The Hillary Camp's Rationale for Staying Quiet
Mar 6, 2015 6:29 AM EST
Exclusive: Sources tell Bloomberg Politics that her team is betting that the news cycle will move on—and she can answer whatever questions remain at her expected announcement.
Jennifer Epstein
by Jennifer Epstein
Hillary Clinton won’t be presiding over a soul-searching press conference or sitting down for a come-clean interview about her use of a private email address any time soon — at least if everything goes according to her team’s plan.
The former secretary of state and her advisers have decided to adopt a time-tested Clintonian approach: take a concrete step to ease the pressure, then wait out the storm, according to three sources with knowledge of her team’s approach.
Their theory is that her late Wednesday tweet asking the State Department to release the 55,000 pages of emails she provided to the agency would start to calm the media and political tempest, while giving her spokesman an easy answer to many journalists’ questions: ask State.
"It makes sense to settle in a little bit … people have very short memories."
—Chris Lehane, Democratic strategist
Clinton and her team are aware that her tactics will only hold out for so long and that she’ll eventually have to answer questions about her e-mail practices, but she and her advisers are aiming to delay that moment, ideally until she formally announces she’s running for president. At that point, they hope, the controversy will have subsided to the point where her campaign launch will be a much bigger headline than her response to a month-old scandal. An added benefit to the approach: the potential for Republicans to overreach and overreact while Clinton stays silent.
Her Rose Garden tactics, time-tested as they are, pose substantial risk. The era is different than when last they were deployed. With Congressional committees probing and the constant stoking of Twitter, the furor may not be fully extinguished by simply sitting on it. Especially with new revelations—on her emails, the Clinton Foundation or something else—there's a danger she will be faced with questions so pressing they demand immediate answers or risk derailing her presidential ambitions.
The hope of Clinton's inner circle is that she'll be able to address the e-mail controversy as a minor element of her expected announcement. Agreeing to an interview now or at any time before she’s ready to launch her campaign would be potentially detrimental, signaling that she’s shifted into damage control mode and drawing attention to an issue about which many voters are still unaware, said a former Clinton campaign aide who has knowledge of the current team’s thinking. It would also appear to challenge her aides’ assertions that she did nothing wrong.
Her long-planned public schedule through the end of the month includes a Saturday appearance at a Clinton Global Initiative University meeting in Miami, two speeches on women’s rights pegged to the release of a Clinton Foundation report, and her induction into the Irish America Hall of Fame, plus a few other events. All are expected to be carefully controlled and not include opportunities for the political press to ask questions.
Friendly analysts concur with the Clinton team's view of the situation. “The energy in this story is enormously defused by committing to release emails in some form or fashion,” said Chris Lehane, who managed the Clinton White House’s response to Whitewater and the Monica Lewinsky scandal. “Having lived through many of these, including many that were far bigger and far more serious, I would say it makes sense to settle in a little bit … people have very short memories.”
In the early stages of a crisis, it’s important “not to make any mistakes that will make the response more of a challenge,” Lehane added. “Sometimes people make mistakes if they’re under a lot of pressure.” Pacing the response gives the Clinton team more time to reexamine the facts of her email usage and to thoroughly consider any legal and political challenges.
Without a campaign team anywhere near fully formed—much less a war room in place to respond to incoming attacks—the wait-and-see approach is also somewhat of a necessity. While new staffers are quickly coming on board and a core group of advisers is discussing the response, it’s nowhere near what Clinton will have in place in a month or two.
White House communications director Jennifer Palmieri is planning to leave at the end of March to take on the same job for the Clinton campaign. In the meantime, though, she’s in the awkward position of needing to simultaneously protect the interests of her current and future bosses. She’s involved with conversations at the White House and with the Clinton team.
The three days since the New York Times broke the story of Clinton’s reliance on a clintonemail.com account may feel like an eternity to the twittering classes, but a former Clinton campaign aide insists it was barely a blip in the scheme of the presidential race, let alone to the millions of Americans who pay little attention to politics.
What’s more, at least some Clinton allies don’t think that voters will care. “Voters do not give a shit about what email Hillary used. They don't even give a fart,” Democratic strategist Paul Begala, a longtime adviser to Bill Clinton, told CNN on Thursday.
It's not surprising that Republicans, along with many political professionals, disagree. "They’re making a big mistake by not letting her come out,” said Ari Fleischer, who was White House press secretary at the start of the George W. Bush administration. "This is immediately understood and problematic in the eyes of the average voter. Everyone can relate to it and understand it … it cuts through the clutter in a way that hurts her."
If Fleischer were advising Clinton, which he certainly isn’t, he would recommend that she take three or four questions “and then is done with it,” he said. " The problem is that there’s so many questions three or four might not make it go away.”
“This is one of those issues that’s not going away anytime soon,” he added.
Mark Halperin and Lisa Lerer contributed to this report.
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-03-06/the-hillary-camp-s-rationale-for-staying-quiet
