Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, a Democrat, and Marco Rubio, a Republican, have found a use for the news stories written about them in national newspapers: fundraising.
On Wednesday, Clinton campaign chair John Podesta sent out an email to supporters to solicit donations. Included in the note was an excerpt from a Washington Post story about “how cheap” Clinton’s campaign is running.
The story, by the Post’s Anne Gearan, covered how Clinton campaign staffers have to use their own cellphones for work and are expected to be frugal. Podesta, according to the story, rides the bus between New York and Washington, D.C., to save money.
“Did you see the Washington Post yesterday morning?,” Podesta wrote in the email to Clinton’s supporters. “You have my word that we’re going to use your grassroots donations as wisely as we can to help make Hillary Clinton the 45th president of the United States. That means no luxury travel, no fancy office furniture, and no overpriced phone systems that we don’t need.”
It asks for donations of “even just $1.”
Asked by the Washington Examiner media desk if she knew that the Clinton campaign was attempting to fundraise off her story, Gearan said, “Yikes. Of course, I have no connection to anything the campaign does with any story.”
Similarly, Marco Rubio sent out two emails to supporters in recent days that referred to stories about him in The New York Times, one about his past traffic violations and another about his finances. Those stories were more negative than the Post article on Clinton’s campaign.
“Look, I know these attacks are part of running for president, but the fact remains that we can’t rely on the media to tell our campaign’s story,” Rubio said in an email on Tuesday. “And that’s why I need your help.” Included was a link to donate to his campaign.
Rubio even set up a landing page on his campaign website that calls on his supporters to “help Marco fight back against the elitist liberal media” by signing up to receive campaign-related emails.
Rubio raised $100,000 off his emails that referred to the Times reports, according to Politico.
“We’re not commenting on any of this,” said Michael Barbaro, a Times reporter who wrote one of the stories on Rubio.
