Hillary Clinton’s campaign caught some flack on social media this weekend after reporters were corralled behind a moving rope line as she marched in an Independence Day parade Saturday in Gorham, New Hampshire.
Clinton made a swing through the first-in-the-nation primary state over the holiday weekend to meet with grassroots organizers and march in the parade. But it was her campaign’s treatment of the press that is once again causing a stir.
Clinton advance aides create a rope line for the press, moving with the candidate pic.twitter.com/9S7CpVt7x4
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) July 4, 2015As the Democratic presidential candidate set out on the mile-long parade route, she was hounded by press and a handful of protesters screaming about Benghazi, making it difficult for residents to see her. That prompted campaign aides to break out a length of white rope, which they held up as barrier between the press and Clinton, according to pool reports. Reporters were unable to hear Clinton’s interactions with supporters.
Clinton’s campaign did not immediately respond to msnbc’s request for comment.
Jennifer Horn, the chairwoman of the New Hampshire Republican Party, called the rope line a “sad joke” that “insults the traditions of our First-in-the-Nation primary.”
“Hillary Clinton continues to demonstrate her obvious contempt and disdain for the Granite State’s style of grassroots campaigning,” Horn added in a statement.
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“While the GOP may want to spin a good yarn on this, let’s not get tied up in knots,” Clinton campaign spokesman Nick Merrill said in a statement to CNN. “We wanted to accommodate the press, allow her to greet voters and allow the press to be right there in the parade with her as opposed to preset locations. And that’s what we did.” Press access has been a perennial issue of Clinton’s second presidential campaign, and poor relations with the media were a hallmark of her first campaign. Clinton shrugged off the protesters when asked about them at another campaign stop. “I’m just having a good time meeting everybody,” she said. Clinton recently marched in the Memorial Day Parade in her hometown of Chappaqua, New York, where no rope was used, though a smaller press corps turned out.
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