Hillary Clinton Distances Herself From Obama

Just over a year after leaving her job as secretary of state, Hillary Clinton has offered views on foreign policy that analysts said seem part of an effort to distance herself from the Obama administration as she prepares a possible 2016 White House run.
In appearances this month, Clinton struck a hawkish tone on issues including Iran and Russia, even while expressing broad support for the work done by Obama and her successor as secretary of state, John Kerry.
Clinton said in New York on Wednesday night she was "personally skeptical" of Iran's commitment to reaching a comprehensive agreement on its nuclear program.
"I've seen their behavior over (the) years," she said, saying that if the diplomatic track failed, "every other option does remain on the table."
Just two weeks earlier, Clinton was forced to backtrack after she drew parallels between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler at a closed-door fundraiser. In comments leaked to the media by a local reporter who attended the event, Clinton said Putin's justifications for his actions in the Crimean region were akin to moves Hitler made in the years before World War Two. "I'm not making a comparison, certainly, but I am recommending that we can perhaps learn from this tactic that has been used before," she said the next day at an event in Los Angeles.
As secretary of state, Clinton was a key player in a U.S. effort to reset relations with Russia, a policy that critics say now appears to be a glaring failure.
Clinton's recent rhetoric on Iran and Russia is part of a renewed focus on foreign policy for the former first lady and New York senator, who is widely considered the Democratic presidential front-runner in 2016 if she chooses to run.
She has been giving speeches across the country since leaving the State Department, but Wednesday's address was her first on-the-record event in recent months focused solely on international relations.
"Secretary Clinton is distancing herself a bit on foreign policy matters from the administration recently," said John Hudak, a Brookings Institution fellow and expert on presidential campaigns. "This is a pretty standard practice for anyone looking to succeed the sitting president, even within the same party."
"It's one of the first steps for her to say, 'We're not the same candidate,'" he said.
Clinton's office did not respond to questions about the issue.
Creating space between her position and Obama's is a "smart move," said Hank Sheinkopf, a New York-based Democratic strategist who worked for the 1996 presidential re-election campaign of Hillary Clinton's husband, Bill Clinton.
"The present administration is in a no-win situation with Russia, with Syria and in the Middle East," Sheinkopf said before Clinton's New York speech. "Making a distance from them can only help."
During her four-year tenure in the State Department, Clinton helped lead the charge on imposing strong sanctions on Iran, which she mentioned in her New York speech to a pro-Israel audience - including several Democratic lawmakers - at an American Jewish Congress dinner honoring her.
In late January, Clinton sent a letter to Carl Levin, Democratic chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, calling herself a "longtime advocate for crippling sanctions against Iran," but urging that Congress not impose new sanctions during negotiations over Tehran's nuclear program.
She said that like Obama, she had no illusions about the ease or likelihood of reaching a permanent deal with Iran following an interim agreement reached under Kerry.
"Yet I have no doubt that this is the time to give our diplomacy the space to work," a stance she reaffirmed on Wednesday.
Republicans have promised to make Clinton's State Department record an issue if she runs for the White House, focusing on the 2012 attacks on a U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya, in which four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, were killed.
The Republican National Committee has condemned Clinton's handling of the Benghazi assault, suggesting in a recent research note that "Benghazi is still the defining moment of Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State."
Some political analysts see her toughening rhetoric as more than a campaign tactic, and fitting with her foreign policy statements before joining the Obama administration. They said that could broaden her appeal to voters if she chooses to run, a decision she has said will not come until the end of this year.
Clinton, while a senator, voted in 2002 for a resolution authorizing U.S. military action against Iraq, a position that hurt her with liberal primary voters in her losing battle with Obama for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.
"Making a credible and forceful case for America's place in the world - that's the kind of thing she's likely to say and continue to say," said Josh Block, a former Clinton administration official and now an executive at the Israel Project in Washington. "Those are messages that will resonate with Democrats and independents, as well as some Republicans." (Editing by Peter Cooney and Douglas Royalty)

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Facing tough Senate races, Reid, fellow Dems turn their attack on Koch brothers

  Political attacks on the Koch brothers have emerged as a key, practically everyday part of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his Democratic Party’s 2014 election strategy -- accusing the wealthy conservative donors of trying to buy elections and block aid to Ukraine.
The attacks began in earnest last month when the Nevada Democrat in notable floor speeches accused Charles and David Koch of being “un-American” and “trying to buy America” and continued straight through this week.
“Across the country Republican Senate candidates are embracing a dangerous agenda that’s good for billionaires like the Koch Brothers and bad for nearly everyone else in the country,” the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee said Thursday in announcing a record-breaking February fundraising haul of $6.8 million.  
That Democrats would attack the Kochs, or mount a counter-attack, is to be expected, considering how their money was instrumental in helping conservative nonprofits assist Republicans in taking the House in the 2010 midterm elections. Furthermore, Reid argues the Kochs are really trying to "buy" elections to advance their self-serving corporate interests of lower taxes and less regulation.
In this cycle, the brothers have already given a reported $30 million to nonprofits such as Americans for Prosperity to help pay for attack ads on ObamaCare and against incumbent Senate Democrats, as they try to defend their party’s six-seat majority in the upper chamber in an increasingly tough political environment.
The group has already spent a reported $700,000 in ads against Arkansas Democratic incumbent Sen. Mark Pryor, who is trailing challenger and Arkansas GOP Rep. Tom Cotton by 3 percentage points, according to an averaging of polls by nonpartisan RealClearPolitics.com
The Koch-backed attacks have also extended into a money war with the pro-Democrat group Senate Majority PAC, which spent a reported $3 million on ads on tough Senate races in Arkansas, Colorado, Louisiana, Michigan and North Carolina and drew a sharp response.
On Friday, Philip Ellender of Koch Industries told Politico the ads marked “the latest round in a series of attacks and attempts to silence private citizens who dare to disagree with the policies of the Majority Leader and the [Obama] administration.”
Ellender also said Reid specifically has decided to focus on “intimidating political opposition and squelching dissent,” instead of creating jobs and improving the lives of Americans.
Republicans, though, are hardly the only ones benefiting from the political spending of well-heeled backers.
Former hedge fund manager and California billionaire Tom Steyer reportedly is planning to spend at least $100 million (half of it his own money) on attack ads this year against candidates who aren’t supporting efforts to address climate change.
And until recently, even some moderate Senate Democrats were enjoying donations from the Koch brothers’ political action committee. But as that money shifted directions, Democrats stopped holding their tongues.
Charles Koch, 78, and David Koch, 73, inherited a small oil company from their father. They expanded worldwide into chemicals, textiles, paper and other products, building a hugely profitable and privately held conglomerate.
Long active in conservative politics, they seized on the 2010 Citizens United court ruling that allows unlimited corporate spending on political campaigns, often without disclosing donors. They helped found Americans for Prosperity, which reported spending $122 million on elections in 2012. In addition, Charles Koch helped start the Washington-based Cato Institute in the late 1970s. The family has given millions to the Libertarian-minded think tank over the years but was involved in a public dispute with leaders several years ago.
As part of the Democratic offensive this year against the brothers, and the apparent attempt to keep criticism about them in the news cycle, Reid and fellow Senate leaders last week suggested the brothers are behind congressional Republicans agreeing to support a Ukraine aid package only in exchange for delays in IRS rules that would impact the political activities of nonprofits like Americans for Prosperity.
Reid returned to the Senate floor last week to say that when Republican senators rush to defend the Koch brothers, they are also defending the brothers’ “radical philosophy.”
He challenged Republicans by asking, “Is even one of you willing to stand up and disavow the Koch brothers’ radical agenda?”
Louisiana Republican Sen. David Vitter has publicly defended the brothers, saying at a recent town hall meeting that they are “two of the most patriotic Americans.”
“God bless the Koch brothers," said Vitter, according to YouTube video posted by trackers American Bridge. “They’re fighting for our freedom.”