Sean Higgins reports on the Washington Examiner that Hillary Clinton’s campaign repeatedly changed policy positions to avoid ticking off labor unions. Higgins writes:
Now-public internal emails from Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign detail how the staffers managed the candidate’s policy statements and even policy positions in an effort curry favor with labor leaders. All statements were vetted and scrubbed of anything that the union chiefs might object to.
On at least one issue, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a major trade deal negotiated the Obama administration, emails show how the campaign reversed position on the matter to win labor’s support. The emails also detail how the campaign plotted to make it look as though new details about TPP forced her to switch — well before those details were available to the public or the campaign.
“We don’t have the language yet or much documentation to fall back that she will be able to credibly say she reviewed and then therefore weighed in on. If she weighs in now, without viewing the document, some in labor might wonder why she didn’t just say she opposed earlier?” Nikki Budzinski, Clinton’s labor outreach director, pointed out in a Oct. 6, 2015 email, since obtained and released by WikiLeaks. Her concerns were overruled by campaign manager John Podesta.
In other cases, the emails feature the staff ensuring that only union-friendly spin came out of the campaign. When the Supreme Court, for example, announced in June 2015 that it would hear a case called Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association,with major implications for whether public sector workers could be forced to pay union fees even if they didn’t want to, it took staffers several email exchanges before they could agree on a single tweet for Clinton to make.
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