Clinton Campaign Plants Questions In Iowa (UPDATED)
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, Hillary, IowaMore news that makes Hillary look like a faker.
SIOUX CITY, Iowa — Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton’s campaign admitted Friday that it planted a global warming question in Newton, Iowa, Tuesday during a town hall meeting to discuss clean energy.Clinton campaign spokesman Mo Elliethee admitted that the campaign had planted the question and said it would not happen again.
“On this occasion a member of our staff did discuss a possible question about Senator Clinton’s energy plan at a forum,†Elliethee said.
“However, Senator Clinton did not know which questioners she was calling on during the event. This is not standard policy and will not be repeated again.â€
Frankly, I don’t believe that Hill didn’t know to call on them. Why would you plant anybody in the audience if Hill didn’t know? Sounds like BS to me.
So dumb.
UPDATE:
Looks like this may not be a random event…
One day after Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton’s campaign confirmed that a staffer planted a question for the presidential candidate at a recent campaign stop, another person has come forward with a similar story.Geoff Mitchell, a minister who recently moved to Hamilton, Ill., from Iowa, told ABC News that he was approached this spring by Clinton’s Iowa political director Chris Haylor to ask Clinton a question about war funding.
Again, saying that Hill didn’t know about this or at least knew a certain question could be asked (wink, wink), is insulting to voters’ intelligence.
This entry was posted on Sunday, November 11th, 2007 and is filed under 2008 Election, Hillary, Iowa. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
November 10th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
Political campaigns, especially major ones, rely on large numbers of all kinds of people brouight together quickly. Well-meaning volunteers, some quite young, can be clueless about some things. They can fail to reckon with how some things will look to the public when they hit the news.
Even older, experienced campaign staffers and volunteers, in their enthusiasm and desire to help the candidate win, can say or do something that in a quieter, less-competitive environment they would never say or do.
Planting questioners in an opponent’s audience to ask especially hard or embarrassing questions is a tactic as old as our democracy. Planting friendly questions is not unheard of either. President Bush not only had them in his campaigns, his people brought them into the White House press room. Remember Jeff Gannon/Guckert?
Hillary Clinton is nothing if not extremely smart and well informed on a broad range of issues. She doesn’t need planted questions to be able to do well. Given the potential for embarrassing publicity, I’m sure if she had known about this nonsense in advance, she would have put a stop to it.
What I get from your post is that you don’t much like Clinton and so are prepared to see the worst in any incident such as this one. She’s not my first choice for president, but I credit her with being well qualified and formidable campaigner. I also expect Clinton made the decision for her spokesperson to fess up and admit this mistake, which was exactly the right thing to do.
November 10th, 2007 at 12:56 pm
Oh wait. After writing the above comment, I see this story is from Fox News. That means it may be partly true, mostly untrue or even complete fiction. I stand by what I wrote in my comment, but wish I had devoted less time to it.
November 10th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
SWA makes some good points–Clinton isn’t alone in doing this, but getting caught is just part of the miserable week she’s had.
November 11th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
Hillary supporters: please don’t get discouraged. PLEASE. She is getting attacked from all sides because people deep down know she is our only hope for America and they’re trying to ruin it for everybody. Hillary is the ONLY candidate with these 4 attributes: honor, patriotism, loyalty, and kindness. I got $35 in the bank that says no other candidate has those attributes.
November 11th, 2007 at 7:48 pm
Vote for Hillary, I’ve got news for you. All the Democratic candidates, every single one of them, has honor, patriotism, loyalty, and kindness.
If Clinton is your first choice, fine. If you really believe she exhibits those characteristics more and better than the others, have at it. But saying she’s the ONLY candidate who has them is obviously untrue and undermines your credibility.
Also, recalling the same kind of “It’s him and him ONLY” enthusiasm from some people for Howard Dean four years ago, I urge you to select a fallback choice. Early front runners don’t always get the nomination.
November 12th, 2007 at 9:05 am
Dang, VHO that’s easily the worst pitch for a candidate I’ve ever heard. Hillary would be an okay president, neither terribly good nor terribly bad. Ron Paul is the only candidate who actually has those 4 attributes; as a bonus, he also has an impeccable record on voting with the Constitution, the only oath a Congressperson takes.