Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Encouraged Supporters To Engage With Website – Few Did

There’s an old saying that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. For the last few months, America Rising has been using the digital annotating tool “Genius” to fact check and set the record straight in real time on Hillary Clinton’s op-eds. Real Clear Politics highlighted our efforts in a story this morning:

That’s where the campaigns and outside political groups come into the picture. America Rising, a Republican opposition super PAC that conducts research on Democratic candidates, began using Genius in May as a way to annotate and fact-check Hillary Clinton’s op-eds by highlighting certain words and linking to a primary source – a news report or a video, for example – that either refutes or adds context to a particular claim.
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Before even delving into the actual text of the op-ed, America Rising used Genius to add an annotation to the headline that linked to a Washington Post story explaining that the “everyday Iowans” were actually people hand-picked by her campaign. (They were supporters who had previously attended two different “staged roundtables.”) This was intended to call into question the line where Clinton says, “And everywhere I went, I met Iowans with great ideas for how we can get there.”

Recently, Hillary Clinton’s campaign decided to use it as well. Unfortunately, while we’ve been having success using it, Clinton’s campaign has been struggling.

Clinton’s campaign encouraged supporters to annotate her kickoff speech – their favorite lines, their thoughts, etc. But only 43 different accounts – the majority of which came from Democratic activists and former Clinton staffers – actually annotated the speech (America Rising’s was one of them – though we didn’t necessarily note our favorite parts).

A Daily Caller analysis of the other annotators reveals a lot about Clinton operatives on the site. What do you think?

The Clinton campaign’s “Hillary For America” account posted nine annotations, shilling Clinton campaign merchandise including Hillary pantsuit T-shirts.What do you think?

Clinton’s 2008 campaign press aide Audrey Gelman, now a vice president at the Democratic consulting firm SKDKnickerbocker, posted four annotations — giving background info on Clinton’s Senate career and writing, “The last president to balance the budget was….Bill Clinton.”What do you think?

Progressive consultant Tom Watson, a Clinton Global Initiative speaker and co-founder of the #HillaryMen movement supporting Clinton’s campaign, weighed in by sharing an op-ed about his manly pro-Hillary efforts.What do you think?

Raymond Penko posted three annotations, at one point urging fellow annotators to “Repeat the campaign theme: ‘Moving forward.’” It turns out Penko was a caucus precinct campaigner on Hillary’s 2008 campaign, a phone-banker for Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign, and did data assessment for the “HRC Super Volunteers,” a group aiding the Clinton campaign. (RELATED: Here Are The Words Hillary Volunteers Won’t Let You Say).What do you think?

Adam Smith, communications director for the Washington-based left-wing campaign reform group Public Campaign, weighed in with two annotations. Smith responded to a Clinton talking point about a “basic bargain” by saying, “I just really like this line.” When Clinton said government reform would be one of her four fights, Smith replied, “I love that this is one of the four fights.”What do you think?

Dan Berger, who weighed in with a pair of annotations, runs a high-tech hospitality company that counts the U.S. State Department as a customer. Berger also used to work for a certain congressman.What do you think?

“After graduating from New York City’s Hunter College in 2004, he became a Special Assistant in the U.S. House of Representatives where he was described as ‘bright, energetic and hard-working’ by the Congressman he served,” according to Berger’s bio.What do you think?

That congressman, he failed to mention, was named Anthony Weiner — serial sexter and husband of Hillary Clinton’s right-hand aide Huma Abedin.What do you think?

Then there were some journalists.