Clinton Campaigners Being Trained To Push Unconvinced Voters To Poor Ol' Martin O'Malley
In the past politics has been called a game of chess, a dirty game, a blood sport. This year, we’ve decided to throw it all out the window; right now, presidential politics in the U.S. look a whole lot more like a giant, boring math equation.
According to a report by Buzzfeed published Saturday evening, stumpers supporting Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton have been directing voters who can’t commit to their own candidate to former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley in Iowa this weekend ahead of the caucuses. The move is an effort to take away votes from Clinton’s biggest opponent, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
One of Clinton’s 4,000 caucus captains told Buzzfeed about the strategy in Iowa, showing off an iPhone app that allowed them to track voters whom they should divert to ol’ sadsack O’Malley.
A precinct captain, Jerome Lehtola, confirmed to BuzzFeed News that the campaign has trained precinct captains to release supporters to O’Malley if the move can make him “viable” without hurting Clinton. A Clinton aide said the campaign has trained more than 4,000 volunteer precinct captains to handle a host of different scenarios, including ones where caucus-goers are released to or recruited from another camp.
This is by no means a new strategy, and has been used in the past by many candidates facing Iowa’s complex caucus system.
The Sanders campaign called the move “sad and telling,” while we can only assume that O’Malley, who is currently polling at 3 percent, is just happy to be here.
