With just days before the Iowa caucuses Hillary Clinton really doesn’t need any bad PR right now. But, that’s exactly what she got this weekend thanks to her daughter Chelsea.
Leave it to the media to run with an obscure story… but, hey, facts are facts. The Clinton brouhaha took place at a campaign event yesterday. Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton has just wrapped up a speaking engagement in Iowa when 9-year-old Sydney Rieckoff, a fourth grader from Cedar Rapids and an official “kid reporter” for Scholastic News tried to approach her.
The pint-sized reporter reportedly couldn’t get to Hillary Clinton so she figured she would settle for the next best thing—-an interview with Clinton’s 27-year-old daughter Chelsea who has been a fixture on her mom’s campaign in the last month.
Unfortunately, Rieckhoff couldn’t catch a break with the younger Clinton either. According to news reports, when the cub reporter asked Chelsea, “Do you think your dad would be a good ‘first man’ in the White House?” the Bill and Hillary’s daughter brushed her off.
Mind you the young Scholastic News reporter has already interviewed seven Republican and Democratic presidential hopefuls as they’ve campaigned across Iowa this year. And up until yesterday, Rieckoff says never has a candidate or one of their offspring given her the cold shoulder.
“I’m sorry, I don’t talk to the press and that applies to you, unfortunately,” Chelsea reportedly told the pint-sized journalist.
Today a number of news outlets came down hard on the younger Clinton saying that in the closing days before the Iowa caucuses on January 3rd she could have cut the kid reporter a little slack.
However, some of the professional news reporters who witnessed the Clinton exchange noted that they were not surprised by Chelsea’s response to the eager fourth grader. They say while she has been by her mom’s side for many campaign stops she never speaks; she stands next to her mother and applauds but never utters not a single sentence not even a hello. Also, reporters covering the campaign say they have been put on notice that Chelsea is not available to speak to them. One newspaper reporter noted that an aide follows the former first daughter as she works the crowd, shushing reporters who approach her and try to ask any questions.
Apparently, they didn’t get to a certain enthusiastic 9-year-old in time.
What do you make of the incident? Do you think Chelsea should have answered the little girl’s question?
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