podesta-emails
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This makes me very nervous. Do you know what his status is going to be
next year? Is she going to keep him as a consultant.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Nick Merrill <[email protected]>
Date: Wed, Feb 18, 2015 at 11:17 PM
Subject: Re: National Journal | Sourcing Story
To: John Podesta <[email protected]>, Jake Sullivan <
[email protected]>, Philippe Reines <[email protected]>, Robby Mook <
[email protected]>, Cheryl Mills <[email protected]>, Huma
Abedin <[email protected]>, Dan Schwerin <[email protected]>,
"Margolis, Jim" <[email protected]>, John Anzalone <[email protected]>,
Mandy Grunwald <[email protected]>, Teddy Goff <[email protected]>,
Jennifer Palmieri <[email protected]>, Kristina Schake <
[email protected]>, Cheryl Mills <[email protected]>
http://www.nationaljournal.com/twenty-sixteen/when-a-clinton-ally-isn-t-an-ally-at-all-20150218
When a Clinton 'Ally' Isn't an Ally At All
February 18, 2015 There are Clinton "insiders" and Clinton "allies."
Clinton "loyalists" and Clinton "confidantes." People "familiar with
Clinton's thinking" or "in Clinton's orbit."
No doubt, Washington is filled with Democrats who have worked for, advised,
donated money to, or rubbed elbows with Hillary or Bill Clinton over the
duo's three decades in politics. But as the former secretary of State
prepares a 2016 campaign, these "allies" are posing a problem for Clinton's
real team.
Ever eager to voice opinions on everything from the timeline of Clinton's
announcement to her 2016 message to how her "hipster black-rimmed glasses"
fit with the optics of a Brooklyn-based operation, self-labeled advisors
are going rogue. And by freelancing, they're taking the Clinton story out
of Clinton's hands, even as she tries to build a team that's more
leak-proof and less willing to air dirty laundry than in 2008.
"There are three parties to this equation: we're one, the source is two,
and the media is three. And arguably we have the least amount of influence
on any of this," said longtime Clinton aide Philippe Reines. He conceded,
though, that there's no real way for her team to control it: "We just have
to sit back. We just have to grin and bear it."
The issue is singularly frustrating for people who work and have worked in
Clinton's press operation and dealt with the issue first-hand—enough so
that several of whom, like Reines, were willing to give rare on-the-record
interviews for this story.
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"This is a constant problem," said Howard Wolfson, who served as Clinton's
communications director in 2008. "There is an enormous number of people who
have had, or claim to have had, an association with the Clintons over the
years—and many of them claim to have some degree of knowledge of her plans
or activities that they don't in fact have."
Unlike on the Republican side, where a crowded field makes candidates and
their staffs happy to dish to reporters about big hires, early-state plans,
and behind-the-scenes machinations, movements to and within Clinton's
growing operation are closely held. Indeed, Republicans have used a running
tally <https://gop.com/the-easy-life-of-a-clinton-communicator/> of the "no
comment" responses from the Clinton camp to paint the former senator and
first lady as out-of-touch—"OFF THE RECORD: no comment," read the headline
on one recent Clinton-related release from the Republican National
Committee.
So with Clinton's staff keeping public comments to a minimum, the
quasi-"insiders" largely have the floor to themselves.
Certainly, former staffers eagerly offering up their own takes or
speculation isn't unique to Clinton, but for her it's magnified by the
amount of time she and her husband have spent in the public eye. There are
decades' worth of former staffers to contend with: there are the Arkansas
people, the Clinton White House advisers, New York Senate staffers, 2008
campaign aides, Clinton Foundation associates, and State Department aides,
among others.
Asked how the campaign could get a handle on all the anonymous outside
chatter, Reines placed much of the blame back on the media for being
willing to grant anonymity to sources who don't know what they're talking
about. Unless the unnamed "advisers" stop talking to reporters, or
reporters stop quoting them, Reines added, there's no way to get the issue
under control.
"What gets lost is there are no consequences for [the source or the media]
when they're wrong—there just aren't," he said. "If you were to go back and
look at the last three, four, five, six months of coverage about Secretary
Clinton, you're going to see certain reporters who cover her closely whose
accuracy rate is less than 50/50."
Any reporter covering the Clinton beat knows it's tough to navigate the
sphere known as Clintonworld. A source who offers up good information for
one story might be totally wrong on another, and most Democrats are
understandably squeamish about talking on the record about anything
Clinton-related because nearly all of them are hoping for jobs with her.
(More than a dozen people contacted for this piece said they were happy to
discuss it—but only on background.)
Don't Miss Today's Top Stories
“
Excellent!"
Rick, Executive Director for Policy
The thing is, a Clinton "ally" could be anyone: a top donor or former
staffer in the know, sure, but also a Democratic strategist on the outside
who is just sharing an opinion, wants to feel important, or is hoping to
settle a score. What's more, it's far harder for the campaign to chastise
someone for saying things they shouldn't—or stop telling that person
privileged information—if they're quoted anonymously and you don't know for
sure who said what.
"Any time someone actually says their name and publishes a quote, it's easy
for the campaign to call them up and say, 'Please don't do that anymore,'"
said Michael Trujillo, who served as a senior staffer for Clinton's 2008
campaign in California, Texas and North Carolina. But with anonymous
quotes, you don't know where they're coming from.
(Reines warned it's not difficult to figure out: "It's not like you read
something and say, 'Oh my gosh, that could have been 97 people.' You tend
to know. Not 100 percent of the time, but ... I think sources would
probably shrivel up if they knew that when these things happen, there's
usually a four-minute conversation about, 'Oh, that was probably X ... I
think people would be mortified. I don't think they realize how much that
happens.")
Mike McCurry, Bill Clinton's White House press secretary in the 1990s, also
pegged the problem not to the campaign but to reporters who
"hyperventilate" about 2016. "I love Mrs. Clinton and hope she decides what
is best for her. But anyone that would quote me 'on background' would be
misleading their audience because I have no real idea what they are
thinking," he wrote via email. "I believe 75% (conservatively) of what I
read about the political strategy inside the Clinton camp is from people
who want to be in the 'inside circle' but probably aren't."
The dynamic in 2008 is just a preview of what the chattering "allies" will
be like this time around. Trujillo said more than once he and his team were
stunned at news reports about Clinton's plans in each of those states—which
often had sources who were in direct contradiction with what was actually
happening inside the campaign.
"To read that in the paper and know it was the complete opposite ... it's
never helpful, it's never asked for," said Trujillo, now a Los
Angeles-based senior adviser for Ready for Hillary. "You're not being
helpful by pontificating on what she is or isn't going to do."
So what's the eventual Clinton campaign to do? No one reached for this
story had a good answer. Some suggested the outside "allies" would be given
less status once it's clear who's actually involved in the campaign and who
isn't. Others said John Podesta, the expected campaign chairman, might be
able to instill order among the older generations of Clinton loyalists,
many of whom he's worked with in the past.
Ben LaBolt, the press secretary for the Obama 2012 campaign, said the
eventual Clinton campaign needs to make it very clear to reporters who's
actually on the campaign and in the know—and who isn't.
"Campaigns should bend over backwards to limit the number of people that
speak officially for the campaign and to make sure the media understands
exactly who serves on that team," he wrote in an email. "Otherwise, you're
forced to apologize for, correct or condemn statements by people who don't
actually have anything to do with the campaign."
But sometimes, Wolfson said, the 2008 staff took a step back and just
laughed about who some anonymous sources could have been. "In the '08
campaign, we used to laugh and say, 'Okay, that was the shoe-shine guy.'
'That was the guy who ran the sandwich shop down the street,'" he said.
"There was, in my experience, a very elastic and loose definition of who
constitutes a 'Clinton loyalist,' 'Clinton insider,' 'Clinton confidante.'"
The reporting and speculation about her intentions and campaign plans,
Reines said, often baffle even Clinton herself: "When you're talking to the
person whose life is being written about and they're like, 'Where do they
get this stuff?' It's really sobering."
From: NSM
Date: Wednesday, February 18, 2015 at 10:24 PM
To: John Podesta, Jacob Sullivan, Philippe Reines, Robby Mook, Cheryl
Mills, Huma Abedin, Dan Schwerin, Jim Margolis, John Anzalone, Mandy
Grunwald, Teddy Goff, Jennifer Palmieri, Kristina Schake, Cheryl Mills
Subject: National Journal | Sourcing Story
I was hoping to mention this on the call today but we were consumed by
other matters…
The National Journal reached out to tell us that they were working on a
piece about the follies of sourcing in political stories, particularly in
the land of Clinton. As a subject that one Clinton ally (Philippe) feels
strongly about, he broke his no-more-press-calls rule and we talked to the
reporter for the story. We talked through a lot of the things we have
often discussed on these calls about people selling themselves as something
they are not, and the resulting misinformation the percolates at the
highest levels of journalism (Read: The New York Times).
I’ll send around the story later this evening, but wanted everyone to be
aware so as not to surprise you.
Nick
ℹ️ Document Details
SHA-256
1ed9e5272e1a0e280c7f35e75413303a3124c6c083e7bdae0f025a7e6c77769f
Dataset
podesta-emails
Document Type
email
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