Part of the problem with Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign is that it’s just too good. The candidate and her staff, which is top notch, just don’t make mistakes very often. They’re disciplined, experienced, and professional to a fault.
It’s exactly why when they do screw up, it seems all the more striking.
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].”
Apparently, the campaign hoped to get an environmental question from a college student, so staffers chatted with Gallo-Chasanoff to help “arrange” it.
“On this occasion a member of our staff did discuss a possible question about Senator Clinton’s energy plan at a forum,” campaign spokesman Mo Elleithee said in a statement. “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.”
Plain and simple, this was a mistake. The campaign got caught, owned up to it, and vowed not to let it happen again.
But it’s probably worth noting that as inappropriate as this was, it’s not in the same league as Bush’s “Bubble Boy” phenomenon.
For one thing, Clinton doesn’t need softball questions from sycophants. She’s extremely bright, with an almost-surprising grip on policy details. The current president, in contrast, seems terrified of failing a pop quiz.
For another, Clinton meetings include contentious questions from voters all the time. If the campaign were scripting the events, and shielding the candidate from skeptics, Clinton would never hear a discouraging word. That’s clearly not the case.
I’d just add that while I really don’t care for planted questions like this, the practice is extremely common — with lots of candidates from both sides of the aisle. This Clinton example is newsworthy, but it’s by no means isolated.
As the LAT’s Andrew Malcolm put it:
Although other campaigns are righteously denying it tonight, virtually every professional presidential campaign plants questions. It’s a routine part of preparation for the advance people staging every event.
Not every question is planted, as you can tell from the weird ones that sometimes pop up. But enough are to ensure the campaign gets the necessary rehearsed sound-bite for the TV cameras on the day’s theme. The candidate may honestly not know of the plants, but as soon as she/he hears the question, the answer carefully prepared by the political staff comes flowing forth.
Most planters will be far smoother than Clinton’s simply grabbing a passing college student. They’ll plant questions in advance with known local supporters who can be trusted and, frankly, who are flattered by their moment in the limelight addressing the possible next president in front of friends. They want it to look like their own question.
This is not to let Clinton off the hook. Rigged questions are wrong, and the campaign team surely knows that. “Everybody does it” matters for context, but it doesn’t make it right.
In the broader sense, it’s also a reminder that the Clinton team is capable of mistakes. A few more like this one, and a new media narrative will emerge: the campaign that could do no wrong is getting clumsy and careless.