Nothing personal, Hillary says, but it’s getting personal between Bush and Walker

James Pindell
Ground Game
Published in
3 min readMar 11, 2015

The morning after Hillary Clinton’s press conference at the United Nations to explain the method in which she used and stored emails while US secretary of state, it is more important to pay attention to the big themes than to go deep into the weeds.

Most American voters didn’t watch the press conference. They work during the day. So the specifics about the “home-brewed server” and how many devices are necessary for each email account are topics to be obsessed over only by activists and the political elite.

The themes that do matter: Clinton looks like a candidate. She is on the defensive. She is still getting hammered by talking heads who think she did something shady.

But without a smoking gun email or a Democratic alternative in the presidential race, it might all just go down as just noise — politicians discussing political stuff. That is not the worst outcome for Clinton.

Popping this morning:

Clinton says she used private e-mail for ‘convenience’ in The Boston Globe: “Hillary Rodham Clinton attempted Tuesday to quiet the controversy raging over her use of a private e-mail account while she was secretary of state, explaining that she used personal e-mail simply as a matter of ‘convenience’ because she did not want to carry two cellular devices with her.”

2016ers mostly mum as Hillary Clinton faces the cameras in POLITICO: “Hillary Clinton’s potential 2016 Republican and Democratic rivals largely steered clear of attacking her Tuesday as she publicly addressed questions over her email use while serving as secretary of state. Some flat out refused to touch the subject.”

Jeb Bush, Scott Walker emerging as front-runners for GOP nod — and rivals by The Washington Post: “The back-and-forth between the Republican camps is evidence of how the growing Bush-Walker rivalry has come to define the early stage of the 2016 GOP primary race, as well as how each presumptive candidate is planning to position himself against the other.

“Walker wants to be the upstart outsider in the field, hoping to win over the grass roots as a fresh-faced conservative who stands apart from the old Washington ways. No one in the Republican field represents those ways more than Bush.”

Number of the day: 6

The number of potential Republican presidential candidates who spoke at theInternational Association of Fire Fighters conference in Washington.

New Hampshire chatter: [Kelly] Ayotte among senators who signed letter sent to Iran in the New Hampshire Union Leader: “An already heated battle between the White House and Republicans over negotiations to curtail Iran’s nuclear program grew more tense when 47 Republican senators sent a letter Monday to Iran designed to kill any potential deal.”

Iowa chatter: Hillary Clinton eyes campaign launch in early April with plans to staff up in Iowa by The Guardian: “With plans to hire as many as 40 staffers in the battleground state around the beginning of April, the sources said, there is essentially no turning back on Clinton campaign expenditures — nor on the starting gun for the 2016 election.”

South Carolina chatter: Donald Trump builds SC staff for possible 2016 presidential bid: “The Republican hopeful’s co-chairs in the Palmetto State are Columbia public relations executive Ed McMullen and former state Sen. John Russell of Spartanburg, whose father was governor of South Carolina in the 1960s, said Corey Lewandowski, a senior political adviser to Trump.

“State Rep. Jim Merrill, a Berkeley Republican and former House majority leader, will be Trump’s political adviser in South Carolina, Lewandowski said.”

Read more here:http://www.thestate.com/2015/03/10/4037232/donald-trump-builds-sc-staff-for.html#storylink=cp

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James Pindell
Ground Game

Political reporter for The Boston Globe focused on the 2016 US presidential election.