A cautionary note on the "plant" issue: I think we shouldn't be naive about this kind of thing in any campaign from any candidate in either party. Unless politics has changed since I've worked in campaigns, it's often not a game played on the honorable level we would like. And a lot goes on without the candidate's knowledge.
LAT: Is Clinton campaign too scripted?
A planted question at an Iowa event brings the issue to the front burner.
By Peter Nicholas, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
November 14, 2007
....No presidential campaign likes surprises, but Clinton's operation may be unmatched in its discipline. The current front-runner for the Democratic nomination hews to her message and avoids messy campaign leaks and personnel drama. Still, by planting questions at what are supposed to be unscripted question-and-answer sessions with Iowa voters, Clinton may have fed perceptions that her campaign is too programmed for its own good, Democratic strategists said. The episode followed a Democratic debate in Philadelphia where Clinton was widely faulted for offering ambiguous and perhaps overly calculated answers on Iraq, immigration and Social Security.
"It's a small thing that could be a metaphor for a bigger concern for people -- over-management and too much caution," said Robert M. Shrum, a senior advisor to the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. John F. Kerry....
***
Spontaneous exchanges with voters are a ritual in Iowa and New Hampshire, small states that pose the first tests for presidential candidates. Candidates are expected to take part in free-wheeling discussions about whatever may be on the voters' minds. To the extent that a candidate short-circuits that process by stacking the audience with plants, it runs afoul of important political customs, political strategists said....
Spontaneous questions from the audience can be worrisome for Clinton's campaign, which is bent on minimizing risks. She has had a few brushes with tough questions, some of which made unwelcome news. In Iowa last month, Clinton sparred with a man about her vote for a resolution proclaiming the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization. He said he feared that the resolution would encourage Bush to take military action. Clinton told him that "somebody obviously sent to you" a mistaken view of her position. The man bristled and said he had done "my own research."
Various campaigns complain that a certain kind of dirty trick routinely plays out on the trail -- having a rival's supporters crash their town hall event and pose embarrassing questions. Asked if this happens at former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's events -- dubbed "Ask Mitt Anything" -- Kevin Madden, a spokesman for the GOP candidate, said: "Very much so."
Another variation of this practice is typically seen with call-in radio and TV shows, said Chris Lehane, who was a spokesman for Al Gore's unsuccessful campaign in 2000 and is now supporting Clinton. "There are very few phone calls that are genuinely from uninterested parties," he said. "They're generated from campaigns."
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-hillary14nov14,1,4488978.story?coll=la-headlines-nation&ctrack=1&cset=true
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