perception? women have come a long way. women are in positions not because they re women, they re in positions like yours because they re intelligent and they should be equal to their counter parts and treated equally. the interviewers in the last couple of days got it easier than i gave to eliot spitzer probably a year or two ago. the thing is i m unwilling to let people characterize things unfairly and if someone s going to write an op ed on me in the question that s fair for them to try to do it but it s also fair for me to try to set the record straight that they re editorializing in the question. what about if you are on the stage with hillary clinton, will you be cognizant of the fact that she would be a female opponent? i m always polite. even in the interviews where i m accused of being too aggressive i ve never yelled or screamed. i don t get out of control. i do try to be polite. i ve always treated it that way. i would treat her with the same respect that i would treat
helping our cities and towns get out of bankruptcy. even our capital city of providence was eligible. that s not true today. a little known fact. you went to boarding school, high school with jeb bush back in the day. were you friends? what do you know about him personally? do you think he could make a good president? yes, we were friends. we lived in the same dorm together. we ve bumped into each other the same time since. we ll see what happens coming down the road. do you think he would make a good president? he s not his brother, obviously. he has different views on things. now we have three bushes to compare, the father george w. and now jeb. we ll see how it goes down in the campaign. lastly you sounded like you were pretty far in this morning in our discussion. are you definitely going to run? well the process is to form the exploratory committee but, yes, i want to be there november december january debating these issues. okay.
grandchildren, but this administration has on so many different fronts short circuited that and has made the situation worse. they ve closed doors for people rather than opening doors. and that is going to be something hillary clinton is going to have to decide is she going to run on the obama record or is she going to change that? because what has happened in the past eight years makes it much more difficult for our children and grandchildren to have a fruitful productive free life. what about that paul? you know what s going on in that world. you ve been in that world for decades. it is not easy to run as a third democratic term you know and that s certainly what she s going to try to do. there hasn t been a third term of a party since george h.w. bush in 1988. he came off a pretty popular presidency with ronald regan. in labor day of this year 1988 ronald regan was at 52%.
fledgling, if you will campaign is talking about it right now. one of the great mistakes of 2008 was not getting off to a good start. right here in iowa she was outorganized by then senator barack obama and connecting with people means meeting them where they live talking to them on their own level. we ve already seen some of that from that mission statement that came out in advance of this expected announcement. the expectation now is that they re going to try to show a more humble hillary clinton willing to fight for every vote. the rollout seen as a soft start, a humble beginning if you will. what to expect on the ground assuming that announcement does come today, democratic strategists telling me they expect an extraordinarily tightly controlled and stage managed campaign with lots of messaged discipline to try to avoid some of the miss steps and in fighting we saw last year. and some of that, of course, you see already in the radio silence coming from her inner circle about today
sitting down with me. let s start with the news of the weekend, hillary clinton announcing for president. over the past week you ve been really critical of her when it comes to the issue of trust talking about benghazi talking about the donations to the clinton foundation. how far back do you think is fair game? do you think monica? do you think white water? do you think the travel office issues? what should be in the realm of the public debate now? you know i m not sure that i ll get to decide what s in the realm or not, but i do think that there is sort of a history of the clintons sort of feeling like they re above the law. they said they weren t going to take donations from the clinton foundation during the time she was secretary of state and there are questions whether they did. since then there are questions of them taking millions of dollars from saudi arabia from the sultan of brunai. countries that have an abysmal women s record and human rights record. it questions the sin