Clinton Campaign Kills Negative Story

[illinoisprogressive]

Early this summer, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign for president learned that the men’s magazine GQ was working on a story the campaign was sure to hate: an account of infighting in Hillaryland.

So Clinton’s aides pulled a page from the book of Hollywood publicists and offered GQ a stark choice: Kill the piece, or lose access to planned celebrity coverboy Bill Clinton.

Despite internal protests, GQ editor Jim Nelson met the Clinton campaign’s demands, which had been delivered by Bill Clinton’s spokesman, Jay Carson, several sources familiar with the conversations said. GQ writer George Saunders traveled with Clinton to Africa in July, and Clinton is slated to appear on the cover of GQ’s December issue, in which it traditionally names a “Man of the Year,” according magazine industry sources.

And the offending article by Atlantic Monthly staff writer Josh Green got the spike.

“I don’t really get into the inner workings of the magazine, but I can tell you that yes, we did kill a Hillary piece. We kill pieces all the time for a variety of reasons,” Nelson said in an e-mail to Politico.

He did not respond to follow-up questions. A Clinton campaign spokesman declined to comment.

The campaign’s transaction with GQ opens a curtain on the Clinton campaign’s hard-nosed media strategy, which is far closer in its unromantic view of the press to the campaigns of George W. Bush than to that of Bill Clinton’s free-wheeling 1992 campaign. There’s little left to chance. Hillary Clinton may have an unparalleled campaign “war room” — but there aren’t any documentary film-makers wandering around this one, and lovers of the D.A. Pennebaker film “The War Room” can rest assured they aren’t getting a sequel.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0907/5992.html

[wyldwolf]

1. No no... GQ killed the story.

[DURHAM D]

3. Are you saying Ben Smith made up yet another story line? eom

[wyldwolf]

4. I have no reason to doubt the contents of the article EXCEPT...

...it was GQ who chose to kill the story.

[emilyg]

2. Take a break.

[rinsd]

5. Ben Smith basically going with rumor.

BFD.

:shrug:

[Bitwit1234]

6. Oh gheeezzz here we go again and again and again

Can this poster ever post something good about HIS candidate Obama and stop bashing Hillary...this is the type of person that gives people the impression all the democrats can do is infighting and pulling apart. Cut it out.

[Clintonista2]

8. No, this is one of the "I won't support Hillary even if she's the nominee" people

AKA Republican operative.

[DURHAM D]

9. No, Wait! Wait!

I just changed my mind - I am going to support Obama. All the negative stuff has made me see the light! Hallelujah! I am saved!

[illinoisprogressive]

7. it's the lead story and important for people to know about.

[flpoljunkie]

10. Evidently, Clinton camp did not like what Green had to say about her in his earlier Atlantic article

Green was not a particular favorite of the Clinton campaign, however. He took the assignment from GQ not long after finishing an unflattering 13,000-word profile in the November 2006 Atlantic Monthly, which concluded that the junior Senator from New York is, more or less, a timid, calculating pol.

“Today Clinton offers no big ideas, no crusading causes — by her own tacit admission, no evidence of bravery in the service of a larger ideal. Instead, her Senate record is an assemblage of many, many small gains.

Her real accomplishment in the Senate has been to rehabilitate the image and political career of Hillary Rodham Clinton. Impressive though that has been in its particulars, it makes for a rather thin claim on the presidency. Senator Clinton has plenty to talk about, but she doesn’t have much to say,” he wrote.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0907/5992_Page2.html

[rinsd]

11. Its important for people to know about campaign infighting?

[illinoisprogressive]

12. Important to know they are controlling the press.

[Exultant Democracy]

13. You got that right. This is just a little taste of what we have to expect from Her and her team.

[rinsd]

14. When Obama gave FoxNews the finger and kicked Cameron off his plane was that controlling the press?

Or was that a candidate responding to a hostile reporter?

[Ethelk2044]

18. he had a reason to diss them. They called him Osama. That is only common sense

That is not controlling the media.

[rinsd]

22. Exactly, it isn't controlling the media.

In fact I very much agreed with it.

And saying we're not going to do media with your group because part of it dissed us is not controlling the media.

GQ wanted Big Dawg on the cover, they made their decision.

Perhaps you can troll the rw nutjobs at Hillaryproject quoting FoxNews and give us the real story :eyes:

[sandnsea]

20. That's overt, public

Not this behind the scenes crap the way the Bushes do.

They can get anything in the media any time they want to.

So why have Democrats had such a hard time getting their message out?

Oh wait, the DLC message always does get out, now doesn't it.

Wake Up.

[sandnsea]

19. Gephardt - Dean

Yes they control the press. They can get anything into it or kept out of it that they want. All the strange Dem stories since 2001, all the 'sources say' about Dem policy that didn't make any sense, all Clintons.

These people are not on our side.

[William769]

15. I saw her do it!

She damn near borke his arm when she twisted it. :sarcasm:

[wyldwolf]

16. LOL

[oasis]

17. National publications frequently give the axe to "ho-hum" stories. eom

[NoPasaran]

21. Somehow, I'm just not feeling the hatred I guess I should

I thought killing negative stories was something campaigns tried to do as a matter of course. This gives me more respect for Hillary... better to know this than the info that Obama is stinky in the morning.

[FiveGoodMen]

23. It's also something that presidents do to keep the public in the dark.