Clinton team will shut down protests

Hillary Clinton's aides are assembling a 40-person "whip team" to keep her supporters from disrupting the convention next week.

Published August 21, 2008 1:16AM (EDT)

If any Hillary Clinton supporters hope to disrupt the Democratic convention next week to express their ire, they'll have to get through Hillary Clinton to do it.

Politico reports that Clinton's campaign is putting together a 40-person "whip team" to quickly shut down any protests before they become vocal enough for the TV cameras to catch. "If people get down there on the floor and want to start blowing kazoos and making a scene, we want to make sure we've got people who stand in front of them with Obama signs," someone involved in the planning told the paper.

But officials may wind up chasing down some people they had just handed materials to. The story goes on to say: "Clinton spokesperson Kathleen Strand emphasized the team would not seek to convince delegates to vote for the former first lady, but would hand out Clinton signs to supporters who requested them."

At least that should make it easy to figure out where to send the whip team to shut the demonstrations down.


By Mike Madden

Mike Madden is Salon's Washington correspondent. A complete listing of his articles is here. Follow him on Twitter here.

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