Clinton Campaign Pulls A FEMA Q&A Session
After the backlash over FEMA’s fake press conference a few days ago you’d think people would learn that kind of thing is frowned upon and avoid it (at least for a while). Well you’d be wrong.
At a recent campaign stop Hillary Clinton staffers approached people beforehand and suggested specific questions that they could ask.
Sen. Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign admitted late Friday that a staffer spoke to potential questioners at a recent event, but denied that the New York Democrat had any knowledge about what she would be asked by the audience.
Grinnell College’s “Scarlet and Black” newspaper reported a student’s account of being pulled aside before a campaign stop in Newton, Iowa and asked to pose a specific question.
“They were canned,” Muriel Gallo-Chasanoff claimed in an interview with the newspaper. “One of the senior staffers told me what [to ask].”
I’ve never had any problem with Governor (and my former Congressman) Strickland, but if he’s going to endorse someone that does stuff like this I’m really going to have to rethink my position on him.
Source: CNN.com – CNN Political Ticker Questions planted by Clinton campaign «
November 10th, 2007 at 7:31 pm
I’m (pleasantly) surprised to see you reporting this.
In fairness to Sen Clinton, I’m sure this is done often and we just don’t hear about it. Whether it’s FEMA or a presidential candidate they have a story to tell and want to get it out. Seeding the audience doesn’t seem that big of a deal, as long as they take “real” questions also.
November 11th, 2007 at 11:26 am
I think the FEMA case was a little worse because it was all FEMA questions and FEMA employees. But at the same time that doesn’t excuse what Clinton did. It’s a horrible practice that needs to be ended.
November 12th, 2007 at 7:33 am
The more I read about this, the less I’m upset about it. In the Clinton case, her staff basically gave some “suggested” questions to the crowd. In one case, they didn’t even have time for questions, so the “suggested” question never came out.
I can easily see some people in the crowd wanting to ask questions, but not knowing what to ask.
Several years ago, I went through a certification process where I needed a customer reference letter. I spoke to a customer of mine and explained the process and what was needed. He gladly accepted, but admitted he didn’t know what to write and asked me for help. I offered to give him a list of bullet items or even to write a sample letter for him. He asked me to write a letter and said he would change it. When I got it back, he changed two words.
As for the FEMA incident, my biggest problem was that it was not announced that it was a faux-news conference. I think the press was offended and no one else really cared. I can see them holding a “real” news conference and no one showing up. If that happens, they would be completely justified.
The good news out of both of these incidents is that there was no attempt to cover up the facts. It would have been very tempting to try to justify the actions.
November 12th, 2007 at 5:04 pm
What you did with the customer seems alright because they asked for your help. In the Clinton case they tried to make sure certain questions were asked, and apparently made some people uncomfortable enough to go public with it.
Switching over to FEMA for a second, the problem was they made it virtually impossible for the media to cover the press conference. They only sent out 15 minutes notice for it (barely enough to set up equipment, much less get there) and reporters that called in could only listen.
You did point out some things that I hadn’t heard that make this seems a little better, but I still think it was wrong.