and realized it was the phrasing “I’d like to hear from you.” The phrase has tiny flecks of condescension in it. It’s not the way you’d phrase a question to someone you believe deserves a place at the table. And then I thought back over the course of my career, and made a mental list of all the times someone had phrased something in a way that had just a soupçon of implied incompetence to it.
There was an initial phone call with a prospective client who, after I ran through a description of my company’s offerings asked me, “And you run the company all by yourself?” When I responded that I did, he cheered, “Good for you!” I didn’t get the business. At the time I’d shaken it off as a strange call, but then it happened again. Was it me, I wondered? Was there something about the way that I was presenting myself that made me seem insecure? When I was younger I might have chalked it up to age. I was young – I would grow into a mature way of conducting sales calls and pitch meetings. But at 43 I understand that what people mean when they ask if I run the business all by myself is “I’ve noticed you’re a woman and I’m confused by that because you don’t look or sound the way a technology business owner is supposed to, so I will discreetly take my business elsewhere.”
Worth noting: I have never, ever, had a woman ask me if I run my business all by myself.
I was at a client’s innovation lab one day when there was a fire drill. (For those not in the tech world, “innovation lab” is code for “a bunch of T-shirt-clad developers in a room with free food and a napping area.”) On a whim, I counted the number of women as they exited the building. In an office of over a hundred people, 12 were female. Where had the women gone? Did they leave because they were sick of being told, in a million little ways, that their opinions weren’t important or that they weren’t qualified to do something for which they were clearly, abundantly qualified? Were they at home, caring for children because their employers didn’t offer flexible schedules and they didn’t want to work for a place with hours so demanding that one might need to use the nap room at the office? Were they burnt out and exhausted by doing their best and then finding out even that wasn’t good enough?
And in that moment, as the young Iowan’s voice rattled around in my head, I knew I would support Hillary. Not just because we both have a uterus (thank you, Killer Mike). Not because I’m afraid of going to a special place in hell (thank you, Madeleine Albright). I’m supporting her because as a member of Generation X, I’ve lived through enough to understand that if Hillary were a man she’d be the front-runner hands-down. I haven’t suffered the overt sexism of earlier generations, but in its place has come a more oblique, more insidious variant. It’s the kind that makes you question whether the fault might lie with you and your abilities. It gives rise to questions about why people aren’t enthusiastic about you, why they didn’t like it when you took a strident tone with them and then, when you adjusted course, complained that you weren’t aggressive enough, or why there’s something about you that just feels wrong. In politics people call this likability. And the female politicians we “like” are few and far between, because they remind us of our mothers or wives or that girl you hated in gymnastics class. We don’t have a frame of reference for what it looks like for women to be running the show, so if she’s not a man, she comes across as all wrong. In the tech world people don’t talk about “likability.” Instead they say, “Mike is going to present to the client because he’s got a great style. But don’t worry, you’ll still have a few slides that you can really own.”
Crossposted at HillaryHQ, an independent, progressive blog committed to the electing Hillary Clinton as the next President of the United States.