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Hillary Clintons campaign rollout so far has taken many people by surprise. All the silly folderol about emails and her unwillingness to talk to the press aside, what seems to have many reeling is the list of rather shockingly liberal agenda items shes announced and the decidedly populist approach shes taken to solving them. Apparently most observers thought she would run as if it were 1992 and the long-disbanded Democratic Leadership Council was in its heyday. But you have to admit that even by comparison to her run in 2008, she it taking a much more aggressively progressive stance on a number of issues from immigration to criminal justice reform to voting rights that just a short while ago would have been seen to be dangerous ground for a Democratic candidate for president.

For decades Democrats tried to finesse thorny racial issues (which is what many of those issues named above subconsciously relate to) while still being seen as the party friendly to racial minorities. It hasnt bought them a white Southern vote in a national election in decades. It was always a fools errand but it took the victory of an African American president to finally show the party how to win without them.

And Clinton, not being a fool, can see that quite clearly as well. But she doesnt seem to arrogantly believe that the coalition that elected President Obama twice should be taken for granted and good for her. It shouldnt be and if the Democratic party expects to win presidential elections it has an obligation to put the needs of those voters above the prejudices of voters who will never vote for them anyway. Its hard to believe they ever thought that was a winning strategy in the first place.

But its still amusing for some of us who lived through the Clinton administration years to see people blinking in amazement that Hillary Clinton would be running for president on what looks so far to be a pretty liberal platform. After all, in the 90s it was widely believed that she was the evil Rasputin whispering Marxist feminist theory in poor Bills ear every night. Her liberal feminist image in Arkansas had been a subject of endless gossip and criticism for years but conservative columnist Paul Gigot in the Wall Street Journalgot the ball rollingin the national press when he dredged up some of her early academic work and famously called her an ardent liberal and feminist in the spring of 1992. The social conservatives went nuts, with Christian Right leaders like Gary Bauerclaimingthat Clinton had a radical philosophy that would rip the heart out of any family. At the Republican ConventionPat Buchanan famously roared:

Elect me, and you get two for the price of one, Mr. Clinton says of his lawyer-spouse. And what And what does Hillary believe? Well, Hillary believes that 12-year-olds should have the right to sue their parents. And Hillary has compared marriage and the family, as institutions, to slavery and life on an Indian reservation. Well, speak for yourself, Hillary.

Friends Friends, this This, my friends This is radical feminism. The agenda that Clinton & Clinton would impose on America: abortion on demand, a litmus test for the Supreme Court, homosexual rights, discrimination against religious schools, women in combat units. Thats change, all right. But thats not the kind of change America needs. Its not the kind of change America wants. And its not the kind of change we can abide in a nation we still call Gods country.

There have been many books and articles written about all this so theres no need to rehash it all now. Suffice to say it was probably a lot more complicated than any of that and so is Hillary Clinton. In the intervening years her image morphed into one of a centrist largely, I believe, on the basis of her monumental error in voting for the Iraq war. (According to the Poole and RosenthalDW-Nominate analysisher Senate record placed her at 11th most liberal out of a hundred. Joe Biden, by comparison was number 33 and Bernie Sanders No. 1 in the same period.) Its probably enough to simply say that Clinton is a mainstream Democrat and leave it at that. People will decide whether or not thats sufficient when they go to the voting booth.

It is, nonetheless, interesting to ponder why so many liberals are convinced that the person who was once seen as a hard core liberal feminist is now widely assumed to be a middle-of-the-road centrist. Brian Beutler tackled this subject last week inthis piece at The New Republicwhere he posits that its because of Bill Clintons reputation for a political tactic called triangulation rather than any specific ideological issues. He wrote:

For the better part of 20 years now, Bill Clintons presidency has been synonymous with a hazy political concept called triangulation. Since his advisers made the term famous, it has been used to describe everything from standard-issue compromise, to the willingness to confront reactionary elements in ones own party (think Sister Souljah), to the appropriation of another political partys policy ideas. The latter is as close to a proper definition as there is.

One big concern bedeviling progressives is that Hillary Clintons candidacy will mark the return of triangulationthe preemptive ceding of ideological turf, at a time when, thanks to partisan polarization, such concessions amount to outright victories for the Republican Party.

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HOUSTON Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday called for sweeping changes in national voter-access laws aimed at making it easier for young people and minorities to take part in elections, putting her on a collision course with Republicans who say such measures are a political ploy that would lead to widespread abuses.

In a speech at a historically black college here, Clinton called for federal legislation that would automatically register Americans to vote at age18 and would mandate at least 20days of early voting ahead of election days in all states.

Making her most fiercely partisan political speech since her first, failed run for president in 2008, Clinton attacked Republicans for what she characterized as a calculated attempt to turn back the clock on voting rights and called out several potential 2016 opponents by name for backing voter restrictions as governors.

Today Republicans are systematically and deliberately trying to stop millions of American citizens from voting, Clinton said in a speech at Texas Southern University. What part of democracy are they afraid of?

The pointed attacks and extensive policy proposals signal that Clinton intends to make voter access a major plank in her campaign platform a move aimed at firing up the Democratic base and portraying her GOP opponents as suppressing votes. Her campaigns top lawyer, Marc Elias, has co-filed lawsuits over voting access in Ohio and Wisconsin both key presidential battleground states with Republican governors who may join the 2016 race.

The Republican National Committee accused Clinton of being misleading and divisive and noted that her home state of New York does not provide early voting. Her exploitation of this issue only underscores why voters find her dishonest and untrustworthy, RNC spokesman Orlando Watson said in a statement.

During her speech, Clinton said Republican state legislatures are intentionally restricting voting by curtailing early access to the polls and other measures in an effort to suppress Democratic turnout. Among the potential opponents she singled out for criticism were New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, former Florida governor Jeb Bush and former Texas governor Rick Perry. Perry announced his second run for the White House on Thursday.

Today there are people who offer themselves to be leaders whose actions have undercut this fundamental American principle of a free vote, Clinton said.

Perry spokesman Travis Considine said Clintons remarks demonstrate how truly out of touch she is with the people of Texas.

While it is unfortunate, Gov. Perry is not surprised that Hillary Clinton would come to Texas and call for weakening the integrity of our election process, Considine said in a statement.

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Hillary Clinton calls for sweeping expansion of voter ...

Weakening ratings for Hillary Clinton present opportunities for her potential Republican opponents, even as their own contest morphs into an all-out free-for-all, with Jeb Bush surrendering his frontrunner status in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll.

While still far ahead for her partys nomination, Clinton faces challenges. Shes slipped underwater in personal favorability for the first time since her unsuccessful run for the presidency in 2008. Shes deeper in the hole for honesty and trustworthiness down 5 points in just two months and 12 points in the last year. And Americans by 17- to 24-point margins disapprove of her handling of recent questions on her use of personal e-mail while secretary of state, her handling of the Benghazi attack in Libya and fundraising by her familys foundation.

See PDF with full results, charts and tables here.

Indeed, while Bush has lost ground in the contest for the GOP nomination, Clinton does less well against him in a head-to-head matchup. The gap between them has closed from 12 points to three 47-44 percent, Clinton-Bush, among registered voters, vs. 53-41 percent two months ago.

Bush, at the same time, has even greater difficulties with personal favorability than Clinton, and a far weaker home base. Hes lost 11 points in support for the nomination among Republicans and GOP-leaning independents who are registered to vote, from a front-running 21 percent in March to 10 percent now, smack alongside Scott Walker and Rand Paul (11 percent apiece) and Marco Rubio (10 percent). Mike Huckabee has 9 percent support, Ted Cruz and Ben Carson, 8 percent each.

Bushs decline has come among Republicans (as opposed to GOP-leaning independents) and evangelicals groups with high turnout in GOP primaries and caucuses as well as among moderates. His difficulties include baggage from his brothers administration; the public by an 18-point margin disapproves of how hes answered questions about whether he would have ordered the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. And 55 percent of Americans see Bush as out of touch with the concerns of average Americans a greater weakness for him than this measure is for Clinton.

That said, the questions facing Clinton particularly regarding Benghazi and her foundations fundraising are more apt than a hypothetical Iraq do-over to be seen as legitimate issues in the 2016 campaign. Her decline vs. Bush among registered voters, from 53 percent in March to 47 percent now, is a significant one.

The churn in this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates, is fascinating: A weaker result for Bush in his base, a better result for him against Clinton. Add to that one more finding: Whatever their current positions, were it a Bush-Clinton matchup, the public by 55-39 percent thinks Clinton would win.

Bush, of course, hasnt even announced his candidacy; hes expected to do so later this month. Among those who are in the race, its Rubio whos shown the most movement up 7 points in personal favorability, down 7 in unfavorable views, since the last ABC/Post poll completed March 29. His 10 percent support for the nomination, while underwhelming in real terms, is numerically his highest in ABC/Post polls in the past year.

Rubio also has the distinction of being the only one of nine potential GOP candidates tested for favorability in this poll whos not underwater in this most basic measure of popularity. But he has fairly low recognition overall 31-31 percent, favorable-unfavorable, with the rest up in the air.

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Poll: Hillary Clinton Weakens on Trustworthiness While Jeb ...

Hillary Clintons presidential campaign late last week obtained access to the full Ready for Hillary email list, a data gold mine that will immediately bolster the Democratic front-runners fundraising and organizing efforts.

The campaign gained entry to the independent super PACs list through a swap with another independent group, a Democrat with knowledge of the list told POLITICO, and is expected to begin emailing it immediately. The source declined to identify the other group.

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Access to the list of close to 4 million names came after senior campaign officials admitted they were relying in part on an outdated supporter list from 2008. For two years, Ready for Hillarys primary purpose was to create a plug-and-play list of supporter names, with contact information, that represented an energized base of people who could be tapped for money or volunteering.

But for the first six weeks of Clintons 2016 presidential campaign, that data trove was unavailable and tied up with lawyers reviewing the options available to the campaign: they could trade an old list for the new list, or rent a la carte pieces of the list like, for example, names of volunteers in Iowa they would need before a campaign stop there. Eventually, however, the campaign decided it was easier to have access to the entire list.

I could offer about 4 million reasons why the Ready for Hillary list is an important resource, said Tracy Sefl, a Democratic strategist who served as a senior adviser to the independent super PAC before it shut down.

To understand why access to the list is so important, consider the recent experience of Lynette Hull, a 17-year-old high school student from Las Vegas who was one of the first interns to sign up with the campaign after Clinton announced she was running.

A national honors society student at Liberty High School, Hull was quickly put to work phone-banking working through an old database of Clinton supporters to sign up new volunteers.

The work proved time-consuming and unproductive. Its a lot of no pickups, Hull said of her experience. I recently did about 60 phone calls about 20 picked up, and a lot of those said they were too old to get out and volunteer.

There is some overlap of the Ready for Hillary list and the campaigns own list of supporters. For starters, when Clinton officially announced her presidential bid six weeks ago, Ready For Hillary emailed its list six times, encouraging them to sign up with the official campaign. Clinton staffers have also been signing up new supporters in the early states on their own.

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Hillary Clinton campaign scores Ready for Hillary email ...

These are strange timesfor HillaryClinton.

Reportedly prepared to embrace and acknowledge the historic nature of her quest for the White House, this week candidate Clinton engaged in a particularly awkward and complicated political dance. Clinton, a second-wave feminist minted in Illinois and refined at Wellesley College and Yale Law School, is a former secretary of state, former senator and first lady who changed the rules of that last job, leading a contentious and ultimately failed effort to create a national health-care system during her husband's presidency. Clinton is a woman of substance. And, in South Carolina this week, she has been a woman eager to highlight her work ...to support, to assist and to aid Barack Obama in his own historic presidency.

Speaking to an audience of Democratic women in South Carolina on Wednesday -- many of whom the New York Times described as black -- Clinton joked aboutthe at-times-rancorous 2008 South Carolina primary in which shefaced then-candidate Obama. Then, she tried to make nice in a way that the campaign apparently believes will work.

I went to work for him as secretary of state because he and I share many of the same positions about what should be done in the next presidency, Clinton told the crowd, according to the New York Times.

Clinton, potentially the nation's first female president, was there to make it clear: She would be a good president because she supported and assisted Barack Obama and is ready to continue his work.

As the Times also noted, though, Clinton assiduously avoided any mentions of race or the nature of her 2008 campaign's clashes with the Obama camp. Back then, Bill Clinton angered some Obama supporters and some committed Democrats who were Clinton supporters when he described Obama's opposition to the Iraq war asthe biggest fairytale I've ever seen.Hillary Clinton irritated some with comments that seemed to minimize the contributions of Martin Luther King Jr. to civil rights reforms and emphasized the role of President Lyndon B. Johnson instead.

Both Clintons have described the reaction to their comments as overblown, misinterpreted and taken out of context. They have denied that they contained any racial subtext.

But the comments were understood by some in South Carolina where a substantial share of the electorate isAfrican American, very differently. When the primary was over and Obama had won, longtime Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), who is black, told The New Yorker, "It's pretty widespread now that African Americans have lost a lot of respect for Bill Clinton."

That was the Clinton campaign that at least some of the Democratic women at Wednesday's event remembered when Clinton came to South Carolina this weekand gave a speech using a Southern twang that caught a little attention. And it's against that backdrop that what Clinton had to say in South Carolina this week was less a concession to anyone's ideas about the proper or traditional role of women asit was to say, I know. Barack Obama won. I supported his agenda and did work for Obama around the world. I'm an ally. Now, I'd like to lead.

That work was necessary in South Carolina in a way that it probably won't be elsewhere, because of the 2008 controversy.

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Hillary Clinton: A woman ready to lead because she ...