Hillary Clinton demanded control of most aspects of her school appearances, including introductory speeches, questions, and details as small as what type of glassware would be available, campaign emails show.
The Democratic presidential candidate’s campaign attempted to control introductory speeches and other details, according to emails between Clinton’s campaign and public schools and colleges in South Carolina obtained by The Associated Press and published Thursday.
The media relations director at Greenville Technical College wrote the college president that the campaign “wanted to write your introduction. I told them no.” The president at that school also refused to allow the campaign to script questions, stating that they were “bad questions,” going on to say that he would create his own questions, perhaps after hearing the speech.
In another email, Clay Middleton, the state director for the Clinton campaign, requested a list of two or three students who would speak from another college. At a high school event, the campaign wanted to see and edit an introduction speech by a student.
Other colleges were not as obstinate in their dealings with the campaign. The president of Des Moines Community College, Robert Denson, incorporated scripted talking points into his introduction. Later, he defended his actions by stating that all campaigns request control over such matters.
The Clinton campaign, long criticized for a wooden, scripted performance continues to assert that they run a non-scripted, off the cuff campaign. Clinton staffer Nick Merrill stated, “we take pride in Secretary Clinton’s ability to answer tough questions. We do not screen questioners at events, nor do we script interactions.”
Merrill went on to state that many of the more memorable moments of the campaign are completely unscripted, providing an anecdote of a little girl asking the candidate if she would get paid the same as a “boy president.”
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