Statement from Hillary Clinton's Office on Campaign Finance

This is a public service share.  Please go to Medium to applaud/respond. >>>>

Nick Merrill

Communications Director, office of Hillary Rodham Clinton

Nov 2

The following is by Charlie Baker, former Hillary for America Chief Administrative Officer, who asked me if I would post this:

In light of recent claims about Hillary for America’s work with the DNC during the 2016 campaign, it is important to clarify a few things and set the record straight.

First, our campaign was proud to raise money for the Democratic National Committee. The DNC was deeply in debt, and the campaign’s fundraising kept it afloat during the campaign season. In fact, as a result of the campaign’s arrangement and Hillary Clinton’s fundraising efforts, the DNC was in a better financial position following the election than it had been in decades. Such agreements are common. Al Gore’s campaign had one, so did John Kerry’s. So did Donald Trump’s. Senator Sanders entered into an agreement with the DNC as well, but raised little to no money. That is not an insult, it is just a fact. As a result, Hillary for America was keeping the party afloat, which included state party funding to administer caucuses, which Secretary Clinton lost the majority of.

Hillary Clinton was the first female nominee of a major party. She won the nomination because she earned nearly 4 million more votes than her closest opponent.

America is facing unprecedented challenges right now. Our focus needs to be on advocating for policies that help Americans, standing up against those that don’t, and electing Democrats on Tuesday, next year, and beyond.

Read more  and respond >>>>

Party Unity My A$$! The PUMAs Come Back With a ROAR!

It began with this.

Petitioning Democratic National Committee and 2 others

WE STAND WITH DONNA!

Karen Carter Peterson United States

Donna Brazile is an amazing woman and strong Democrat who has fought tirelessly to protect our voting rights, provided a voice for the voiceless and championed issues like increasing the min wage and equal pay for women. We stand with Donna, because Donna stands and has always stood with US! Looking forward to her continued service on the DNC as she consistently puts people first!

This petition will be delivered to:

• Democratic National Committee

• Tom Perez

• SenatorBernie Sanders

I received it in Mark Murphy's name.  Mark is my friend. The message was that elements were trying to push Donna Brazile out of the Democratic Party. That didn't seem fair, so I signed.

Then came an email request from Donna to donate to the party. So I did. In support.

Today's breaking news, starting with an excerpt in Politico and followed by stories in several major publications  including The Daily Beast, The New York Post, and Newsweek to name a few, that Donna Brazile has a book out in which she supposedly describes how Hillary Clinton "took over" the Democratic Party (CNN is using the verb "hijacked") came as a shock.

I will not link to any of the articles. What I can tell you is that DB is trending on Twitter and a good deal of of the comments are calling her out for her lies and her self-promotion. Here are a few examples, but you should go look for yourself. Some retweeting wouldn't hurt while you're there.

This sure seems like revisionist history from Donna Brazile.🤔 https://t.co/DKb7ytj8Rl pic.twitter.com/G7elxKtpkS

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) November 2, 2017

Contra Donna Brazile's assertion, Bernie Sanders DID sign a joint-fundraising agreement w DNC in 2015 (he just never utilized it) pic.twitter.com/aE6gaCfifO

— Mark Murray (@mmurraypolitics) November 2, 2017

Contrary to what Donna Brazile says the Sanders team *did* sign a join fundraising agreement, they just were totally unhelpful to DNC.

— Kaivan Shroff (@KaivanShroff) November 2, 2017

On Facebook, all my PUMA friends suddenly came roaring through!



After Hillary accepted Secretary of State, I purged most of the PUMA posts here although I have occasionally referred to our angry coalition. I didn't want to affect opinions of Hillary's work.
But now the game has changed. We thought, in supporting DB these past few weeks, that we were supporting the traditional Dem Party. Now it appears that Donna has tossed her support toward Bernie, who remains an Independent, and his "revolution" that wants to drive the party far to the left.

It all smells like political treachery, self-promotion, and week-old jambalaya. We are not having it!

Jennifer Palmieri Reflects on Trying to Shine a Light on Russia

I am not big on post mortems.  Living through that 2015 - 2016 campaign season was painful enough one time around. In her Candidate Confessional podcast for HuffPo, Jennifer Palmieri, communications director for Hillary for America,  revisits the difficulty she encountered trying to get the press to buy into the seriousness of the Russian meddling. There is a lesson here, especially for the press.

huffingtonpost.com

 

Hillary Clinton Campaign Aide To Press: We Told You Russia Was A BFD

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The most ignored story of the 2016 presidential campaign is the press corps’ unwillingness to focus on Russia’s election meddling before election night, according to one of Hillary Clinton’s former top aides.
After all, the circumstances that led to the accusations of collusion that continue to dog President Donald Trump were visible during the campaign itself. The same Trump associates who are currently being questioned for potential ties to the Kremlin had senior positions on his election team.
But to the eternal frustration of Clinton’s camp, the press never seemed interested in the Russian-meddling angle during the campaign.
In the latest episode of “Candidate Confessional,” Jennifer Palmieri, Clinton’s campaign communications director, recounts how she tried to repeatedly get reporters to write about Russia, to little effect.

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Hillary Clinton’s campaign team was frustrated the press wouldn’t focus on potential Russian meddling in the election until after Election Day.

Read more and hear podcast >>>>

Summer Soldiers and Sunshine HRC Supporters

There's a scene in "Erin Brockovich" where Julia Roberts, as the title character, says, "That's the kind of thing that pisses me off!"  That is how I felt when I read this passage in the viral Medium entry, "Tough Luck Destroyers of Hillary Clinton: You Won the Battle, You Won’t Win the War."

There is only one interpretation that I can give to this paragraph.

“It got so bad that her supporters had to shrink away in secret Facebook groups, afraid to put bumper stickers on our cars or lawn signs in front of our homes — afraid for our reputations, afraid to be exiled from Coolsville, afraid because we were watching a real live witch hunt. “

When the going got tough, you ran and hid rather than stand and fight.

Especially in the waning days of the campaign, after James Comey's stunning announcement only 11 days before election day, there was increasing concern that we could lose.  Those of us on the social networks front of the campaign received numerous messages during those last days warning that we did not have this sewn up and needed to redouble all efforts in order to reach 270.

Things were nasty those last weeks. Hillary herself, in a final op-ed on November 7 said this.

I know it’s been a long and difficult race. I’ve heard from so many people who are shaken by my opponent’s hateful, divisive rhetoric. One woman wrote to me about her son, Felix, who was adopted from Ethiopia as a baby. Felix is genuinely afraid that if my opponent wins, he’ll be taken from his parents and forced out of the only country he’s ever known. And his story is just one of many.
A lot of what we’ve seen and heard has been distressing, but we’ve also shared proud moments that remind us that we’re a country of fair-minded, big-hearted people. Millions of Americans—Republicans and Democrats alike—have stood up to say we’re better than this. And everywhere I go, I meet people who remind me of the diversity and determination that make this country great.

She knew exactly how vituperative it had become out here in the trenches, encouraged up to fight on, and thanked us for remaining loyally engaged.

The morning after Election Day, Hillary delivered these words.

And to the millions of volunteers, community leaders, activists and union organizers who knocked on doors, talked to neighbors, posted on Facebook, even in secret, private Facebook sites – I want everybody coming out from behind that and make sure your voices are heard going forward.

The emphasis is mine.

When an essay goes viral and implies that "we," as a group, shrank away into secret Facebook groups and were "afraid" to put bumper stickers on our cars I tremble with fury. "We" did not!  We fought it out, as Hillary asked numerous times in those pre-election emails and messages, in public. Her true supporters never shrank away in fear.  We stood with her and for her. I, for one, still do.

“THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.” ― Thomas Paine, The Crisis

Jennifer Palmieri: "We Warned You!"

Hillary for America's Communications Director, Jennifer Palmieri, penned this op-ed for the Washington Post.

PostEverything

Perspective

The Clinton campaign warned you about Russia. But nobody listened to us.

Democrats can still fight back now. Here's how.

By Jennifer Palmieri March 24

Jennifer Palmieri was communications director for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.

 

 

At the Democratic convention in Philadelphia last summer, Jake Sullivan and I took to our golf carts one afternoon to make the rounds of the television networks’ tents in the parking lot of the Wells Fargo Center. It is standard for presidential campaign staffers to brief networks on what to expect during that night’s session. But on this day, we were on a mission to get the press to focus on something even we found difficult to process: the prospect that Russia had not only hacked and stolen emails from the Democratic National Committee, but that it had done so to help Donald Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton.
Sullivan was Clinton’s policy adviser. He had been Vice President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, a deputy to then-Secretary Clinton at the State Department and a lead negotiator of the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran. He is a widely respected national security expert and, as he does every day, he spoke carefully, without hyperbole. All we had to go on then was what had been reported by the press. We weren’t sure if Russia was doing this to undermine Americans’ faith in our political process or if it was trying to make Trump the next president. But we wanted to raise the alarm.
We did not succeed.
Read more >>>>

8th Annual Hillary Clinton Year in Review: Installment I January 2016

Over the 12 days prior to New Year's Day, the tradition here has been to provide a retrospective of the past year. 2016 was a busy year. It was a campaign year.  It began with a lot of hope and celebration. That's going to make this a painful endeavor down the line. (Please see the note at the bottom of this post.)

In January, the primary campaign, after a holiday hiatus, kicked off 2016 in Derry and Concord, NH.


Next it was on to IA.  Davenport.

DesMoines and Cedar Rapids

Osage and Sioux City, and an appearance on Hardball.

Council Bluffs

Next stop Nevada: Henderson and Las Vegas

The Nevada State Democratic Dinner

Hillary launched an outreach to Asian American and Pacific Islanders.

Back to IA.  Davenport

The Brown and Black Forum in Des Moines

Ames, IA

Jim Clyburn’s Fish Fry

Democratic Debate in Charleston

Martin Luther King Day in Columbia, SC

Burlington, IA

At the Iowa City campus of the University of Iowa with Demi Lovato

In Indianola and Vinton IA

In Rochester, NH with Jeanne Shaheen

Clinton, IA

In Davenport a “Hard Hats for Hillary” event followed by the Scott County Dems “Red, White, and Blue Banquet.”

Hillary Clinton joined Cory Booker for brunch in Cedar Rapids

Des Moines, Knoxville, Oskaloosa

Democratic Presidential Town Hall at Drake University

Final Get Out the Caucus rallies. Decorah

Marshalltown

Cedar Falls


Family Fun Center in Adel

Every Child Matters Event in Newton

GOTC in Des Moines

Dubuque and Davenport

African American festival in Des Moines

“Get Out the Caucus” rally at Iowa State University in Ames

Carroll

All the Clintons in Cedar Rapids

Council Bluffs

Last pre-caucus rally in Des Moines

On TV in January



January Endorsements: NARAL, Planned Parenthood, Seafarers Union, Anthony Foxx, Gabby Giffords and Mark Kelly, Sybrina Fulton, The Brady Campaign, UFCW (food workers), IATSE (stage managers), U.S. Black Chambers, The Human Rights Campaign,  National Treasury Employees Union, Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers, Lilly Ledbetter, The New York Times.

And then we were off to the races.

Here is the archive for January, 2016 >>>>

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NOTE: It was after a lot of deliberation that I decided to embark on this project this year. There was so much that was wrong. Even now, pundits deny the degree to which misogyny, sexism, and plain old Clinton Derangement Syndrome (on an international scale) influenced this election, but a review shines a light on the truth. Some of the evolving mythology around the election result is better refuted by pictures rather than a thousand words. So, yes, I decided to do it anyway even though, frankly, it is labor intensive, emotionally draining, and feels like picking at a scab.