Team Hillary Presses Obama for Email Lists
on January 25, 2015
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As the race for 2016 shifts into gear, old conflicts are reemerging between Hillary Clinton supporters and Team Obama; this time, it's over access to Obama's massive email lists.
Amie Parnes and Niall Stanage of The Hill reported:
Obama, Clinton tensions build over email lists ahead of 2016 New tensions are emerging in the relationship between allies of President Obama and Hillary Clinton. At issue is the fate of the political equivalent of gold dust — the enormous email list, comprised of many millions of supporters and donors, that the Obama team has compiled over the course of his two presidential campaigns. The Clinton camp would dearly love to get its hands on the list, but there is no promise as yet that the president’s aides will comply. There are “large concerns” about the lists among Clinton supporters, one Hillary ally told The Hill. To the Clintons and their friends, it’s near unthinkable that a Democratic president — who has plenty of reasons to want a member of his party to succeed him — would withhold such a valuable commodity. But Team Obama has long believed that the president’s support is built upon the bedrock of his personal qualities rather than mere party identification. His people are loath to be seen as treating the passion of his supporters in a cavalier fashion. “There’s a lot of data — voter data, massive email lists — that Obama built and there are a lot of people who want to make sure that he spreads that wealth,” the Clinton ally said. “They want to make sure he doesn’t take it in a suitcase back to Chicago and move on. No one wants to see it disappear or have it used just to build a library.”Democrats are probably hoping everyone has forgotten how ugly the conflict between Hillary and Obama became during the 2008 Democratic primary. There's plenty of evidence that the rift never healed.
