Misleading Clinton Attacks leave divided local parties

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Stories of the bitter consequences of misleading campaigning like this one from the Washington Post are getting passed around in emails between grassroots Democrats:

Of the two dozen prominent women who signed the critical letter, e-mailed by the Clinton campaign to a list of supporters and undecided voters, three have now signed their names to another missive asking abortion rights supporters in the state to come together and take comfort in the fact that all of the Democratic presidential candidates are firmly pro-choice. One of the three Clinton supporters went even further, saying in an interview Thursday that signing the letter attacking Obama was a "mistake."

Katie Wheeler, a former state senator, said the Clinton campaign had not given her background information about Obama's record on abortion rights when it asked her to sign the letter calling him weak on the issue, and said that, as a result, she did not understand the context of the votes that the letter was attacking him over.

"It should never have gotten to the point where anyone thought Obama was not pro-choice," said Wheeler, a founder of the New Hampshire chapter of NARAL Pro-Choice America. "I don't think the Clinton campaign should have done that. It was divisive and unnecessary...I think it was a mistake and I've spoken to the national [Clinton campaign] and told them it caused problems in New Hampshire, and am hoping they won't do it again."

Comments

Anonymous said…
On the day Bush is found to have lied 935 times in the lead up to Iraq, here we have a Presidential candidate, her husband, and her campaign, lying and misleading in the exact same fashion again and again.

No more Bush. No more Clinton. No more lies.
7:59 AM
Renata said…
Thank you for posting this. I found the original WaPo article and posted it on my facebook.

Here's the killer part, for me:

"In the interview Thursday, [a prominent NH Clinton supporter] said she was not aware of the explanation of Obama's present votes by Illinois Planned Parenthood when she agreed to sign the critical letter at the request of Clinton officials in New Hampshire.

"'What we didn't know was the circumstances of those Illinois pro-choice votes. Since then we've learned that it was the plan of the pro-choice community in Illinois. These were subtleties that those of us in the Clinton campaign here didn't understand,' she said. 'I for one did not understand the present votes....I did not know the full context.'"
11:40 AM
Anonymous said…
This a classic from the Clinton playbook. Float misleading information about your competitor and people will buy it because no one will go back and verify. The Clinton approach is to lie now and mend fences later. Let's leave the Clintons alone with their lies and get behind someone who is above the mud-slinging.
12:07 PM
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