The world is full of sinners and saints. But for 2008 Democratic Presidential candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the “sinners” of the Democratic Party are forever ingrained in the minds of former aides and confidants, making up Clinton’s “special circle of hell.”
In an explosive excerpt from the new book, “HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton,” authors Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes detail a “hit list” of sorts created by Clinton’s campaign team during her 2008 run for the White House. Designed to keep track of Clinton’s most loyal supporters and political Benedict Arnolds, Democratic members of Congress earned themselves a ranking from a one, for those who were most helpful, to a seven, for those deemed “most treacherous.”
“For Hillary, whose loss was of course not the end of her political career, the spreadsheet was a necessity of modern political warfare, an improvement on what old-school politicians called a ‘favor file,'” the excerpt reads. “It meant that when asks rolled in, she and Bill would have at their fingertips all the information needed to make a quick decision—including extenuating, mitigating and amplifying factors—so that friends could be rewarded and enemies punished.”
According to a member of the former New York senator’s campaign, the list, documented in the form of a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet and memorized by Clinton aides, noted those who endorsed then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and who endorsed Clinton. But it went into even more detail, including those who “understandably didn’t endorse us because they are [Congressional Black Caucus] members or Illinois members” and those who “burned her” — i.e. endorsed Obama but should’ve sided with Clinton.
“There was a special circle of Clinton hell reserved for people who had endorsed Obama or stayed on the fence after Bill and Hillary had raised money for them, appointed them to a political post or written a recommendation to ice their kid’s application to an elite school,” Allen and Parnes write.
Check out the 9 Democrats who received sevens, collectively making up Clinton’s “special circle of hell.”
1. Rep. Rob Andrews (N.J.)
2. Sen. Bob Casey (Penn.)
3. Former Rep. Baron Hill (Ind.)
4. Former Sen. Ted Kennedy (Mass.)
5. Secretary of State and former Sen. John Kerry (Mass.)
6. Sen. Patrick Leahy (Vt.)
7. Sen. Claire McCaskill (Mo.)
8. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (W.V.)
9. Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.)
