Does Clinton Cross Ethical Lines? [Updated]

How much does Hillary Clinton cross ethical lines to try and win? And will this backfire on her campaign?

Politics can be a rough game. Candidates need to hold their competitors accountable and challenge distortions and lies. God knows, we need a Democratic nominee who's willing to fight. But Hillary Clinton's campaign has included so many cheap shots, sleazy manipulations, and unsavory players as to make these questionable actions a dominant tone.

The media finally seems to be paying attention to this, particularly Bill Clinton's role as lead attack dog. We've seen plenty of recent examples of ways the Clintons and their political allies have embraced a scorched-earth approach in which truth and fairness become expendable. You see it in their claims that Obama really wasn't against the Iraq war, and that Bill and Hillary were the ones really opposed. In the Clinton campaign's framing Illinois votes in which Obama followed a strategy devised by Illinois Planned Parenthood as a lack of commitment on abortion choice. And in both Bill and Hillary twisting Obama's statement that Reagan created major political shifts and rewriting it to imply that he approved of Reagan's politics.

The pattern of questionable approaches runs deeper, though, than just the most recent arguments. Last week, I pulled together a range of actions that seemed to cross an ethical line--and that together risk embittering so many potential supporters as to cost the Democrats the election. I thought I'd post this updated version.

New questionable statements and actions emerge daily. You're probably familiar with many. But it's the broader pattern that disturbs me--how much the Clinton campaign goes beyond drawing legitimate political lines to an all-too-Rovian approach where they'll do whatever's deemed necessary to take down her competitors. Here's a representative list of actions that, taken together, offer a troubling portent.

Start with the hiring of chief campaign strategist, Mark Penn. He's CEO of a PR firm, Burson-Marsteller, that prepped the Blackwater CEO for his recent congressional testimony, is advising the giant industrial laundry corporation Cintas in fighting unionization, and whose website proudly heralded their union-busting expertise until it became a potential Clinton liability and they removed that section. B-M has historically represented everyone from the Argentine military junta and Philip Morris to Union Carbide after the 1984 Bhopal disaster.

Then there are Clinton's campaign donors. Any major candidate has some dubious supporters, but Clinton's gotten money from particularly noxious sources. Start with her donation from Rupert Murdoch, who's given to no other Democrat. Add in massive amounts of money from Washington lobbyists and from industries like defense, banking, health care, and oil and energy providers (though Obama's also gotten a lot from some of these industries). Then there's Norman Hsu, who brought in over $850,000 to Hillary's campaign after returning to the US following his flight to evade a fraud conviction (Hsu was subsequently rearrested, sentenced to three years, and is facing further federal charges, and the campaign eventually returned the money he'd raised). There's the Nebraska data processing company InfoUSA, whose CEO, Vin Gupta, used private corporate jets to fly the Clintons on business, personal, and campaign trips, gave Bill Clinton a $3.3 million consulting contract, and is now being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission for allegedly diverting company money to his own personal uses. Mississippi attorney Dickie Scruggs recently canceled a major December 15 Hillary fundraiser (with Bill Clinton headlining) after being indicted for trying to bribe a judge. Major international sweatshop owners, the Saipan-based Tan family, have given Clinton $26,000, complementing their previous massive support for Jack Abramoff and Tom Delay. That doesn't even count dubious supporters from the past, like Peter Paul, the convicted con-artist turned event producer who coordinated a massive Hollywood Clinton fundraiser during the 2,000 election, but has now become a bitter Clinton critic. Taken together, it's a pretty tainted constellation of backers.

Like most candidates, Clinton spends the bulk of her money on ads and mailings, and she's taken some pretty problematic approaches there too. I wonder how many of the New Hampshire women who voted last minute for Clinton were swayed by a mailing claiming that Obama wasn't really committed to abortion rights because he'd voted "present" on some abortion-related legislative votes. Except that Obama had done so as, mentioned, as part of a strategy devised by Illinois Planned Parenthood to protect vulnerable swing district representatives. New England Planned Parenthood's Board Chair strongly refuted Clinton's letter, pointing out that Obama had a 100% record on all the votes that really mattered. But the misleading mailing may well have helped give Clinton her margin.

The distortion of Obama's position on abortion echoes Hillary's audacious argument that Obama really wasn't against the Iraq war and betrayed his promises by failing to vote against war appropriation bills after the Democrats couldn't override Bush's veto. I wish Obama had bucked the Democratic leadership and taken a stronger stand. But it's a gross distortion of history to equate his positions with Clinton's overt support for the war authorization, refusal to apologize for her vote, and claim that she was really doing it all to promote more diplomatic solutions.

We can find further distortions in a mailing sent out before the Iowa caucuses by the independent expenditure committee of a key Clinton ally, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. The AFSCME mailing attacked Obama on his health care plan by using a John Edwards quote that was featured so prominently that recipients could assume that his campaign was the source of the attack piece. This and other actions so disturbed a group of seven AFSCME International Vice Presidents wrote a public letter to their union president, saying that although the union had endorsed Clinton on a split vote, the political committee had no mandate to attack Obama. They demanded the committee stop what they called "fundamentally dishonest" attacks.

Other surrogates have attacked Obama's character. Twice they've tried to raise Obama's early drug use as a campaign issue--despite his having addressed it directly and frankly in his book Dreams From My Father. Hillary's New Hampshire campaign chair, Billy Shaheen, mentioned it first, claiming that he was only worried about how the Republicans might use it. Sheehan resigned from the campaign after a storm of criticism, then Black Entertainment Television CEO Robert Johnson (who's backed Bush on issues like the estate tax and privatizing social security, and been virulently anti-union in his own company) raised it again, with Clinton standing next to him at a South Carolina rally. After Johnson's words drew major heat, Clinton belatedly distanced herself from them, but the smear still stands, along with the disingenuous claim that those making it were just neutral participants, only trying to serve the Party's best interests.

Clinton's campaign also attacked the John Edwards campaign for appearing in New Hampshire with the parents of Nataline Sarkisyan, the 17-year-old leukemia patient who died after CIGNA refused her a liver transplant. Clinton press secretary Jay Carson claimed that the US needs to elect "somebody who's actually going to help people and not use them as talking points." Never mind that the Sarkisyans had initiated the chance to speak out by contacting Edwards about appearing at a Manchester New Hampshire town hall campaign appearance. To the Clinton campaign, their appearance had to be suspect, because they were supporting Edwards and his ideas.

The campaign has also attempted more directly to discourage participation by voters who might support Clinton's opponents. Think of the lawsuit filed by the pro-Clinton leadership of the Nevada teacher's union (and supported overtly by Bill Clinton), which sought to prevent long-scheduled caucuses from being held at central locations on the main casino strip, under the assumption, which turned out to be false that Obama's endorsement by the dominant Culinary Workers Union would lead these caucuses to give him massive support. New Hampshire saw parallel voter suppression tactics, as the campaign encouraged the New Hampshire Democratic Party to evict Obama get-out-the-vote observers from the polls. In Iowa, the Clinton Campaign tried to discourage out-of-state students from returning to their campuses to participate in the caucuses. In the Michigan primary, Clinton kept her name on the ballot after the state violated Democratic National Committee rules by moving its primary ahead of the Feb 5 "Super Tuesday" vote, while Edwards and Obama took theirs off.

When the Nevada caucuses actually took place, eye-witnesses produced repeated accounts of Clinton supporters who tried to close the doors before supporters of other candidates supporters could get in. And who told Edwards supporters that they had to go home--without giving them the opportunity to caucus for Obama. And who had Clinton literature blanketing the supposedly neutral registration tables, and pre-marked voter cards for Clinton, while telling supporters of other candidates that they'd run out. There was even one reported case where Clinton supporters who'd just finished caucusing and voting in one precinct attempted to have their votes counted again in another adjacent one. These efforts may not have had official sanction. They may well have been overzealous supporters confused about the rules. But they fit the dominant tone.

Campaigns can have either closed or open information styles. Clinton's comes far too close to the Bush-Cheney model, as when the Clintons successfully killed a major story in the national men's magazine GQ about Clinton campaign infighting. Author Josh Green had written a long critical previous piece on Clinton for The Atlantic, and campaign press secretary Jay Carson threatened to deny the magazine access to Bill Clinton for a separate cover story on his international foundation work. GQ acquiesced and pulled the critical piece.

The flip side of trying to stop negative coverage is manufacturing praise. Clinton's campaign did this when they gave planted questions to Iowa student Muriel Gallo-Chasanoff, and according to Chasanoff, to other students as well. After being driven to a public event by Clinton interns, Chasanoff was introduced to a Clinton staffer who showed her a list of suggested questions to ask, one of which she used at Clinton's forum. It's not quite like Bush inviting the softball inquiries of former male-prostitute turned right-wing blogger Jeff Gannon. But it isn't so different either.

Taken together, these examples echo the Bush's administration's tendency to attack anyone who challenges them. They echo Clinton's refusal to apologize for her Iraq war vote or for an Iran vote so reckless that Jim Webb called it "Dick Cheney's fondest pipe dream." They hardly bode well for reversing the massive erosions of transparency of the past seven years.

The list could go on, but it's the pattern that's important. It's true that one person's cheap shot artist is another's fierce competitor. Obama himself has called politics "a full-contact sport," and used legal maneuvers to block a long-time state legislator when he first ran for office. And Democrats will need to be fierce in their campaigning if they're going to defeat the right-wing Swiftboating machine that gave Bush the last two presidencies. So maybe I'd be more charitable if I didn't disagree so strongly with Clinton's Iraq and Iran votes, and utter failure to take leadership in standing up to Bush when he was riding high in the polls. But I think I'd still have a problem. I look at the actions of her campaign, and see an ugly example, a ruthlessness not remotely equaled by either Obama or Edwards. I'll vote for the last Democrat standing, because the Republicans will continue the current administration's disastrous priorities. But Hillary's scorched-earth approach threatens to fracture the party if she does get the nomination, and to leave a trail of bitterness even if she wins. We can do better for the Democratic nominee.

Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, named the #3 political book of 2004 by the History Channel and the American Book Association. His previous books include Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in a Cynical Time. See www.paulloeb.org To receive his articles directly email [e-mail] with the subject line: subscribe paulloeb-articles

Comments

[TiredofNonsense]

Incidentally people, the word "definitely" definitely does not have an "A" in it. One thing that comforts me about blog commentaries such as these... While Obama supporters are usually interested in trends, Clinton supporters are smart. And it will make a difference. Go HRC 2008!

[TiredofNonsense]

This reckless blog actually leaves me defensive on Senator Clinton"s behalf. The first (and biggest) mistake I see is to challenge Senator Clinton's ethics, whilst providing a suite of examples coming from sources who are glaringly not Senator Clinton.
You"re going to have to do better than that if you"re going to keep my ear, Loeb.
Also, the bidirectional sniping that has occurred in the campaign, starting, I believe with Obama stating "You"re likable enough, Hillary" (and her laughing it off good-naturedly) is distasteful and perhaps rude even. But rude is not unethical.
And I hate to blow open a kimono here, but does everyone realize Obama was not a member of the US Senate in the Fall of 2002 for the War vote? He did not vote against the war. He wasn"t even a Senator until 2005. That, incidentally, is why he gets scrutiny around his qualifications to run the free world.
If people were indeed shut out of the Nevada caucus, it"s probably because they were late--caucuses are notoriously punctual. I"d need to know the arrival time of those locked out to make a negative judgment. Even better, the facts of their formal complaints since this is a blatant violation of process.
Just when I thought imprecise remarks about Senator Clinton"s fundraising couldn"t get more trite, Loeb proves me wrong. I hope nobody minds if I wait for actual evidence that Senator Clinton has violated fundraising regulations before indicting her, or calling her unethical.
On invoking of personal relationships to enhance one"s campaign¦Obama and Clinton are tied. In fact, maybe Obama has the advantage considering Oprah is a lot more popular, and possibly more powerful, than Bill.

[MsLiz]

I was angry at Bill Clinton who did not love his country enough to keep his pants zipped, and I am angry at Hillary now for not trusting Democrats to select the best qualified candidate for president. If she truly loves her country more than power, she will run an honest campaign for the nomination. Save the dirty tricks for later.

At least Obama will see what he will be up against if he secures the nomination.

[Werner]

Thanks. There are definitely a lot of similaries with Karl Rove and the Clintons and their untruthful attack tactics. They all seem to enjoy it. They're proud of how they are. We need better.

[Moose49]

Thanks for taking the time to lay out the sleaze in all its gruesome detail.

All of this should serve to remind voters to ask themselves whether they want a Democratic version of a Karl Rove-like administration or one that's honest and ethical; whether they want a return to the 1990s (think Mark Rich and the Lincoln Bedroom sale) or an advance into a future that at least holds far more promise for better style -- and substance -- in politics and governing.

I think eventually, a majority of the Democratic primary electorate will come to ask and answer questions such as these. But if it comes after Super Tuesday, we may find ourselves saddled with a nominee that a majority of the voting public dislikes. What a tragedy that would be.

[vbond]

This entire spectacle is sickening and deeply discouraging, not only about the Clintons' scurrilous tactics and attitudes, but the reluctance - so far - of a massive phalanx of Democratic Party major players - including Dean - to condemn them.

I expect the main stream media to add to the confusion (for entertainment value alone), but I expect party leaders and prominent players to do something about this unprecedented abuse.

If they are allowed to keep this up, the Clintons will spark a political realignment in the country... around another Republican Majority.

I will not vote for them in California and - God forbid they win the nomination - I would not vote for the Clintons in November.

I can hardly believe I'm writing this, but I know many, many more staunch Democrats who feel the same and stronger.

[OSUMercutio]

Great article! Just to connect the dots a little bit more - you mentioned Mark Penn at the top of the article and the drug issue later on. I should point out that Mark Penn also raised the drug issue on the MSNBC show Hardball where he repeatedly said the word "cocaine" unecessarily.

PENN: Well, I think we have made clear that the -- the issue related to cocaine use is not something that the campaign was in any way raising. And I think that has been made clear. I think this kindergarten thing was a joke after Senator...

(CROSSTALK)

JOE TRIPPI, SENIOR EDWARDS CAMPAIGN ADVISER: I think he just did it again. He just did it again.

(CROSSTALK)

PENN: This kindergarten thing, after what the senator did...

TRIPPI: Unbelievable. They just literally...

(CROSSTALK)

PENN: Excuse me.

(CROSSTALK)

TRIPPI: No, no. No, no, Mark, excuse me.

PENN: Excuse me. Excuse me

TRIPPI: This guy`s been filibustering on this. He just said cocaine again. It`s like...

PENN: I think you`re saying cocaine.

[goldstategirl]

YES. To answer your headline's question does HRC's campaign cross ethical lines? Absolutely.

I'm so disappointed as someone who voted for Bill 2x before, stood up in conversation for her family, and supported this party. We were SUPPOSED to be getting rid of this ill-feeling Rovian crap and they're just as bad as anything anyone could say about Bush & Co keeping lies and distortions going to this degree.

If the Dem nominee is not Edwards or Obama, my vote will be for McCain if he's on or whatever best non-Dem. There is no way in ten lifetimes I'm ever EVER supporting any Clinton again. Never. Ran this season into the toilet with their antics. She's so polarizing and divisive Republicans look on and say "Ha! We told you so..."

[TheKiddy]

The Clintons certainly are not behaving. So, where I didn't support Hillary before, and after a blip of sympathy when Obama said "you are nice enough Hillary" in New Hampshire I can't support her now (in part because of the kind of game she, her husband et al are playing, I don't like Obama's ties to the nuclear energy lobby and his inclusion of nuclear at the big table he always talks about in his energy plan when we have no way whatsoever of getting rid of nuclear waste, and I don't like his not-so-universal healthcare plan, and I don't like his voting for the Patriot Act, and I believe his economic stimulus plan is inadequate, and I don't like his handing out brochures saying what a great Christian he is to get votes, and I don't think he is serious or clear enough on Iraq (not in 2002 but now) to get us out quickly and cleanly. So, what is a good Democrat to do? Many of you might say, vote for John Edwards. But, will the media allow me to?

What a mess. You know what? Clinton doesn't play fair (of course neither will the Republicans in the General Election) and I don't like Obama's middle of the road stance and Christian this and that, I think I will go with John Edwards anyway.

What the heck, right? He is on the right side of the nuclear question, he is on the right side of the economy, he actually cares about poor people and giving the working poor and middle class a fighting chance, he even wrote Hillary's universal health care plan pretty much. I know he isn't a person of color and I know he isn't a woman. As a person who has spent most of her careeer working for access and equality of opportunity, especially in education, and who is a serious feminist, it is a bummer. But they aren't behaving and John is and he will know how to fight the Republicans without getting lost in the dirt. Decision made.

[S1m0n]

Hillary's entire campaign is founded upon a lie: the claim of 'experience'. She doesn't have any that's especially relevant, so what she's really running on is her husband's experience, not hers.

She wants the world to think she's Margaret Thatcher, but the plain truth is that she's nothing but Eva Peron.

When the going got tough in her campaign, she hid behind Bill's ability as a campaigner. So she's running on Bill experience and Bill's campaign ability. The only thing she's done for herself in all this is to cry on cue.

And that's hardly presidential, is it? What's she going to do when a crisis hits the US while she's in office? Send Bill out to lob a stinkbomb, or cry? As far as this campaign has shown so far, that's her range. Think it'll work on Putin? Yeah, me neither.

[Countess]

We are all witnessing a pathetic spectacle of the classic dirty campaign without limits on behalf of people so desperate for power they are willing to destroy anyone blocking their path. Richard Nixon must be laughing in his grave watching Bill and Hillary slime to a degree he never thought possible.

[hopeless277]

Amen. You definately reflect my feelings. When Hillary is crowned Queen of America, I feel the last nail will have been hammered into the coffin of this country. Say goodnight, Gracie.