Posted on 11/18/2007 7:27:53 AM PST by Nevadan
As Nevada comes into the final 60 days before its presidential caucuses, this question looms: Will the candidates submit themselves to tough questions from the Review-Journal, the state's largest newspaper?
The answer, dear Las Vegans, is ... probably ... but they'd prefer not to.
Presidential candidates parachute into Las Vegas weekly. But they don't come here intending to actually answer questions. They drop by a school or a union hall for carefully planned rallies. Pictures are taken, safe questions from safe questioners get safe answers, the candidates smile ... and then they're gone.
Here's the secret everyone knows: Presidential campaigns are like kabuki theater -- highly stylized and scripted. We caught a rare glimpse of what happens when the script goes wrong last week in Iowa, when Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign got caught planting a question at a town hall meeting.
In what was staged to look like a spontaneous, give-take Q&A session, Sen. Clinton called upon Grinnell College student Muriel Gallo-Chasanoff, who asked about global warming. Hillary said young people always ask her about global warming and then proceeded to give her standard global warming campaign answer.
Then came a non-scripted political moment of clarity.
Ms. Gallo-Chasanoff blurted to reporters that she was put up to the question by Hillary's staffers. "They wanted a question from a college student," Gallo-Chasanoff said.
"One of the senior staffers told me what (to ask)."
After initially denying it, the Clinton campaign admitted to planting the question, but said Hillary herself didn't know anything about it and the campaign would never, ever plant a question again.
This is political fibbery, of course. Obviously Hillary was in on the planted question. The reason "young people" always ask Hillary about global warming is because Hillary's staff makes sure a young person always asks her about global warming. Duh.
And, don't think for a minute that this is going to change anything. The Clinton campaign will go right on scripting appearances down to the last details and, when needed, planting specific questions, just as Barack Obama's campaign does it, and John Edwards' campaign does it, and Rudy Giuliani's campaign does it, yada, yada, yada.
History has proved the dangers of going off-script.
Most recently, Howard Dean did it with his goofy rally scream, and that's all it took to send him packing. If you're lucky enough to have lived a while, you'll remember Edmund Muskie's emotional defense of his wife at an impromptu news conference on the doorstep of a newspaper in New Hampshire. Reporters said he cried. He said the "tears" were melted snowflakes.
Whatever.
The bottom line was that the unscripted episode ended the presidential ambitions of a man who woulda-coulda-shoulda beat Richard Nixon in 1972.
This is also why most presidential candidates avoid hanging around newspapers, particularly if it involves the editorial boards of newspapers. The last thing campaigns want is to get their candidate into a room with independent questioners from the Review-Journal, who not only can ask tough questions with follow-ups, but also print the results overnight to a half a million people in Las Vegas.
The Review-Journal's editorial board is open to all candidates, major and minor. So far, GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter has dropped by. So has New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat. You can read what I thought of Richardson in my May 6 column, which is accessible through the Review-Journal's Web site.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, to his credit, stopped in Friday and survived the grilling.
I don't know when, or if, the others will show up. We don't beg the candidates to come in, but I always wonder about their intestinal fortitude when they don't.
Perhaps the handlers know that their candidate can't take a tough line of questioning. Or maybe somebody inside the campaign does the math and decides the risk of an unscripted Q&A with independent Nevada journalists isn't worth the reward. That, of course, says more about what they think of Las Vegas voters, than it says about anything else.
Full disclosure: We ask tough questions of all candidates, both Republican and Democrat. No planted questions.
But, I'll tell you what -- if it breaks the ice with Hillary, I'll be happy to allow her first question to be on global warming. She can then show us she has a sense of humor by telling us she always gets this question from young people on the campaign.
But, it's only fair to add that Sen. Clinton may then reliably expect a tough follow-up question or two.
I wonder ... can she take a tough, unscripted question?
Obviously not!
I replied, "But you guys are all the time saying George Bush is too stupid to walk & chew gum at the same time - I guess one wouldn't be surprised that someone like him would have to have things scripted for him - but I thought Hillary Clinton was supposed to be the smartest woman in the world. Why would she have to resort to something like that?"
He drew a blank look and walked away without saying a word.
That campaigns are scripted is, as the article suggests, widely known. The problem, however, is when the mass media becomes complicit in the act. Yeah, by definition media is also scripted but there is absolutely not supposed to be collusion.
“After initially denying it” and that’s why this is a major issue. she is a liar!
“Hillary herself didn’t know anything about it” then how did she know who to ask among all those hands raised?
“political fibbery” what the hell is this? It’s a liar, just like her husband lies. for 4 years now “bush lied, bush lied”
“Pssst! Here’s an open secret - Campaigns are scripted” I want proof that the 2008 GOP candidates have done anything remotely similar to what the DNC/CNN just did. This whitewash BS has to end.
Ummm... no debate is this scripted.
It was as if Hillary held it in her home. Incestuous, obvious.
http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2007/11/cnn-plants-questions-to-protect-hillary.html
I don’t have to bring up the post-debate roundup... do I?
Carville, Bergen... two Clinton folks? Oh, please add the shill Jeffrey Toobin to the list; Author of: The Hunting of the President: The Ten-Year Campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton and has insisted over several weeks (WSJ, elsewhere). that Hillary would nominate Obama to the Supreme Court (I know, crazy right. Ping Tony Rezko). No bias here... move along.
BTW, check out the last update on the post re: debate tickets and distribution.
Oh... the diamonds or pearls girl worked for Reid’s office before as well.
The first time I saw that happen was when Wally George was working for Sam Yorty. Wally asked the audience if anyone wanted to ask the mayor a question. A few hands got raised. Wally cheerfully took some 3x5 cards out of his pocket and announced, “Okay, here are your questions.”
When a Democrat lies to the voters, it's "political fibbery" - just a silly sounding bit of fluff, akin to bluffing in a friendly poker game with candy stakes.
When a Republican lies to the voters - it's a serious breach of the public trust and a crime so serious on it's face that anything short of an immediate and shameful resignation would be a reminder that we live in an era of lawless fascism, not seen since the rise of the Nazi state.
This is kinda like a episode of Lost...where some mysterious stranger appears and announces they know SECRETs...and then proceed to blow up some mysterious pontoon boat with seven albino monkeys aboard...and you kept looking at the wreckage...and wondering what the albino monkeys had to do with the blowing up of the pontoon boat?
Should we start scripting for the four years of Hillary’s presidency right now?
That is why we need FR to be the oversight committee for the MSM.
The DNC is just the political wing of the MSM, and thus the MSM looks at its role as being one of kingmaker. It is their job to pick the leftist candidate.
Its only right, as they will have to do all the heavy lifting for that candidate during the election.
” When a Democrat lies to the voters, it’s “political fibbery” - just a silly sounding bit of fluff, akin to bluffing in a friendly poker game with candy stakes.
When a Republican lies to the voters - it’s a serious breach of the public trust and a crime so serious on it’s face that anything short of an immediate and shameful resignation would be a reminder that we live in an era of lawless fascism, not seen since the rise of the Nazi state.”
This is just another attempt at moral equivalency. “Hey since Hillary does it, everyone must do it.” Everyone doesn’t do it.
Fox and Am radio is biased towards the right, I can live with that.
The Democrats got their baised media sources, I can live with that.
Being polite in your own inner circle can be mistaken as scripted, when it is not. What Hillary does, and generally what all Democrats do goes beyond politeness among their inner circle, IT IS scripting.
Nonsense. I was paying very close attention at the time and Nixon was a shoe in.
No less than a Berkly professor did an in depth study of FOX and found the news channel to be slightly left of center.
.
In the 1950s it was a scandal when the producers of the game show Twenty-One were giving the questions to one of the contestants prior to broadcast.
A rigged debate is a rigged election.
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