Clinton Avoids Saying Anything As Large Crowds Turn Out To Hear Sanders On The Issues

Clinton CNN Interview

Hillary Clinton gave her first national media interview since announcing her candidacy, following a period of evading the press. She spent the interview (transcript here), as she invariably does when interviewed,  avoiding answering any questions and playing the victim. A better reporter would have pinned her down better with follow up questions. I wonder if she will ever dare face Terry Gross again after she fell apart when interviewed by her last year.

Earlier in the day The Washington Post described another reason why it is so difficult for the press to get meaningful answers to questions when covering the Clinton campaign with their creation of an echo chamber:

One day in May, operatives from a Washington-based super PAC gathered New Hampshire mayors, state representatives and local politicos at Saint Anselm College for a day of training.

They rehearsed their personal tales of how they met Hillary Rodham Clinton and why they support her for president. They sharpened their defenses of her record as secretary of state. They scripted their arguments for why the Democratic front-runner has been “a lifetime champion of income opportunity.” And they polished their on-camera presentations in a series of mock interviews.

The objective of the sessions: to nurture a seemingly grass-roots echo chamber of Clinton supporters reading from the same script across the communities that dot New Hampshire, a critical state that holds the nation’s first presidential primary.

The super PAC, called Correct the Record, convened similar talking-point tutorials and ­media-training classes in May and June in three other early-voting states — Iowa, Nevada and South Carolina — as well as sessions earlier this spring in California.

Presidential campaigns have for decades fed talking points to surrogates who appear on national television or introduce candidates on the stump. But the effort to script and train local supporters is unusually ambitious and illustrates the extent to which the Clinton campaign and its web of sanctioned, allied super PACs are leaving nothing to chance…

But asking local supporters to use talking points could undermine the organic nature of grass-roots political interactions. No longer can a journalist call state representatives in Iowa and expect to hear their personal, candid takes on Clinton — nor can a Rotary Club member listen to fellow small-business owners talk about the candidate at the group’s monthly luncheon — without suspecting that they are reading from a script.

The phony nature of the Clinton campaign is one reason why there has been so much excitement in Bernie Sanders’ campaign. Hillary Clinton had 5500 people turn out at her campaign re-launch on Roosevelt Island in New York City. Only 3000 showed up for Jeb Bush’s announcement. In contrast, over 10,000 people turned out to hear Bernie Sanders speak in Wisconsin and over 7500 in Portland, Maine. He even attracted over 2500 in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Crowds may or may not ultimately translate into caucus and primary votes, but Sanders is certainly shaking up the race.

Update: Factcheck.org Shows Clinton Told Several Lies During CNN Interview