To: Interested Parties

From: Colin Reed, Executive Director, America Rising PAC

Date: May 15, 2015
Re: Why Hillary Clinton Should Be Worried About The Widening Rift In The Democratic Party

In recent weeks, much has been made of the widening and serious rift within the Democrats that has roiled party ranks
and spilled into the public discussion. The split has serious and negative ramifications for their 2016 standard bearer,
former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Consider:

Two of the partys leading figures, President Obama and Senator Warren, have been openly and publicly sniping at one another in very
personal terms over a global trade deal, the centerpiece of the Presidents second-term agenda. Obama even took the extraordinary
step of telling Yahoo! News that Warrens arguments dont stand the test of fact and scrutiny and dismissing her as a politician like
everybody else.

Obamas criticism of Warren led Sherrod Brown, a progressive Democratic senator from Ohio, to accuse the sitting Democratic
president of sexism, an incredible charge that was echoed by the president of the National Organization for Women (NOW), a longtime
and close ally of the Democratic Party.

The Obama-Warren feud escalated earlier this week when every single Democratic senator, save one, defied the President and initially
stalled his trade agreement from moving forward. Hearst described it as a a stunning defeat to President Barack Obama by his own
party and the Washington Post noted that the bad blood between the White House and Warren has spilled out into the open.

Against this backdrop, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, another close Warren ally, convened a whos who of liberal leaders at the
Capitol to push for a renewed commitment to left-wing principles. Conspicuously absent from the widely-hyped event was Secretary
Clinton.

The picture isnt any prettier for Democrats in their uphill efforts to retake the Senate either, as ideological fault lines are turning into
divisive primary fights in key battleground states like Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania and Nevada. Even in deep blue states like California
and Maryland, multiple Democrats from opposite wings of the party are lining up to slug it out. As Robert Draper noted in his piece for
New York Times Magazine titled The Great Democratic Crack-Up of 2016, this blood feud over the future of the Democratic Party
represents a fight over what a true Democrat should, and should not, be.

For weeks, she has been stuck between a rock and a hard place on Obamas trade deal, which she praised effusively as
Secretary of State but has now steadfastly refused to take a position on amid the revolution from the Warren wing of the
Democratic Party. Her silence led to a blistering editorial from the Washington Post, who accused her of being MIA On
Trade and blasted her as a a quiet follower and noted her dash for the tall grass is transparently inconsistent with the
position she embraced as Mr. Obamas secretary of state.
Clinton has also engaged in ideological back-flips to convince the Warren faction of the party that shes one of them.
As her campaign officially reached the one-month mark, Clintons already moved her position leftward on numerous hot
button issues to the base, including immigration, gay marriage, Wall Street and criminal justice reforms.
Secretary Clintons moves reinforce all her worst attributes as a candidate and hurt her image among voters of all stripes.
Progressive voters know that shes not truly one of them, and their priorities are better represented by the Warren-de
Blasio wing of the party. Clinton needs her base to turn out in November 2016, and low energy and enthusiasm will be
problematic. Swing voters, on the other hand, see a desperate politician staking out far-left positions that are outside
of the mainstream of most Americans. Her efforts to appease the far left will only turn off the all-important voters in the
middle, which is where the general election in 2016 will be decided.
Above all, Clinton continues to be pushed further and further away from her image as a non-partisan diplomat above the fray
of politics, which is when shes at her strongest. Shes increasingly moving back to her weakest position when shes viewed
as just another dishonest politician who will shift or change her principles for her own convenience and expedience.