Clinton Campaign Gets Caught Planting Questions
By Chase on Nov 9, 2007 in Hillary Clinton, Iowa Caucuses
We all know it happens, but we don’t always have reasons to believe that the candidate is aware that it is happening. Sen. Hillary Clinton, though, apparently knew whom to call on at a campaign stop in Newton, and she pretended like it wasn’t planned.
My friend Pat Caldwell, writing for the Grinnell College newspaper, got the scoop:
On Tuesday Nov. 6, the Clinton campaign stopped at a biodiesel plant in Newton as part of a weeklong series of events to introduce her new energy plan. The event was clearly intended to be as much about the press as the Iowa voters in attendance, as a large press core helped fill the small venue. Reporters from many major national news outlets came to the small Iowa town, from such media giants as The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, the Associated Press, and CNN.
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.
Clinton called on Gallo-Chasanoff after her speech to ask a question: what Clinton would do to stop the effects of global warming. Clinton began her response by noting that young people often pose this question to her before delving into the benefits of her plan.
But the source of the question was no coincidence—at this event “they wanted a question from a college student,” Gallo-Chasanoff said. She also noted that staffers prompted Clinton to call on her and another who had been approached before the event, although Clinton used her discretion to select questions and called on people who had not been prepped before hand. Some of the questions asked were confusing and clearly off-message.
I tried to reach Gallo-Chasanoff and Caldwell to get more information, but neither was immediately available. Still, I don’t have any doubt that the story was reported accurately because I know some of the people involved.
It appears Clinton knew whom to call on, yet she pretended like Gallo-Chasanoff was asking the question because she was a young person — not because a staffer had told her to. When I said that she needed to start taking questions more often to preserve her status in Iowa, I didn’t mean it like this.
Update: Fox News confirmed the story with a statement from the Clinton campaign.
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.”
They deny that Clinton herself knew the question was a plant, which is understandable and difficult to disprove. But the fact that Clinton called on Gallo-Chasanoff and had a ready-made response to the ready-made question about global warming, might lead one to believe otherwise.
Chase Martyn observes and analyzes politics from Des Moines, IA, capital of 2008's first caucus state. He is also Managing Editor of the 
Hillary’s behind-the-scenes slime machine
Here’s the piece. It’s hard to find on the site.
The politics of hope
Clinton said she wanted to “chat.” So why is her campaign trying to
shame Edwards and Obama into silence?
Tim Grieve
Oct. 30, 2007 | We got an e-mail today from one of Hillary Clinton’s
campaign spokesmen. It said that we “might want to check out Hillary Hub
this morning,” and it provided a link to make it easy for us to do so.
What we found there: a banner that says “The Politics of Hope,” video
clips of Barack Obama and John Edwards talking about “the politics of
hope,” and four newspaper and wire service headlines about how Obama and
Edwards are going after Clinton.
The implication? Attacking the views of another Democratic candidate
means either that you’ve turned your back on the “politics of hope” or
that you never really believed in the idea in the first place.
But don’t just take our word for it. As we began to write this post, we
received another e-mail message from the Clinton campaign. This one, a
memo to “interested parties” from Clinton strategist Mark Penn,
accuses Edwards and Obama of having “abandoned” the “politics of hope” by
declaring that they’re “going to go negative” on the Democratic
front-runner.
Here’s our memo in response: Stop.
When Obama spoke of the “politics of hope” during his speech at the
Democratic National Convention, he did so to contrast it with what he
called the “politics of cynicism” and the “politics of anything goes,” the
“spin masters” and “negative ad peddlers” who would divide Americans,
liberal against conservative, black against white, red state against
blue.
If Obama was suggesting that one candidate couldn’t or shouldn’t make
it clear that he disagrees with another on matters of substance, well,
he didn’t say that then, and he’s not saying that now.
In an interview with the New York Times last week, Obama said he’s
“amused” by “some of the commentary out of the Clinton camp, where every
time we point out a difference between me and her, they say, ‘What
happened to the politics of hope?’” It’s a “silly” question, he said. Why?
Because, he said, “the notion that somehow changing [the] tone means
simply that we let them say whatever they want to say or that there are no
disagreements and that we’re all holding hands and singing ‘Kumbaya’ is
obviously not what I had in mind and not how I function.”
Nor is it the way the Clinton campaign functions. While Clinton herself
generally — but not always — stays above the fray, the Clinton
campaign routinely reaches out to reporters to provide information they
might use to attack her Democratic opponents. Some of it comes in public
statements like the Penn memo the campaign sent around today or the
harsh, on-the-record comments Clinton spokesman Phil Singer has made about
Edwards’ “flagging campaign” or Obama’s “same old attack politics.”
Much more of it comes in behind-the-scenes e-mails to newspaper
reporters and bloggers — the sorts of e-mails we get from the Clinton
campaign but not from the Edwards or Obama camps: On the “off-chance” you
didn’t read it, here’s a copy of a Washington Post editorial calling Obama
“irresponsible”; just “wanted to flag this item” in which the
Huffington Post criticizes Obama on Iran; here’s something Edwards just said
about Iraq, and here’s something contradictory he said earlier.
The last of those came in an off-the-record e-mail message we received
from the Clinton campaign late last month. We’re probably breaking the
rules in mentioning it, but we figure it’s fair game: If you’re going
to claim that the other guys are doing something wrong in calling your
candidate’s views into question, you don’t get to pretend that you’re
not doing the same.
But our larger point here isn’t that the Clinton campaign’s “politics
of hope” argument is hypocritical — although when Penn says that
Clinton is “defining the ‘politics of hope’ while the others are abandoning
them,” it is. The larger point is that the Clinton campaign’s argument
is off the mark, offensive and, ultimately, unhelpful.
If Clinton’s Democratic challengers were attacking her with the phony
scandals of the 1990s — the “politics of personal destruction” — or
smearing her with the “undermining the troops” and “advocating America’s
defeat” crap that’s the stock in trade of the GOP these days, then her
campaign would be right to be asking about the “politics of hope.” But
the last time we checked, Obama was criticizing Clinton for her
positions — or lack thereof — on issues such as Social Security, Iran and
Iraq. Moreover, he has been doing it with remarkably noninflammatory
language. Neither his talk of “triangulation and poll-driven politics” nor
his accusation that Clinton will “dodge and spin” to avoid answering
questions is what we’d call incendiary. Yes, Edwards’ attacks on Clinton
have been sharper, but they’re still miles away from the Swift-boating,
gay-baiting, race-card-playing hardball that any Democratic nominee
can safely expect to see in 2008.
More to the point, isn’t this exactly the sort of debate that
candidates and their party ought to be having along the road to the White House?
Since 9/11, Democrats and their political allies have spent six long
years on the receiving end of lectures about why they can’t say what
needs to be said. Bill Maher’s criticisms of the president draw a
watch-what-you-say warning from the White House; Tom Daschle’s concern about
the president’s rush to war in Iraq leads the Republican speaker of the
House to accuse him of coming “mighty close” to providing “comfort to
our adversaries”; the president’s chief political advisor says ****
Durbin’s comments about Guantánamo have put our troops “in even greater
danger” than they were before — even after Durbin apologizes for saying
what he said. Then Congressional Republicans — with some help from too
many Democrats — turn a chance to debate America’s role in Iraq into
an opportunity to condemn MoveOn.
The last thing the Democratic Party needs now is somebody else — let
alone one of its own — suggesting that open debate is somehow wrong.
Clinton seemed to understand that point perfectly well when she announced
her candidacy back in January. “Let’s talk, let’s chat,” she said
then. “Let’s start a dialogue about your ideas and mine, because the
conversation in Washington has been just a little one-sided lately, don’t you
think?”
Yes, as a matter of fact, we do. But a one-sided conversation is a
one-sided conversation, no matter who’s doing the talking. Elections are
necessarily choices among competing candidates and competing visions. If
Clinton can run her campaign without ever mentioning why she thinks
she’s better than her opponents, more power to her. But mere mortals can’t
do that, and they shouldn’t have to. If Clinton was serious about
having a “dialogue” — if part of her own hope for America is that we’ll
have a more open society than the one in which we’ve lived for the past
six years — then it’s high time for her campaign to stop trying to
shame its opponents into silence. Engage with the criticisms or ignore
them; just don’t argue that it’s wrong to raise them in the first place.
Danielle Clarke | Nov 9, 2007 | Reply
She needs to work on it a little - why leave anything to chance? She should aspire to emulate the FEMA press conference. I have no doubt she’d do that if she could get away with it.
It’s really disappointing that her campaign is so smarmy. It’s clear she just wants to WIN the contest - I question her sincerity in wanting to help the country.
gateley | Nov 10, 2007 | Reply
In these troubled and dire time we live in, Joe Biden, to me, encompasses all that we desperately need for our nation:
1) Intelligence
Honesty
2) Experience in ALL phases of government
3) Strength
4) Respect from world leaders
5) Diplomacy
6) Command of issues
7) Solutions to problems that face our nation
9) Integrity
10) Respect and trust from his peers
11) Respect and trust from the people who follow him
12) an EXPERT in foreign policy
Joe Biden certainly meets ALL of the criteria above.
I pray and hope every day that Mr. & Mrs. America, the people of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina know in their hearts, that if we lose Joe Biden, we’ll have lost one of the best Presidents our nation will ever have.
Please watch a video I produced to show my support for Senator Biden. If you support him, please send the link below to family and friends, and ask them to do the same.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=OtGCaqOdIJ4
JDS | Nov 10, 2007 | Reply
I hate to speak ill of a fellow Democrat, but this tactic comes straight from the Bush playbook. Let’s get a grownup in the White House. Let’s get behind Joe Biden! http://www.JoeBiden.com
Alex | Nov 10, 2007 | Reply
Why is anyone surprised that Clinton is dirty? That’s like someone feigning surprise that Paris Hilton isn’t a virgin.
And what’s all this Joe Biden BS? He’s just another ass-tart who couldn’t find his ass with both hands and a map.
We don’t need ANYONE in Congress who doesn’t understand even the most basic concepts of the world today.
Anyone who thinks that we’ll be safe is we just leave Iraq is an idiot. After all, we weren’t *in* Iraq when Muslim extremists attacked our Country and killed nearly 3,000 citizens. They killed Democrats, too.
Wake up, you silly sheep. You’re under attack. They don’t care that you’re Democrats. They are attacking you for not being Muslim (or Muslim enough).
There is no peace. There is only kill or be killed. And as long as you play “sheep”, the wolf is happy to prey on you.
Mr. Spooge | Nov 10, 2007 | Reply
Spooge, you sound like you think Iraq was behind 9/11. Why didn’t we invade Saudi Arabia, the 9/11 killers were from there, not Iraq. Maybe if we had invaded them before 9/11, we’d have been safe, huh? Oh, even though the reasons given were because of our troops on their soil. But then the enemy isn’t going to tell us the truth, because they don’t want us to change. Then again, the enemy is really Bush and the neocons (the dems won’t be any different either, they got elected to end this war, and have done nothing).
You seem to think there’s a monster abroad to slay, and under every bush, right?
The only threat to our freedom is from our own federal government.
And in that sense, they do hate our freedoms, because it was our freedom in years previous that allowed us to fund the federal war machine. And they found the way to get even, they got us to let our government repeal the freedoms set up in the bill of rights.
ET | Nov 10, 2007 | Reply
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7007109937779036019&pr=goog-sl
The exposing of Hillary has only just begun. I hope to bring my film to Iowa soon. You probably don’t know that she will be under oath soon in the Los Angeles civil case, Paul v Clinton. The discovery in that civil case will reveal the obstruction of justice and greatest campaign fraud in history.
dcogan | Nov 10, 2007 | Reply
Lets see, If people would show more concern and fire towards wanting change in America, maybe there wouldn’t be planted questions! If this is politics and this is all we can come up with for Female Clinton, I really feel the pain for this country! I have felt it with Bush and Senior Bush, I guess nobody really has yet.
Christy | Nov 13, 2007 | Reply
Really good and really interesting post. I expect (and other readers maybe :)) new useful posts from you!
Good luck and successes in blogging!
HeavyGod | Nov 27, 2007 | Reply
I actually live in Fort Madison Iowa and am happy to have a scandal again Clinton originate from here! My little hick town finally had something good come out of it lol.
Iowa Health Insurance | Dec 12, 2007 | Reply