Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Planted Questions at an Iowa Event
Part of what makes the New Hampshire primary great, at least in the eyes of us New Hampshirites, is the fact that the candidates can be up close and personal. Many events are held all over the state where there is an intimate setting and voters can really get to ask candidates anything. It helps to git voters to know the candidates better than perhaps you can in a larger state. From what I understand, Iowa is the same way. So when Hillary Clinton goes into Iowa and really connects with an intimate crowd in a one-on-one situation that is totally spontaneous, uh what- oh, it appears as though her meetings weren’t quite as spontaneous as we were led to believe.
After her speech, Clinton accepted questions. But according to Grinnell College student Muriel Gallo-Chasanoff ’10, some of the questions from the audience were planned in advance. “They were canned,” she said. Before the event began, a Clinton staff member approached Gallo-Chasanoff to ask a specific question after Clinton’s speech. “One of the senior staffers told me what [to ask],” she said.
I seem to remember something like this happening to President Bush a couple of years ago. I can’t quite remember the details, but wasn’t he seen on video rehearsing answers to an event that was supposed to be spontaneous? Perhaps someone out there can fill me in on those details. I do remember that a huge deal was made out of it by the media though. Now the media darling, Hillary Clinton is exposed for putting plants in her audience, I can’t wait to see the media react to this. It goes without saying that the media hasn’t reacted to this. It has been swept under the rug by the media, never to be heard again. However, two of the other Democrat candidates have come out against this practice.
The practice of planting audience members to ask specific questions does not appear to be a common practice, or at least not a politically acceptable one. “Our campaign does not plant questions,” said Lauren Rose, Communications Director for Governor Bill Richardson’s campaign. When asked what she would think of other campaigns who did plant audience members, Rose said, “I think campaigns should give Iowa caucus-goers the chance to ask the questions they want.”
When asked if the John Edwards campaign employed such practices, Jenni Lee, Edwards’s Iowa Press Secretary said, “No, they ask whatever they want.”
But Mrs. Clinton is just a girl, stop piling on her, stop picking on a girl. You mean, evil Democrats, you are no better than Republicans. That was the strategy Hillary first tried to use after her disastrous debate the other day. Why not play the gender card here also.
Did the Hillary campaign deny the charges, you decide:
But the Clinton campaign also denied the practice of planting. “It’s not a practice of our campaign to ask people to ask specific questions,” said Mark Daley, Clinton’s Iowa Communications Director. Daley said that when an event is focusing on a specific topic, such as health care or Iraq, “people are encouraged to ask questions in these regards,” but denied that they are given specific questions.
But when directly asked if his statements meant that planting does not occur in the Hillary campaign, Daley could only say, “to the best of my knowledge.”
“[Planting] is not something that is encouraged in our campaign,” he said.
That doesn’t sound like a denial to me, It sounds like someone hedging their bets. Stay tuned, I’m sure someone will come out and clarify Hillary Clinton’s position on this. They always do. They always have to. Perhaps she should answer a question directly, then there would be no need to clarify.
Read the article this post was based on here.
~mpoinkeyes
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