Meet The Seven Indispensable Surrogates This Campaign Cycle

Politico:

A good surrogate is hard to find. Just recall Bill Clinton's "fairy tale," Samantha Power's "monster" and Phil Gramm's "nation of whiners."

Every few weeks, another surrogate is thrown under the bus, or at least dropped off at the next stop, for saying something ill-advised, off-message or just plain dumb.

"The traditional use of a surrogate was to add some third-party validation to a campaign's message, but these days, just as often they're simply used to feed the massive media machine," said Republican consultant Todd Harris, who worked for Fred Thompson's presidential campaign.

Read the whole story: Politico

Comments

[barackobama4prez]

I sure wish BHO could build an army of true surrogates to flood the news. Since the rethuglicans can only cheat and lie this election, we need an army of truthtellers on watch whenever they try to lie about our candidate.

[Colmore]

Fred Thompson had a presidential campaign??? He is so slow, he probably thinks he is still in the running.

[NotMcCain]

McCaskill's great.

I'd really like to see Clark added to this list. He could be very effective IF Democrats can stop running from the Republican (and their media friends') spin and STAND UP to it instead.

[suzyhein]

I stand by Samantha Powers' monster comment.

[emmaspeaks]

What gets me is that Hillary Clinton's campaign asked for her to be removed, yet they could call Obama Ken Starr and Richardson Judas, and they refuse to even apologize. They don't know how to take the high road and have some class, then their supporters are mad at Obama and won't vote for him. He has been more than a gentlemen to a woman who ran old campaign styles and found the people want it different.

[barackobama4prez]

definitely.

[era996]

I stand by Samantha Powers' monster comment.
From one monster to another, you should add

[4wehttam]

From your perspective your a monster too, because you just called suzyhein one, which then makes me a monster because I insinuated you were a monster. Is that it?

PS...............................HRC was a monster throughout the primary.

[barackobama4prez]

suzy is right. If it acts like a monster, it IS a monster.

[nowRnever]

Hmmmm... I guess old gramm crackers wasn't quite as indispensable as was thought!

[cruisepuppy7452a]

Claire is a great person. Obamma owes her. When he was testing the waters, it was Claire who was introducing him to he public first hand. No fanfare, just a guy out to meet the public see the kind of love that was out there for him. It worked. The people in St. Louis came in droves to see and meet him. He owes her big time.
That is the kind of person Claire is. You ask her for a favor she might take a while to do it, but it gets done. She doesn't mince words, pander, just does the research and gets back to you. If she is one of the top people for Obamma, she earned it. The gal gets stuff done. People hate her for her findings, but you know its on the mark. If she is one of the ones to validate his opinions, know, she isn't sugar coating it, lying about it, just telling it like it is. I know claire, did work for her on her campaigns. We need more like her in office.

[uheardme]

She is a great surrogate. Perhaps she should run in 2016.

[kellygrrrl]

please, there is no "Third Party" in America so there is no such thing as "Third Party Validation"

[Chillinout]

I think you kind of missed the point there. When they are talking about "third party validation" they are talking about someone other than the candidate validating the candidate's positions and policies. Kind of like talking in the third person.

[kellygrrrl]

yes, I got it. Thank you.

I was being funny ... or, apparently, not

[suzyhein]

she was being all satirically, it's like mavericky only funny

[Ramirez]

That's not what the article meant by third party.

[kellygrrrl]

no? really?