Another Question Planted by Clinton Campaign

An Ill. minister tells ABC News that a staffer asked him to pose a war question.

ByABC News
November 10, 2007, 4:09 PM

Nov. 10, 2007— -- One day after Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign confirmed that a staffer planted a question for the presidential candidate at a recent campaign stop, another person has come forward with a similar story.

Geoff Mitchell, a minister who recently moved to Hamilton, Ill., from Iowa, told ABC News that he was approached this spring by Clinton's Iowa political director Chris Haylor to ask Clinton a question about war funding.

Mitchell, 32, said that the request "did not sit well with me in the tradition of the Iowa caucus."

"I grew up in Iowa and I value the tradition of the caucuses of answering the questions of the people," Mitchell said.

Mitchell said he introduced himself to Haylor because he had heard of him before and knew that he had worked on Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh's campaign.

Before the campaign event, Haylor asked Mitchell if he would pose a specific question about Iraq. The question was about how Clinton would be tough on President Bush about funding the Iraq war, Mitchell said.

The event, however, ran out of time before reaching a question-and-answer period.

Mitchell said he figured that the Clinton campaign was looking for an opportunity to highlight the difference between her position on Iraq and her Democratic rival Sen. Barack Obama's position on the war.

The Clinton campaign confirmed to ABC News that Clinton's staffer and Mitchell did speak about a possible Iraq question.

"Chris Haylor and Geoff Mitchell knew each other and they started talking and the subject of Iraq came up," Clinton spokesman Mo Elleithee said, "and Chris suggested that he ask a question about Iraq."

The revelation today about a campaign-prompted question comes just one day after the Clinton campaign admitted to planting a question this week in Iowa.

That instance involved an unidentified Clinton campaign staffer who approached a female student from Grinnell College and asked her to pose a question about global warming at a campaign stop at a biodiesel plant in Newton, Iowa, on Nov. 6.