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Opinion: More reaction to Clinton’s planted question

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Without directly criticizing Hillary Clinton -- he didn’t have to -- Barack Obama declared today that his campaign has never and would never use planted questions in its public forums.

Speaking to reporters in Nashua, New Hampshire, the freshman Illinois senator said planting rigged questions among crowd members is “not a practice that we’ve ever engaged in and it’s not a practice that we ever plan to engage in.”

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Over the weekend, as reported here Friday night, Clinton staff were forced to admit that they had planted at least one question with a student at a public forum in Newton, Iowa, last week. To watch a video of the rigged question and Clinton’s perfectly formatted response, click here.

On Saturday, former Sen. John Edwards said his campaign does not stage questions and criticized Clinton, saying, ‘That’s what George Bush does.’

Obama was asked about it today. “When I go into a town hall meeting,’ Obama said, ‘I never know what questions to expect and that’s a good thing because the people of New Hampshire should expect that their candidates are going to hear what’s on the voters’ minds and not what’s been concocted by the candidate’s staff.’ Obama said he actually learns more from unexpected questions and has been stumped at times and then goes to learn the answers. Here’s a video of his response.

--Andrew Malcolm

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