Reporters covering Hillary Clinton's campaign appearance in the Gorham, New Hampshire, July 4th parade found themselves corralled by a moving lasso held by campaign aides.
Clinton advance aides create a rope line for the press, moving with the candidate pic.twitter.com/9S7CpVt7x4
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) July 4, 2015Reporters following Hillary Clinton dragged behind an actual ropeline pic.twitter.com/0dPKTT2KpW
— Liz Kreutz (@ABCLiz) July 4, 2015"We try to allow as much access as possible, but my view is, it can't get in the way of her being able to campaign," Clinton campaign communications director Jennifer Palmieri said Monday on MSNBC's Morning Joe.
"The press is important, but they're not as important as voters," Palmieri said.
New Hampshire Republican State Committee chairwoman Jennifer Horn tried to make a rodeo's worth of hay out of the spectacle.
"Hillary Clinton continues to demonstrate her obvious contempt and disdain for the Granite State's style of grassroots campaigning," Horn said in a statement over the weekend. "The use of a rope line at a New Hampshire parade is a sad joke and insults the traditions of our first-in-the-nation primary."
Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill couldn't resist a few puns, parrying with a statement of his own: "While the GOP might want to spin a good yarn on this, let's not get tied up in knots."
The moving press pen is actually not a new invention. In 2000, Al Gore's presidential campaign did the same thing – only with gentler yellow police tape. (No rope burns!)
And savvy campaign reporters started carrying clippers.
