The Queen: The Epic Ambition of Hillary and the Coming of a Second "Clinton Era" (13 page)

The web of connectedness is beyond this small book’s capacity to describe, but I hardly need to. You cannot hope to become president if you don’t already know about it, sense it, and understand its speed and dizzying ability to move from story to story. Level one feeds every other level, and sometimes level two and three push material up to it.

You can do your best to take as many of the pieces off the board as possible, or at least have them think twice before charging at you. Start now. Work earnestly at the effort. You will never see the payoff because it will be in posts not posted and tweets not tweeted. Pull on that invisible arc of news ever so gently and every day. Until they don’t matter anymore.

CHAPTER 13

The “Not Serious” Republican Candidates and the Serious Ones

Unless you intend to gum up the GOP’s internal deliberations, do not ever, ever respond to a candidate’s attack if that candidate cannot possibly face you in the general election.

The goal in life of such “second tier” candidates is to bait you into noticing them, seize upon that response and amplify it via their own social media networks, and thus help them elevate their own standing among the Republican primary voters of Iowa and New Hampshire.

Now, you may want to, say, refer to Carly Fiorina in a positive way and note again and again that “out of all America all the GOP could find to use as a token woman on their debate stage was a failed-Senate candidate, who had previously failed at running a big corporation.” Fiorina has incredibly sharp instincts though, so such an attack could boomerang. And if delivered against the former Hewlett-Packard CEO with the deeply compelling personal story, better to use the thick-as-a-brick Barbara Boxer to deliver it. Because Boxer beat Fiorina—not hard to do in deep blue California—Boxer can throw a few verbal darts at Fiorina without dragging you into the fray, but be careful of Carly.

And be very careful of Dr. Ben Carson, unless you mean to seriously try and get him onto the ticket or increase the attention paid to him as a means of setting a few time-bombs down the road for the GOP. Dr. Carson is much, much more than a man of color; he is also a fundamentally different sort of figure on the American political stage—a
genuine achievement from the worst part of the long urban nightmare that is Detroit, and his accomplishments cannot be derided without risk to you.

But do recall the famous July 5, 2003 story in the
Washington
Post
by Juliet Eilperin, entitled “Rove Spends the Fourth Rousing Support for Dean,” which began:

“Talk about lining up the competition. President Bush’s chief political adviser has seen the possible presidential candidates among the Democrats and has found one he apparently thinks his man can beat: former Vermont governor Howard Dean.

Karl Rove tried to stir up enthusiasm for Dean marchers yesterday at the 37th annual Palisades Citizens’ Association Fourth of July parade along the District’s MacArthur Boulevard, which always attracts plenty of politicians.

As a dozen people marched toward Dana Place wearing Dean for President T-shirts and carrying Dean for America signs, Rove told a companion, “ ‘Heh, heh, heh. Yeah, that’s the one we want,’ ” according to Daniel J. Weiss, an environmental consultant, who was standing nearby. “ ‘How come no one is cheering for Dean?’ ”

Then, Weiss said, Rove exhorted the marchers and the parade audience: “ ‘Come on, everybody! Go, Howard Dean!’ ”

The truth is Rove would have loved to have run W against Dean in 2004, just as you would love to run against the untested, wholly-unready-for-a-massive-management-task-like-overseeing-the-conduct-of-a-presidential-campaign guy like Dr. Ben Carson, but forays into the other side’s politics are at best wickedly sharp, double-edged swords. Rove was just having fun there, hoping to get a pass from the anti-war crazed left in 2004. No such pass developed, but Rove may have helped nominate the ultimately very formidable Kerry by signaling to mainstream Democrats just how crazy Dean was. Don’t play that game.

You don’t need to take any risks you don’t have to take, give any interviews you don’t want to give, respond to any inconvenient questions. The advantage of being an inevitable nominee is that you
alone decide what you will do and when. You might even refuse all but a handful of debates with Webb, Bernie and Yoda (if Jerry Brown runs). You saw what the two dozen clashes did to Romney in 2012, and you recall what the debate marathon of 2008 did to you. You can make your own rules until the fall and maybe beyond (depending of course on whether Senator Warren stays on the sidelines and the server stays hidden, the emails “disappeared”).

So stay far, far above the fray. Raise money and wait. Study. Do a few interviews with Friedman, Rose and other aging reliables. If you are offended by a slur from the “never-going-to-be-nominated” crowd, ignore it. Or, if your temper is truly up, dispatch a suitably low-level functionary like Barbara Boxer to deliver the message. The aging Boxer, for example, will be eager to imagine herself doing you a favor and will scuttle out to do your bidding, expecting a job in your new regime, even though she is even older than you and dumb as a desk. (Perhaps Ambassador to Finland, to keep her out of sight and far away, and thus minimize the risk of her damaging your first crucial years at 1600?)

In this category of extremely unlikely nominees are Fiorina and Carson, but also Ambassador John Bolton—be very careful of that extremely smart fellow Yale Law grad—the voluble and amusing Congressman Peter King, the gifted Barnum of our age, Donald Trump. The only congressman you have to at least think about running against is Paul Ryan, and that is extremely, extremely unlikely, one of two acceptable candidates a deadlock in Cleveland could produce. Other than that, you need only direct your staff to begin opposition research projects on your own potential vice presidents and on the GOP 12 plus one: Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, Bobby Jindal, John Kasich, Rand Paul, Rick Perry, Marco Rubio, Paul Ryan, Rick Santorum, Scott Walker—and of course Mitt Romney, who though he is out again after being briefly back in, may yet return if the GOP’s Cleveland Convention freezes as noted above, and who in any event will surface on VP lists if one of the Republican’s “next generation” of would-be nominees rises and wins, and then needs some Cheney-like
gravitas on their ticket.

Your team should also begin opposition research projects on the likely vice presidential short list for the GOP which will include all of the above plus Senator Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa, Governor Susanna Martinez of New Mexico and Governor Nikki Haley of South Carolina—and perhaps young Senator Cotton should the war being going truly badly and a mass casualty attack upon the United States a reality again and not just a nightmare in the offing. Many Republicans will believe they simply have to nominate a woman, and one that brings a second plus such as new ethnicity and thus appeal to MSM—Haley is an Indian-American—or a swing stater like Ayotte and Ernst, or both ethnic novelty and a swing state, like Martinez. The overwhelming likelihood is that Senator Rubio or Governor Martinez will be the choice, so start now to retrace their every step and dispatch the video cams to film her every appearance and word. Store up the nuggets, like they have them stored up for Governor Patrick, your likely running mate, or Senator Booker, your much less likely running mate.

But most of your thinking must be about the men you are likely to face, and every day you ought to spend some time thinking through that baker’s dozen, especially Bush, Cruz, Rubio and Walker, who are your top-tier possible opponents. Such different challenges. Kick them all around, every day, with Bill and Chelsea. Envision them on the stage with you in October. Prepare now.

The Dalai Lama once told me—really, he did, and you can watch the interview in the archives of PBS—that he envisioned his own death every day so as to be prepared for it when it arrived. Such discipline. It is mirrored in the old Roman Catholic admonition to think every day about four things: death, judgment, Heaven and Hell.

Anyone your age should probably contemplate how little time you have left on this earth, but not for long and not to the exclusion of thinking through the key understandings and the character of each of the candidates listed, one of which will be opposite you in the fall of 2016. Don’t make the mistake of the German general staff preparing
for Patton to lead D-Day at Pas de Calais, only to be surprised to find Bradley and Montgomery on the beaches of Normandy. They couldn’t imagine not fighting Patton, so Patton became the great diversion. Ike was always a step ahead, and not just of the Germans, but later of MacArthur, Taft, McCarthy. The only one who stayed a step ahead of Ike was of course Nixon, who outmaneuvered the general twice, with his “Checkers” speech which kept him on the ticket in 1952 and again in 1956 when RN clung to the ticket by a thread.

You and RN have much more in common than you’d like the press to know, but this part of Nixon’s political operation you simply have to copy: He never stopped thinking about his opponents and his enemies, and neither can you. Even when you win, most of them will still be around and readying immediately for 2020. You cannot spend too much time just thinking about these 13 men, and the chapters that follow will give you some starting points.

Don’t presume you know whom will the nominee will be. Don’t expect Patton. Prepare for them all. Every day. Study them and their speeches. Task a staffer to bring you a daily report on where they went and what they said and did. Think on them.

CHAPTER 14

The Heir and Future Rival: Paul Ryan

Paul Ryan is not going to run against you—this time. But he is certain to be back, somewhere, somehow, as the leading man in your opposition. Like Senator Marco Rubio, well known and loved on the right, acceptable to the center, possessing the “it,” piling up accomplishment and practice in the particulars of the old politics. When you unveil your platform, he will be the one to respond in detail even as the announced candidates stick to their primary battle plans. And as future Speaker—on his timing, when he wants it, probably in January, 2017—he will be “negotiating” with you should you prevail on your demands for budgets, bills and of course the amendments. John Boehner and Kevin McCarthy have the titles now, but Paul Ryan has the love of his caucus and the admiration of great deal of his party including me.

But, but, but… he is vulnerable if only for a little while. You should move before an opponent of this stature moves to repair the breach in his own walls. Delay and he can mend his fence. So don’t delay.

Ryan made an enormous mistake in 2013, and who knows, you may have talked your friend Patty Murray into tricking him into it. The Ryan-Murray budget deal of 2013 included cuts to the earned retirement benefits of the men and women who have fought the long war. Ryan thought it a down payment on entitlement reform and badly misjudged just how far off course his calculations were. I argued with him about it on air then, but displaying a somewhat noble if deeply compromising stubborn attachment to his own principles, Ryan would not
budge even as the swelling chorus of criticism crescendoed.

He got rolled. And branded. As “anti-military.” Astonishing to have let that happen, but no error by a key opponent can be allowed to go unexploited. He set the fire. Throw on the gasoline.

First, when you campaign, wherever you campaign, remind people that Paul Ryan not only wants to privatize Social Security and replace Medicaid with vouchers redeemable at crowded clinics full of the unwashed and undeserving. (“You have worked hard your whole life to earn these benefits, and now Paul Ryan wants to hand out coupons the equivalent of drive-through restaurants dispensing aspirin instead of medical care of the highest quality.”) Be sure to add with studied emphasis that Ryan even wanted to cut the earned pensions of military veterans with at least 20 years of service and who knows how many tours logged, miles traveled, bullets and IEDs dodged, anniversaries and birthdays spent away from their families.

This was the line of attack that forced nearly every member of Congress to retreat in 2014, but not Ryan. He built his own cross. Crucify him on it.

This is where your 5% plank will help you most, against every member of the Senate and House that took up legislative arms against those who bore the real arms and the burdens of the nation’s defense from 9/11 forward. You voted for the Afghan and Iraq invasions, but you did not vote to punish the men and women who fought those and other wars. Many of your opponents did. Make them pay.

Starting with Ryan. Every speech on national security, every debate on defense, every editorial board meeting when you start to speak of rebuilding America’s hollowed out military, be sure to make the future Speaker pay the price for his short sighted deal of 2013. You will never beat him in Janesville, and you cannot remove him from House leadership for as long as he stays in office, but you can rebrand him permanently via repetition of his mortal sin against the uniformed military.

Chairman Ryan will shrug this off, and pretend not to care. But he will eventually snap back in a memorable outburst. Or he will recant and admit an error of judgment.

This latter move would be to his inestimable benefit long term, but most American politicians have never learned the art of the apology followed by “now I have to get back to doing the work of the American people” flash of indignation invented by Bill. They double and triple their sunk costs, always digging, digging, digging deeper into their holes, never remembering the “first rule of holes,” which is that when find yourself in a hole, first stop digging.

Chairman Ryan could recognize this and work to defuse the issue. Could assign it to the desperation brought about by your and President Obama’s unprecedented fiscal recklessness, could admit error and move on, adopting or even anticipating the 5% standard and using the ongoing erosion of America’s position in the world to justify the pivot.