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Today’s Hillary News & Views begins with Clinton’s historic fundraising numbers for the month of August.
CNN reports:
Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign raised $143 million in August for her campaign, the DNC and state parties, according to a campaign press release, a haul that makes the month the best of her campaign.
With their massive August haul, the Clinton campaign starts September with more than $68 million in the bank, while her joint fundraising accounts have a combined $84 million in the bank.
"Thanks to the 2.3 million people who have contributed to our campaign, we are heading into the final two months of the race with the resources we need to organize and mobilize millions of voters across the country," Clinton's campaign manager Robby Mook said in a statement. "These resources will help us to register and turnout millions of voters to elect progressive candidates across the country."
The massive fundraising is helping to implement a 50 state strategy, with Clinton and the DNC targeting historically red states.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports:
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has learned that the DNC’s southern political director, Morehouse graduate Ron Allen, will relocate to Georgia beginning Monday and will remain through the Nov. 8 election.
The party has also chosen Georgia, along with Arizona and Utah to launch its new Victory Leaders Council program designed to flip states to Democrats and mobilize volunteers and grassroots in current blue states.
Allen, who worked on then U.S. Sen. Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign in Georgia and served as regional political director in North Carolina during the 2012 re-election campaign, will help state party officials with field organization and get-out-the-vote efforts.
The moves come after Hillary Clinton’s campaign has boosted staff, opened a headquarters and committed to sending cash to the state party in an effort to turn Georgia blue in a presidential election for the first time since 1992.
NBC News reports:
The Democratic National Committee is launching a new field program to expand its footprint beyond the typical battleground states where Hillary Clinton campaign's already has a large infrastructure.
The program, details of which were shared with NBC News, is launching in Georgia, Arizona and Utah, with plans to expand soon to other states that are either too Republican or too Democratic to typically get much attention from presidential campaigns.
Meanwhile, the Clinton campaign has been stepping up its own efforts in these states, launching a six-figure ad buy Thursday in Arizona after opening two field offices in the state, as well as one in Georgia. The campaign has staff in all 50 states, but is focused on the dozen or so battlegrounds.
"Democrats are competing across the country and building for the future," said Brandon Davis, the Clinton-installed chief of staff at the DNC. "In states from Georgia to Arizona, demographics and politics are changing quickly — and Democrats are making the investments to make gains now so that we can take majorities later."
The DNC program, which is designed to live on beyond Election Day, will set up what it calls Victory Leaders Councils — groups of Democratic super volunteers and grassroots activists, along with elected officials — in each state, which will work directly with party headquarters in Washington.
The councils will work with a team under newly named National Field Director Adam Parkhomenko, who was previously on the Clinton campaign and started the group Ready for Hillary before that.
Clinton will begin traveling with the press corp on the same plane, and as usual, when she does what they want, the media shifts its criticism from her not doing it to how long it took her to do it.
Bloomberg reports:
Hillary Clinton will begin sharing a plane with her campaign press corps on Labor Day, according to campaign official.
- Move means press will travel more closely with her through Election Day
- NOTE: Nominees in previous elections were traveling with their press corps from earlier on in calendar; Clinton’s timetable was seen as an effort to curtail access
Trump isn’t going to travel with them at all, but you know, “both sides.”
Meanwhile, Clinton continues to destroy Republicans on foreign policy.
Washington Post reports:
While Donald Trump sends millions of Americans fleeing the GOP, Hillary Clinton scoops up more endorsements of the type Republican nominees usually enjoy. The Clinton camp announced endorsements from two retired four-star generals, Bob Sennewald (former commanding general, U.S. Army Forces Command) and David Maddox (former commander in chief of the U.S. Army in Europe). In a joint statement they said, “Having each served over 34 years and retired as an Army 4-star general, we each have worked closely with America’s strongest allies, both in NATO and throughout Asia.” They explained, “Our votes have always been private, and neither of us has ever previously lent his name or voice to a presidential candidate.” They nevertheless announced, “Having studied what is at stake for this country and the alternatives we have now, we see only one viable leader, and will be voting this November for Secretary Hillary Clinton.”
So far, a slew of former military and civilian foreign-policy gurus who would normally be advising the Republican nominee are now signing on with Clinton. Whether that translates into actual votes remains an open question. Nevertheless, with only 79 percent of Republicans supporting him, according to the latest Fox News poll, it does appear that an unusually high percentage of Republicans cannot bring themselves to vote for Trump. Each vote taken out of Trump’s column moves Clinton one step closer to the White House, and if she can actually get those Republicans — enthusiastically or not — to cast votes for her, she will go a long way toward running up the electoral vote score in November.
Madonna has endorsed (her distant cousin?) Hillary Clinton, one American Evita supporting another.
The Queen of Pop is with her! Madonna finally endorsed Hillary Clinton for president via Instagram on Thursday, September 1.
The iconic singer, 58, did so while also taking a dig at Donald Trump's eldest sons, Donald Jr. and Eric Trump.
Back in 2009, Clinton, 68, revealed that she and Madonna are actually cousins. "That's true," she said during The Ellen DeGeneres Show. In 2007, the Washington Post reported that Clinton and Madonna are actually 10th cousins. They share the same great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents.
Senate Dems want Clinton to have a clean slate to work with when she takes office in January.
The Hill reports:
Senate Democrats on Thursday ruled out the possibility that they would agree to a long-term spending measure, saying they will not let talks spill over into the new president’s term.
“Everyone should be alerted today that we’re not going to be doing a long-term CR,” Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) told reporters on a conference call, referring to a continuing resolution to fund government beyond the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.
“We’re not doing anything into next year and every Republican should be aware of that right now,” said Reid, who is retiring at the end of the Congress.
Reid’s comments reflect Democratic confidence that Hillary Clinton will be elected president. Clinton is leading Republican Donald Trump in polls, and Democrats want to give her a clean start as president so that she does not have to negotiate funding for the federal government in her first 100 days in office.
President Obama made clear during a private meeting Wednesday that he would not sign a long-term stopgap measure that freezes current funding levels into next year, Reid said.
Bernie Sanders hits the campaign trail next week.
ABC News reports:
Bernie Sanders will hit the campaign trail again next week, talking to labor groups and speaking on behalf of Democratic candidates, including Hillary Clinton, at two events in New Hampshire on Monday.
Sanders will first attend a breakfast on Monday with the local chapter of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations in Manchester. According to his staff, he has attended the same event over the past couple of years and this time he will make a case for Clinton and Democratic former Gov. Maggie Hassan, now a Senate candidate.
Then he will participate in an organizing event in Lebanon. That event was promoted today by the Clinton campaign. "Sanders will discuss Hillary Clinton's plan [for] building an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top," the Clinton campaign said in a press release.
Time contemplates a landslide for Clinton in November, the “LBJ Way”:
By now, it’s clear that Hillary Clinton’s campaign sees some similarities between 1964 and today. The campaign remade the Johnson ad “Confessions of a Republican,” in which a GOP voter explains why he can’t support his party’s nominee, and even cast the same actor to recite his old script, this time about Trump.
But could the spectacular climax of the cinematic campaign of 2016 be Clinton matching Johnson’s 1964 feat? Probably not. With today’s polarized electorate, Clinton is extremely unlikely to be able to match Johnson’s 61.1% of the popular vote.
Still, with less than three months to the election, and with a map of “battleground” states that includes places like Georgia, Arizona and Utah, an Electoral College landslide is not out of the question for Clinton. LBJ’s experience offers the Clinton camp some key takeaways on how to not only win this year, but also win big.
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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.