WhatFinger


But is this the sort of thing that will resonate?

VIDEO: James O'Keefe catches Hillary's staff breaking campaign laws



In one sense, what you're about to see is as classic Clinton as it gets. You know the law, but you come up with a kinda sorta technical way to skirt it while still being able to claim you "techically" stayed within in. And at any rate, you figure, it's small potatoes and no one will care anyway. Let those silly Republicans try to make an issue of this, you figure, and you'll score far more point beating them up for being silly than they'll ever score pointing out that you broke the law.
If that's not straight out of the Clinton playbook, I don't know what is. Then again, because that playbook has worked for decades, are James O'Keefe and Project Veritas merely playing on Hillary's turf by giving us this? Just to quickly sum up what happens here: The woman who wants to buy the shirt is Canadian. We don't know how the two high-level Hillary staffers know that. Maybe she mentioned it in passing, although she's not part of Project Veritas so at least according to O'Keefe she was not part of any sting. At any rate, Hillary staffers Tibe and Barker clearly know that it's illegal for them to sell her a shirt because it would constitute a contribution from a foreign national. (I think that's a weird rule, but that's the rule.) So instead of just outright selling the Canadian woman the shirt, they let her hand the $20 bill she was going to use to buy the shirt to a woman nearby - who does work for Project Veritas, although presumably the Hillary staffers don't know that - and let her buy the shirt, then promptly give it to the Canadian woman.

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That's clearly a violation of the law. All that really happened was the Canadian woman handed the money to the American woman and essentially asked her to hand it to Molly Barker. It's no different than if you're at a ballgame and you're asked to hand somebody's money to the vendor, who in turn hands you the hot dog to hand to the guy who bought it. It doesn't mean you bought the hot dog. The bigger question, though, is whether this is likely to resonate or many any kind of difference in terms of how voters see Hillary. You can certainly argue that she's responsible for setting a tone of lawlessness for her campaign, and that this behavior is consistent with the way she skirted rules and laws with her homebrew e-mail server at the State Department. Who would hire people whose first instinct is to find a way around the law rather than honoring it? Hillary Clinton. That's an easy one. But there are some problems here. First of all, the fact that the woman who was handed the $20 bill actually works for Project Veritas gives the Hillary people a "we were set up" talking point, however disingenuous. That's certainly not going to stop them from using it. Second, who do you think is going to be influenced in their view of Hillary by the stunning revelation that her staff doesn't always follow the letter of the law? Are there really people out there who are prepared to vote for Hillary on the mistaken assumption that she conducts herself in an honest and forthright manner, and would be stunned to learn this is not true? And after somehow missing all the other evidence that Hillary is a dishonest person, this is the smoking gun that's going to turn them thumbs-down on her? And even if there were people like that, how are they ever going to hear about this? The mainstream media won't cover it, which means it will be relegated to conservative sites read mainly by people who already can't stand Hillary. I suppose some non-political types might see it in their Facebook or Twitter feeds, but really, is this going to be the first time they ever saw something screaming "Hillary breaks the law"? If the notion didn't interest them before, why would it now? Finally, the rule itself and the violation thereof seem unlikely to elicit horror among common people. You mean if I was working that booth I would have to ask everyone who wants to buy a shirt about their citizenship status? How could you possibly know? Accepting money under the table from a well-known foreign high-roller is one thing. Selling a t-shirt to a woman from Montreal? That's your big scandal? I think that's how a lot of people will see it. O'Keefe hints at the end that he's got more in his back pocket, so maybe this is just a warmup. But I don't know. If the goal is to convince people that Hillary's running a lawless campaign, I can't imagine it will move the needle much. And if all the evidence is stuff like this, it could actually backfire by letting Hillary's people claim they're being nitpicked to death by a conservative muckraker who specializes in entrapment.


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Dan Calabrese -- Bio and Archives

Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain

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