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Today we begin with a short excerpt from Hillary’s thoughtful remarks at the African Methodist Episcopal Church National Convention in Philadelphia on July 8, which have been posted now at Medium. The video is here.
What can one say about events like these? What can people and leaders of faith say about events like these? It’s hard, isn’t it, even to know where to start. But let’s start here — let’s take a moment to pray for all the families and the loved ones suffering today. For Alton’s grieving children. For the four-year-old girl who bravely comforted her mother while Philando died in front of them. For the families of those police officers who lived every day with the fear that something like this could happen, and will always be proud of their service and sacrifice.
We pray for those families, and for the souls of everyone we lost this week and in all weeks preceding. May they rest in God’s peace.
Now, there are many unanswered questions about each of these incidents. We will learn more in the days ahead. And when we know as much as we can, there must be a just accounting.
The campaign published yesterday an update to its Health Care policy that emphasized Hillary’s support for adding a Public Option for insurance in every state.
Third, consistent with her previous proposals on public options, Hillary will pursue efforts to give Americans in every state in the country the choice of a public-option insurance plan, and to expand Medicare by allowing people 55 years or older to opt in while protecting the traditional Medicare program.
Hillary has also laid out strategies to address a multitude of pressing health care challenges – from Alzheimer’s, to autism, mental health and substance abuse, to public health infrastructure and environmental health, to women’s health, all the way through Zika.
As we advance toward the goal of universal health care, Hillary believes we must do more to address the lack of access to primary health care, dental care, mental health care and affordable prescription drugs.
The emphasis is new, but in fact the Public Option has been explicitly in Hillary’s platform since February and has always had her support since it was a part of her 2008 campaign.
Bernie Sanders has said the positions of his campaign and Hillary’s are “coming closer and closer together”. The two Democratic candidates have scheduled a joint appearance tomorrow in New Hampshire.
Last week, Mrs. Clinton announced a plan to eliminate in-state tuition at public colleges and universities for families with annual incomes up to $125,000, a step toward the plan Mr. Sanders had pushed.
On Saturday, Mrs. Clinton also inched closer to Mr. Sanders on the issue of health care, encouraging Congress to add a “public option” to the Affordable Care Act and calling for additional support for community health clinics.
“I congratulate Secretary Clinton for this extremely important initiative,” Mr. Sanders said in a statement, referring to her expanded health care outline. “The proposal, in a very significant way, addresses the crisis we now face in primary health care.”
...
“I think it’s fair to say that the Clinton campaign and I, our campaign, are coming closer and closer together,” Mr. Sanders told reporters on Saturday.
Already, his supporters have largely lined up behind Mrs. Clinton — with about 45 percent now saying they have a positive view of her, according to an NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll.
USA Today reports on Pew Research Center’s recent poll that showed women favoring Clinton over Trump by a 24 point margin. It includes some interesting breakdowns of the support.
Clinton's lead of a yawning 24 percentage points in the latest Pew Research Center Poll — not only among Democratic partisans but also from women who typically vote Republican — is an electoral challenge for the GOP that imperils Trump's ability to win the White House.
In interviews with women across the country by the USA TODAY Network, some supporters are elated by the prospect of shattering what Clinton has called "the final, hardest glass ceiling," electing the first female president. "It's about time," says Stephanie Parra, 31, an education consultant in Phoenix. The Latina says Clinton is "breaking barriers for us."
But other women are driven less by support for Clinton than by antipathy to Trump. That's particularly true among Millennials, voters 35 and younger who were part of the Obama coalition but haven't warmed to Clinton, at least not yet. While seven in 10 younger women support Clinton, they say by more than 2-1 that their choice is more a vote against him than for her.
Campaign Director Robby Mook spoke with the Tampa Bay Times on the state of the race in Florida and the prospects for some defection of Republican support to Democrats this cycle.
"Donald Trump isn't a typical Republican candidate, and Mitt Romney and John McCain by and large were," Mook said in a telephone interview with the Tampa Bay Times, after attending a field office opening ceremony in Miami-Dade County Saturday. "There's a lot at stake here for a lot of people. Part of what we want to do in this campaign is bring in those independents and Republican voters who didn't think twice about voting for Mitt Romney or John McCain but understand the enormous threat that Donald Trump poses to our security and to our economy....We have a big opportunity and your'ee going to see us engaging those voters."
But Mook, 36, repeatedly noted that Barack Obama won Florida by less than a percentage point in 2012 after spending years building a Florida campaign. What worries him? The economy, for one.
"This economy has not been working for a lot of people, and there's a pretty deep frustration and a real desire for a president and elected officials who are going to be on the side of working people and who are going to break through the gridlock to get things done," Mook said.
I wanted to give space to the latest episode in violining247’s amazing trip around the country in volunteer support for the Hillary 2016 campaign. Go read and recommend it. This is so inspiring!
For the most part, volunteer calls probably have one of the lowest “payoff” rates in terms of firm commits...makes sense, since it’s a huge ask in terms of people’s time and energy. That said, plenty of people expressed interest in helping later in the summer, and I have to give a hat tip to Harrold, an octogenarian from rural Virginia, who may have cemented his place as my favorite call of the entire election thus far. Harrold wasn't able to volunteer for the weekend's voter registration event, but he talked my ear off for about 5 minutes about how much he loved the Clintons and how he was working with his old Teamsters Union to get them on board with Hillary. "They're startin' to come back around to her!" he exclaimed in a thick southern accent. His commitment and enthusiasm were infectious; I sure hope there are plenty of other Harrolds on the ground winning over the hearts and minds of their colleagues!
Negative commentary came from Maureen Dowd this weekend, and Anna Shane writing at Hillary HQ delivered a takedown.
Dowd’s tired old point is contained in the title this time. ‘The Clinton Contamination’ is Dowd’s essential claim that Hillary gets her cooties all over everybody, this time Comey, and Obama, and she even added Loretta Lynch. That’s been Dowd’s ‘cootie girl’ sexist theme, but it only means that when Hillary is hunted sometimes others get bagged. And that’s true, usually if you investigate forever you can find something, only Hillary is so square there is never anything on her, and in frustration her hunters have sometimes bagged anyone they could. It is factually courageous to associate with someone who is hunted.
I’ll start fact-checking Dowd with her false assertion on Lynch. Dowd wrote, “The Times reported that Hillary might let Lynch stay on in a new Clinton administration.”
False: The Times did not report that.
At Vox, Ezra Klein just wrote extensive reflections on the Gap between Hillary as described by her staff and others who work closely with her and much of her public coverage. He interviewed Hillary to get her answer and spoke to many staffers too, and it looks well worth a deep read.
And then there is the Hillary Clinton described to me by people who have worked with her, people I admire, people who understand Washington in ways I never will. Their Hillary Clinton is spoken of in superlatives: brilliant, funny, thoughtful, effective. She inspires a rare loyalty in ex-staff, and an unusual protectiveness even among former foes.
Obama administration officials, up to and including the president, badly want to see her win — there is something in the way she acted after the election, in the soldier she became and the colleague she showed herself to be, that has curdled the pride they felt in winning the 2008 primary into something close to guilt….
What I’m saying is that presidential campaigns are built to showcase the stereotypically male trait of standing in front of a room speaking confidently — and in ways that are pretty deep, that’s what we expect out of our presidential candidates. Campaigns built on charismatic oration feel legitimate in a way that campaigns built on deep relationships do not.
But here’s the thing about the particular skills Clinton used to capture the Democratic nomination: They are very, very relevant to the work of governing. And they are particularly relevant to the way Clinton governs….
As I began to press the people I talked to about why they brought up Clinton’s listening skills, a torrent of complaints about other politicians emerged. "The reason so many people comment on this is most of us have experienced working with people who are awful listeners," says Sara Rosenbaum, who worked with Clinton on the 1994 health reform bill and is now at George Washington University. "Because they don’t listen, they can’t ask good questions. They can’t absorb the information you’ve given them."
This, I heard again and again, is where Clinton excels.
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Have a terrific day, everyone!
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Crossposted at HillaryHQ, an independent, progressive blog committed to the electing Hillary Clinton as the next President of the United States.