BY: Elizabeth Harrington Follow @LizWFB
October 18, 2016 5:00 am
Adviser from 1992 campaign laid out ‘relentless,’ ‘coordinated’ oppo strategy
The 1992 Clinton presidential campaign was
not about promoting Bill Clinton’s accomplishments or vision but about tarnishing President George H.W. Bush, according to a close aide of the campaign.
A memo written by Derek Shearer to Bill, Hillary Clinton, and senior campaign aides in April 1992 laid out the
“ATTACK, ATTACK, ATTACK†strategy.
“[It] is my firm belief that in order to win we must ATTACK,†wrote Shearer, an adviser to the campaign. “Elections are not contests between cool, rational decision-making, as you all know.â€
Shearer, who later became ambassador to Finland under the Clinton administration
after telling Bill and Hillary a “political debt†was owed, described Bush as the Clintons’ “enemy.â€â€œThe only strategy that I know that has a chance of success is:
ATTACK, ATTACK, ATTACK—at all levels, relentlessly, without let-up, from now until election day,†he said.
The strategy was deployed in 1992, as Clinton confidantes Sidney Blumenthal and Cody Shearer, Derek’s brother, worked to dig up dirt and place attack pieces in the press on Bush and independent candidate Ross Perot.
Blumenthal was behind an attack that suggested Perot was anti-Semitic and had hired a private eye to investigate his daughter’s fiancée.
The Clintons hired a private investigator themselves to attack Bill Clinton’s sexual accusers. Jack Palladino was paid $100,000 in 1992 by the campaign to investigate two-dozen Clinton accusers. Palladino informed the campaign that he would attack Gennifer Flowers, who Clinton later admitted to having an affair with, by “impeach[ing] her character and veracity until she is destroyed beyond all recognition.â€
http://freebeacon.com/politics/clinton-campaign-strategy-decades-attack-attack-attack/Hillary Clinton’s Democratic primary campaign also utilized negative strategies against Barack Obama in 2008.
