Obama Meets Planted Question Whistle-Blower
Barack Obama got a pleasant surprise at an Iowa event, meeting 19-year old Muriel Gallo-Chasanoff, who blew the whistle on the Hillary campaign's planted questions. After Obama quipped to the Grinnell college crowd, "these questions were not pre-selected or pre-arranged," the students all pointed to the local celebrity.
Obama then joked, "I'm not gonna call on her," but then later on did talk to her, and took a (supposedly real) question.
Comments (10)
Anonymous wrote on December 5, 2007 9:37 AM:Why supposedly real? Seems unfair to suggest the other candidates would stoop to Clinton tactics unless you have some reason to think otherwise.
Michael A wrote on December 5, 2007 9:41 AM:Now, I think the "supposedly real" comment and this whole exchange was supposed to be funny, unlike the kindergarten thing. Also, on the planted question all politicians do it. Clinton II just got caught and it plays into people's concerns and dislike of clinton II.
Kefa wrote on December 5, 2007 9:50 AM:Let's get for real....pleasently surprised..oh yeah.....it was scripted as was HRC's deal.....he's as real as she is as Edwards is. This is politics. HRC is still gonna be standing and Obama will be the Vice Prez when this comes down.
NCSteve wrote on December 5, 2007 10:21 AM:In the Cube, 11/15/2007
Penn: "Wolfie, my internals show that this 'scripted, inauthentic, question planting phoney thing is going to cause us to plummet in the polls."
Wolfson: "Damn! Didn't see that coming! Well, we can't make her less scripted, less phoney or more authentic. Besides, even if we could, doing it would mean acknowledging that we're both idiots with the political instincts and long-term strategic vision of a couple of sea cucumbers. Nope, we'll just have to start working the meme that everybody does it and everybody is an inauthentic phony in the MSM and the blogs. If we can tar Obama and Edwards with the same brush, we'll be back to square one."
Penn: "But won't the fact that that's self-evidently untrue hamper our ability to get her supporters and the media to buy it?"
Penn and Wolfson: Ha HA HA HA HA!"
Michael Caine wrote on December 5, 2007 10:26 AM:What was the question and what was the answer?
NamelessFaceless wrote on December 5, 2007 10:31 AM:To Michael Caine (loved you in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels):
"Then posed her question to the Senator, “Is it really possible to reach this level of national politics without altering your morals,” a fitting question for the ethical controversy she has been wrapped up in.
Obama told her, “You don't have to compromise who you are. You have to make compromises. But not your core values.”"
Yikes wrote on December 5, 2007 10:54 AM:The summary confused me, because, according to The Caucus last night, Obama didn't call on her, he simply went over to speak to her after the rally was over and she asked him a question then. Then I followed Eric's link and, low and behold, nowhere does it say he called on her, and instead described it exactly as The Caucus did. What's with the editorializing and the "He said he wasn't going to call on her, but then he did" nonsense? It's sad that I can no longer depend on TPM to actually report accurately — no, of course not a huge issue here, but if you can't get the small stuff right when it's right in front of your nose...
Michael Caine wrote on December 5, 2007 11:11 AM:Thanks, believe it or not, you would be surprised at how many people don't seem to remember the actor at all. I understand people 20 an below, but the rest... Well maybe I'm biased.
I am a bit disappointed in Keefield's editorializing it into a wink, wink, knudge, knudge, said he wouldn't but did when he didn't and (supposedly real) bs when neither actually occurred and were not supported by the link he provided.
LJ wrote on December 5, 2007 11:21 AM:Am I correct that there is no post on the NPR debate yesterday? You'd think a blog called Election Central might actually mention it. Why spend time on fluff posts like this when there was a substantive discussion of real issues on NPR yesterday?
Anyone interested can download the entire debate from NPR at the following link:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16843353
NCSteve wrote on December 5, 2007 11:23 AM:I tend to cut Eric some slack for anything he says in his first posts of the day. I often suspect that, like me, he's not really firing on all cylinders until the first grande is down.
