Planting Hillary

John Edwards takes on Hillary's "Politics of "Planting:"

His campaign today announced it has created a website that jabs his fellow Democrat's campaign for admitting that it planted a question at an Iowa event with a college student.

With tongue firmly in cheek, Edwards' camp calls PlantsforHillary.com an one-stop shop: "Potential plants can listen to testimonials from past plants, read the 'Top 10 Questions Plants Should Never Ask Hillary,' learn how to recognize other plants at Senator Clinton's events, submit suggestions for planted questions, and purchase the soon to be released 'Questions are hard...so plant them' T-shirt."

The website features a video, titled "The Politics of Planting," a sequel to "The Politics of Parsing" video highlighting Hillary's failure to give straight answers during the Democrats Drexal University debate.

The new video highlights Senator Clinton's evolution from parsing answers to answering planted questions.





The Hillary campaign was forced to admit that it planted a global warming question in Newton, Iowa, during a town hall meeting to discuss clean energy.

CNN reported that a Grinnell College student, Muriel Gallo-Chasanoff, had been encouraged to ask a "planted" question by a Clinton employee:

Gallo-Chasanoff, whose story was first reported in the campus newspaper, said what happened was simple: She said a senior Clinton staffer asked if she'd like to ask the senator a question after an energy speech the Democratic presidential hopeful gave in Newton, Iowa, on November 6.

"I sort of thought about it, and I said 'Yeah, can I ask how her energy plan compares to the other candidates' energy plans?'" Gallo-Chasanoff said Monday night.

According to Gallo-Chasanoff, the staffer said, "I don't think that's a good idea, because I don't know how familiar she is with their plans."

He then opened a binder to a page that, according to Gallo-Chasanoff, had about eight questions on it.

"The top one was planned specifically for a college student," she added. "It said 'college student' in brackets and then the question."

Topping that sheet of paper was the following: "As a young person, I'm worried about the long-term effects of global warming. How does your plan combat climate change?"

The student who asked the question told CNN "voters have the right to know what happened" and she wasn't the only one who was planted.

According to the New York Times the Grinnell College plant-gate wasn't the only time the Clinton campaign planted questions:

Last spring, an Iowa Democrat, Geoffrey Mitchell, said that a different Clinton aide encouraged him to ask Mrs. Clinton about Iraq policy during a campaign event, according to a news account at the time and a report Saturday on Fox News.

Mr. Miller told ABCNews about that incident:

Geoff Mitchell, a minister who recently moved to Hamilton, Ill., from Iowa, told ABC News that he was approached this spring by Clinton's Iowa political director Chris Haylor to ask Clinton a question about war funding.

Mitchell, 32, said that the request "did not sit well with me in the tradition of the Iowa caucus."

"I grew up in Iowa and I value the tradition of the caucuses of answering the questions of the people," Mitchell said.

Mitchell said he introduced himself to Haylor because he had heard of him before and knew that he had worked on Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh's campaign.

Before the campaign event, Haylor asked Mitchell if he would pose a specific question about Iraq. The question was about how Clinton would be tough on President Bush about funding the Iraq war, Mitchell said.

Planting questions is dishonest and inexcusable. This despicable conduct just reinforces the perception that Hillary's campaign is manipulative and schemes to bend the rules in order maintain her lead in the polls. It's also more evidence of Hillary's hypocrisy. Last month, Hillary attacked someone at a town hall for asking a question that she alleged was planted. Watch the video.