Clinton Campaign Disguises Negative Flier As Product of Edwards Campaign

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Iowans don’t like negative attacks. Time and again, when I was in Iowa chatting with attendees at Republican and Democratic events, I was told by voters that the “mudslinging” that goes on “in Washington” wasn’t of any concern to them. They were less likely to vote for a candidate if he or she went negative, even if that candidate had a legitimate critique of his or her rivals.

So if you’re Hillary Clinton and you want to point out that Barack Obama’s health care proposal isn’t as strong as yours, what can you do? How about putting out a flier that looks like it was created by the John Edwards campaign?

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) is supporting Hillary Clinton. A recent flier that AFSCME put out in Iowa says, “For those without insurance, Barack Obama’s band-aid solution is no change at all.” Obama “claims his health care plan covers everyone, but his proposal does not match his words… Instead, Obama took the timid way out, offering yet another band-aid solution.”

That’s substantially more false than true. The Obama plan represents a significant change from the status quo, and if implemented successfully, will greatly increase the number of people with health insurance while simultaneously lowering the cost of coverage. However, the plan does not have a mandate, which means that some people could wiggle out of the system and remain uncovered. The Clinton and Edwards plans do have mandates, though the Edwards plan is widely seen as having better mechanisms for enforcing that mandate.

But when the flier concludes, “Barack Obama’s plan is just more of the same,” that’s dishonest.

Hillary Clinton won’t be taking any guff for it, however, because somehow her name is left off the flier completely. Instead, the flier quotes John Edwards as saying that “as many as 15 million Americans would be without coverage” under Obama’s plan. That’s a figure Clinton has repeatedly used; if the campaign had wanted to (or if AFSCME had wanted to), they could have easily used a Clinton quote.

Edwards, who has attacked Clinton before but usually declines to go negative on Obama, must hate that he’s being dragged into this. His campaign released a statement saying, “It’s fine to have an honest debate about policy, but Iowans deserve better than planted questions and campaign fliers designed to fool them.”

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate