Senator Clinton (NOT) to Appear at Mason

By Connect Mason Reporter Rachael Dickson.

Northern Virginia Democratic blog Not Larry Sabato announced that Democratic presidential candidate Senator Hillary Clinton will be coming to Northern Virginia this Thursday. At one point, blogger Ben Tribbett said that the site of the visit would be George Mason University. Although he has updated the blog since, saying that the location might be changed, George Mason University Press Secretary Dan Walsch, head of Media Relations, said today that Clinton would be at Mason Thursday, probably in the morning.

UPDATE: As now confirmed by Walsch this morning (Jan. 6), Clinton will not be appearing at Mason, but instead elsewhere in the Northern Virginia area on Thursday of this week.

Correspondence with Not Larry Sabato suggested that Mason administration sent out an email while Clinton's campaign office was still only looking at possible locations.

When asked, Walsch said he never personally received any emails concerning Clinton's office considering Mason, and that information has traveled mostly by word of mouth.

Bookmark/Search this post with:

Posted In

News

Submitted by Managing Director on Tue, 02/05/2008 - 16:15.

Planning for candidates

Not really my job to comment but having been involved in the planning for the Clinton event and the preparation for possible visits by Hillary and Obama, I would question the comment about Mason Admin jumping the gun. Not sure where the comment originated from as it's inaccurate. Simply put the campaigns contacted Mason about possible visits and the appropriate personnel began planning based on plans put together to handle events in various venues. The campaigns chose not to hold their events at Mason until the Bill Clinton appearance last night happened-an event pulled off with less than 24 hours notice. Much of the planning for the possible appearances by Obama and Hillary made last night's event work smoothly. The campaigns are responsible for the scheduling-the University simply did it's job to prepare for making the venue available, to have the appropriate security and safety plans in effect in conjunction with the Secret Service, and all the countless tasks involved in planning a campaign event-something I was involved with for the better part of a decade so I certaintly appreciate the hard work of many at Mason from those in the student organizations to the personnel in Safety, Police, Events Production, University Relations, Parking, and others. It would be nice to see some understanding of how things work before making simplistic and inaccurate comments like the Admin jumped the gun.

GMU Parking and... | Tue, 02/12/2008 - 09:39

Mason Admin Jumped the Gun

However, if that email had been sent it would have been forwarded to Connect to Mason.

It is my understanding based on multiple sources and direct observation that what happened is that GMU admin jumped the gun and that no one bothers to confirm facts anymore.

What occurred was that the Clinton campaign called GMU along with many other venues to begin the process of selecting a revenue.

GMU admin began calling student leaders looking for potential assistance or at the minimum a student org to "sponsor" the event...people then went to print without any confirmation and I have no idea why Dan Walsch was confirming a story that was never, at any point confirmed or official.

The location wasn't changed...it was never Mason.

Nate de la Piedra | Sat, 02/09/2008 - 23:52