In what could be a potential blow to the Clinton presidential campaign’s credibility, a Hillary Clinton campaign staffer was caught planting questions during a public question-and-answer session — not once but twice since April. On Saturday, Clinton held a speech at a biodiesel plant in Newton, Iowa, and answered questions afterward. A college student asked Clinton how she plans to combat the effects of climate change — a student who later admitted she had been approached by a Clinton staff member to ask that specific question.
Also on Saturday, a man admitted in a telephone interview that he had been approached by a Clinton campaign worker to ask a question about how Clinton was standing up to President Bush on Iraq war funding and a troop withdrawal timeline during a public appearance April 2 on a farm outside Fort Madison, Iowa. He refused to ask the question, saying he had his own issues to raise with the senator, but the staffer simply moved on to other audience members — perhaps to find someone willing to ask the question.
Such reports are disturbing to people who believe politicians say what they mean and never cheat. However, the reality is most politicians set up such questions — most are just much better at it than Clinton and her crew. Usually planters recruit trustworthy supporters eager to have their moment in the limelight to support their candidate.
The candidate in question may not know who’s going to ask which question, but his or her answer has been carefully worked out with campaigners so that when the candidate hears any question he or she is ready with a response. Planting can go the other direction, too — rival candidates will send representatives to a speech specifically to ask embarrassing, hard-line questions to weaken the opponent.
As we’ve seen, grabbing a random college student for the job is dangerous. Time will tell whether this affects Clinton’s bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, especially with her reputation for being calculating.
Most major polls show Clinton in the lead for the impending Iowa primary, ahead of Sen. Barack Obama by an average of 6.4 percentage points.
Her campaign spokesman admitted to planting the question on Saturday and said it would not happen again. Hopefully it won’t, but most likely her crew will just learn from her opposition and work much more discreetly.
But does such deception have to be a fact of life in today’s political scene? Does the public even have any control over such antics?
It would be too easy to deny support for Clinton because of these recent revelations because it would give every other candidate undue credit for his or her assumed integrity.
As primary election dates move closer, every candidate will do anything possible to portray his or her campaign in a positive manner.
Whether that is by staging questions to allow candidates to talk about their key campaign points or by pulling the claws out to destroy the competition Swift Boat-style, electioneering is in full swing and everything a candidate says should be taken with a grain of salt.
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