January 16, 2008

Clinton Campaign Uses Top Lobbyist for Post-Debate Spin

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Mark Schmitt over at TAPPED has a great grab. After yesterday’s Democratic debate in Nevada, the three campaigns each sent a top surrogate to MSNBC to try and spin Chris Matthews and his audience. Edwards sent Joe Trippi, his top strategist, and Obama send David Alexrod, his top strategist. But Clinton didn’t send Mark Penn; she sent former Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater. Things were moving along in standard fashion until

Matthews out of nowhere said, “Mr. Slater, I just noticed that you’re a lawyer at Patton, Boggs. That’s Tommy Boggs’s lobbying firm. Are you a lobbyist?” “We’re a full-service law firm, Chris.” And then a little more, and Matthews says, “I just want to be clear about this: Do you do any lobbying?” “I have done a little lobbying, but I’m an attorney. We’re a full-service law firm. We offer our clients the full package.”

For the record, Washingtonian puts Slater at #39 in its list of 50 top lobbyists.

Nice.

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