On trade deal, Hillary Clinton keeps her distance from Obama and her past
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Four years later, with Obama making a desperate final push to complete that 12-nation pact, his former partner and most effective global advocate for the deal has gone quiet. As the president has scoured Capitol Hill for elusive Democratic support in recent weeks, Clinton has said virtually nothing about the TPP, other than to point out areas of the deal with which she has concerns.
But on trade, Clinton’s hedge has left Obama without political cover in his increasingly bitter feud with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and other progressives, who have fiercely opposed the pact as a boondoggle for big business. On Tuesday, a bill to grant Obama “fast track” authority to complete the trade pact faces its first test in the Senate, without a clear path to the necessary 60 votes to avoid a filibuster.
“One of the biggest proponents of the TPP in the administration now, as a candidate, picking on a couple of technical issues just looks like pure politicking,” said Ernest Bower, a Southeast Asia expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
For Clinton, the trade pact is “part of her legacy,” Bower said. “She really believes in it.” He predicted that as president she would “not only work to support it, but expand it as fast as she can.”
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/on-trade-deal-hillary-clinton-keeps-her-distance-from-obama-and-her-past/2015/05/11/bc2cc604-f7e1-11e4-9ef4-1bb7ce3b3fb7_story.html
Political courage and leadership, shining through. 
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