Silent Chelsea Clinton Brushes Off 9-Year-Old Reporter on Campaign Trail
Dec. 30: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., right and daughter Chelsea greet an audience in Vinton, Iowa. (AP Photo)
VINTON, Iowa — It’s one thing for Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign to turn down interview requests for the candidate’s daughter, Chelsea. But can’t a 9-year-old reporter catch a break?
Sydney Rieckhoff, a Cedar Rapids fourth grader and “kid reporter” for Scholastic News, has posed questions to seven Republican and Democratic presidential hopefuls as they’ve campaigned across Iowa this year. But when she approached the 27-year-old Chelsea after a campaign event Sunday, she got a different response.
“Do you think your dad would be a good ‘first man’ in the White House?” Sydney asked, but Chelsea brushed her question aside.
“I’m sorry, I don’t talk to the press and that applies to you, unfortunately. Even though I think you’re cute,” Chelsea told the pint-sized journalist.
Such is the paradox of Chelsea as she campaigns across Iowa in the closing days before the state’s caucuses Jan. 3.
Tall and attractive, Chelsea cuts an impressive figure on the campaign trail; she plunges enthusiastically into the crowd after her mother’s speeches, shaking hands and posing for pictures while asking, “Are you going to caucus for my mom?”
But onstage, Chelsea never speaks; she stands next to her mother and applauds but utters not a single sentence and doesn’t even say hello. And reporters covering the campaign have been put on notice that Chelsea is not available to speak to them. An aide follows the former first daughter as she works the crowd, shushing reporters who approach her and try to ask any questions.
Famously protective of their daughter’s privacy, Bill and Hillary Clinton have taken pains to shield Chelsea from the harsh glare and rough edges of presidential politics. She stayed largely absent from her mother’s campaign until December, when she made her first visit to Iowa.
For her part, Sydney looked a bit crestfallen after Chelsea turned her away. But luckily for Hillary Clinton, Sydney’s mother has made up her mind to caucus for the former first lady.
“I like her position on family values and health care. And I think it’s time we have a female president,” Robyn Rieckhoff said.
If Chelsea is so famously protected and the press is never allowed to interview or ask her questions then why was she even brought into the campaign to stump for her Mom!!?? This is pure spin and underhanded.
Chelsea is not necessarily attractive, rather plain in fact, and quite arrogant…with this little girl and when famously answering “…none of your business.”
Like mother like daughter. She thinks she’s royality!! A royal cry-baby or snob???
A 27 year old woman should not have to be “protected” by Mom & Dad.
After all neither of them were very protective of other young women, do I need to name a few??
How is Hillary for Family Values? Where does the allowance of 1.5 abortions per year in this country reflect family values? What “family” thinks this is a good idea?
To Jo, John and any others who state that drunken beer goggles was used on Chelsea, she is a beautiful young lady. Give her that credit. so her last name is Clinton. She went to college, she has earned her degree. What have you accomplished. Trashing political candidates. FOCUS on the important issues. Who is going to get healthcare, WHO is going to get the price of gas down. Anyone that is running. I don’t know. We are more concerned with race and Whoa is me, i am a female vote for me, I am a black vote for me, I am a vet vote for me. Show me how you are going to get healthcare and drop the price of fuel. Don’t just SAY you have a plan. I am tired of a black man saying he can do it and then focusing on the race, saying things about his white grandmother. I wonder how she feels? I am tired of a female saying she can do it because she was in the white house once. SHOW me don’t just say it. I am tired of a vet because he was in viet nam SHOW me. NO ONE is showing only saying “I have a plan”.
Leave the kids alone, they are not the one running, how about your kids should we check on them.