Plant in Clinton campaign shows dishonesty

Allison Good Guest Columnist

Early in her campaign, Hillary Clinton seemed to embody honesty and frankness, touting her experiences as First Lady and Senator of New York and offering straightforward answers during debates. However, despite her pretensions of honesty and morality, Clinton’s recently exposed campaign tactics prove that she is anything but a clean, ethical politician.

CNN reported on Nov. 13 that Grinnell College sophomore Muriel Gallo-Chasanoff was “a plant” in the question and answer session that followed Clinton’s Nov. 6 speech in Newton, Iowa.

After telling a Clinton staffer that she wanted to ask the Senator how her plan to combat global warming differed from those of other candidates, the student was requested not to pose this question because Clinton did not know enough about her opponents’ plans. The staff member opened a binder and selected a more general question about Clinton’s approach to fighting climate change that would not force Clinton to recall the specific ideas of her political adversaries. What’s even worse is that the question was labeled as one to be asked by “a college student.”

Naturally, the Clinton campaign’s defense was that Clinton had no idea who she was calling on during the session, and that planting questions in crowds is not a standard strategy and will not happen again. Unfortunately, Gallo-Chasanoff was not the only plant. The article reports that the college student overheard another attendee voice that he too was a plant.

Campaigns should certainly not be allowed to be dishonest and employ tactics such as planting questions in crowds in order to boost their images.

One must also take into account the values that we Americans hold so dear to our hearts, that of thinking freely and questioning authority. That college student in Iowa had a question that she wanted to ask, but she was censored by a campaign staffer. Did the staffer really not understand that as an informed citizen, the student’s question was both more important and more interesting than the scripted ones in the binder? If this speech had taken place at Vassar and the campaign had tried to plant questions among attendees, there would certainly have been a riot.

It is surprising that the media has not had a field day with the Clinton campaign’s unethical strategies. News sources revel in quickly pointing out candidates’ bad qualities, yet not one newspaper or news channel has used the planting incident in a campaign against Clinton. They should have pounced on Clinton’s inefficiency and used it against her, because how can she run a country if she can’t even run a successful and honest campaign

The bottom line is that the campaign reflects the candidate. Nothing overshadows the Iowa incident’s revelation that Clinton is not running the most honest and ethical campaign. Whether or not Clinton had personal knowledge of her campaign’s actions is not the question; she is effectively at the head of her campaign and is responsible for everything it does—is an honest campaign too much to ask for?