[NOTE: I've tried to compile what I think is the most informative postings on this.]
It's hard to have a bad debate performance when:
** The
audience is planted in your favor
** The
questions are planted in your favor
** The
questioners are your supporters** The after debate spin room includes
2 former and
1 current staff members
The post debate was as
Clinton-friendly as the actual debate.
The CNN debate may have been
pre-planned and censored every step of the way, but CNN did not have to worry about a Clinton-friendly environment in the post debate.
CNN took care of that when hired the debate analysts.
Two of the three
debate analysts worked for the Clintons.
David Gergen worked for
18 months as a Clinton advisor in the White House.
And, as
Daily Kos pointed out,
James Carville is a
partisan Clinton supporter who was included in the post debate spin on CNN.
Carville has
raised money for the Hillary campaign. He works for CNN as an analyst even though
he also works on Hillary's campaign.
Only the third analyst, former Republican Congressman
J.C. Watts, has never worked for the Clintons.
No wonder the Clinton Campaign said
they will win the national election in a landslide yesterday.
It looks like
Dan Riehl was on to something.
CNN did an awful lot of pre-planning before last night's Las Vegas production.
Maria Luisa, (pictured) the UNLV student who asked Hillary Clinton whether she preferred "diamonds or pearls" last night, wrote on
her MySpace page today that every question in last night's debate was pre-planned and censored.
The Atlantic reported:
"CNN ran out of time and used me to "close" the debate with the pearls/diamonds question. Seconds later this girl comes up to me and says, "you gave our school a bad reputation.' Well, I had to explain to her that every question from the audience was pre-planned and censored. That's what the media does. See, the media chose what they wanted, not what the people or audience really wanted. That's politics; that's reality. So, if you want to read about real issues important to America--and the whole world, I suggest you pick up a copy of the Economist or the New York Times or some other independent source. If you want me to explain to you how the media works, I am more than happy to do so. But do not judge me or my integrity based on that question."
Well, it wasn't the first time that
CNN pulled this trick at a Democratic debate.
TPM confirms that
CNN planted the "diamonds and pearls" question....Is there anyone out there who still wonders why they call CNN the
Clinton News Network?
Matt Lewis at
Townhall thinks that Hillary has
her best friend... and he's not talking about
jewelry.
UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds has
several CNN
updates.
Classical Values reports on CNN debate plant
Khalid Khan.
Dan Riehl discovers Clinton-friendly debate plant and Arkansas democratic party leader
LaShannon Spencer.
LaShannon Spencer last night (on left) "undecided" and Clinton supporter
back in 2003 (on right) getting out the vote.
Dan Riehl also discovers why the crowd was so Clinton-friendly.
HotAir has more on the democratic party officer and random CNN questioner.
Lonewacko finds an error in CNN's immigration question.
Actually, there are suggestions at some prominent Democrat sites that CNN didn't just plant questions, but perhaps in the administration of the debate, they created a situation where Hillary Clinton had a decided advantage. It's mentioned at DailyKos but the best information is here. Admittedly, it comes from an Obama fan. But if you think about the logistics, it's hard to imagine Hillary wouldn't have a home crowd.
I want to comment on a couple of issues relating to the Debate because I feel it is important to speak out about it. I have had some inside information about how this debate was conducted and I think that CNN and those who organized this debate have a responsiblity to answer for the way it was conducted.
Of particular note, if accurate, is that of 1,000 tickets given to UNLV, only a hundred made it into the hands of students. Both Edwards and Obama do better among younger Democrats. And as for dissemination of tickets by the Nevada Democrats, Jill Derby the Democrat Chair is a moderate with some friends close to Hillary. Does the name Begala ring a bell?
Derby has had numerous supporters. CNN political anaylst, as the Reno Gazette-Journal reported, Paul Begala, who helped engineer Bill Clinton's 1992 win, said he was encouraged by U.S. Rep. Rahm Emanuel, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to “stump” for Derby.
I'd stop short of calling it a conspiracy, as some Democrats are doing. But if it's true that each candidate only had 22 tickets out of 2,000, in a state where Hillary is polling 20+ points ahead of everyone else, if no steps were taken to balance the audience, that might explain why she was cheered, while several others were booed.
There were only 2000 available tickets. 1000 of those tickets were given to the Nevada State Democratic Party, of which I was a member in 2005 and 2006. The other 1000 tickets were given to UNLV. Now here is where it gets interesting. The 1000 tickets given to the NSDP were given to people who were in high ranking positions, of which several of my friends are involved with the NSDP. Those friends were able to go to the Debate at Cox Pavilion. Some of my other friends who are not as involved in the Nevada State Democratic Party were excluded. So you have the State Party who pre-selected who they wanted to go. Many of the people in the NSDP are very sympathetic to Sen. Clinton. It's no secret, its just a fact of the State Party. According to my sources, not only did they pre-select who went to the Debate, they actually based it on the percentage of the various minorities in the state. So 15% of the people had to be Hispanic, 10% had to be African-American, and there were various other groups which were required to be selected by the Nevada State Democratic Party.
So what happened to the UNLV tickets? Didn't they go to students? Not exactly. About 100 or so tickets did go to the students, and they held a lottery which selected certain students for the Debate. The other 900 or so tickets actually went to UNLV staff and professors and their family members. I am not joking, this is what I have been told by a very reliable source in Las Vegas.
Also another update, Allah is on this topic, as well. Developing ... as they say.
Also this update from comments - was the pearls or diamonds questioner a former Reid Intern and, um, if I read the large UNLV link available at link above correctly, is an illegal immigrant? And is that equivalent to your average voter, which, it is increasingly apparent, there were few if any in attendance thanks to CNN.
Okay, forgive me if there are two LaShannon Spencers here. But ... from last night:
LaShannon Spencer, who was identified as a member of the First African Methodist Church, asked the question near the top of the 10 pm Eastern hour. She highlighted how health care and the Iraq war had, in her view, dominated the questions during past debates.
Would that be the same LaShannon Spencer who is, or at least was the political director of the Democrat Party of Arkansas? She certainly didn't sound too undecided back in 2003 - though I suppose she could be an undecided voter as billed by CNN.
Lashannon Spencer, political director for the Arkansas Democratic Party, commented on her favorite part of Clinton's book.
"How she describes actually meeting Bill ... I enjoyed how they were both willing to put their lives on hold so each one of them fulfilled their dreams," Spencer said.
They sure did come up with some pretty interesting average citizens to ask questions at the recent debate.
OK, I have no way of knowing the extent to which Mr. Khan has been subjected to profiling. But he is not an ordinary citizen. For years he has been a prominent Muslim leader -- the president of the Islamic Society of Nevada, who has hosted conferences like this one (which included the controversial Muzzamil Siddiqi), and the first sentence in a piece in the LA Times described him as "a stalwart among Las Vegas Muslims."
Maria Luisa, the UNLV student who asked Hillary Clinton whether she preferred "diamonds or pearls" at last night's debate wrote on her MySpace page this morning that CNN forced her to ask the frilly question instead of a pre-approved query about the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.
"Every single question asked during the debate by the audience had to be approved by CNN," Luisa writes. "I was asked to submit questions including "lighthearted/fun" questions. I submitted more than five questions on issues important to me. I did a policy memo on Yucca Mountain a year ago and was the finalist for the Truman Scholarship. For sure, I thought I would get to ask the Yucca question that was APPROVED by CNN days in advance."
Now, Luisa is getting "swamped" with critical e-mails.
So what happened?
Writes Luisa:
"CNN ran out of time and used me to "close" the debate with the pearls/diamonds question. Seconds later this girl comes up to me and says, "you gave our school a bad reputation.' Well, I had to explain to her that every question from the audience was pre-planned and censored. That's what the media does. See, the media chose what they wanted, not what the people or audience really wanted. That's politics; that's reality. So, if you want to read about real issues important to America--and the whole world, I suggest you pick up a copy of the Economist or the New York Times or some other independent source. If you want me to explain to you how the media works, I am more than happy to do so. But do not judge me or my integrity based on that question."
Rivals to Clinton believe that the debate audience had a pro-Clinton tilt. UNLV was responsible for distributing most of the tickets.
In a separate post, Luisa provides the question she wanted to ask:
Yucca Mountain, NV is the proposed site for the country's nuclear waste repository. Despite scientific evidence that it is a vulnerable site, the federal government continues to push for the plan to move forward. The evidence relied on is unsound and the risks involved in transporting high-level radioactive waste across the country are high. What will you [Sen. Clinton] do to ensure that the best site/s is/are chosen for the storage of spent nuclear reactor fuel?
Sam Feist, the executive producer of the debate, said that the student was asked to choose another question because the candidates had already spent about ten minutes discussing Yucca Mountain.
"When her Yucca mountain question was asked, she was given the opportunity to ask another question, and my understanding is that the [diamond v. pearls] questions was her other question," Feist said. "She probably was disappointed, but we spent a lot of time with a bunch of different candidates on Yucca Mountain, and we were at the end of the debate."
Greg Sargent of TPM Election Central has a CNN spoxperson giving a slightly different story...
