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For 57 minutes on Thursday night, America saw Hillary Clinton deliver a polished primetime acceptance speech, interrupted only by positive chants and cheers from the hall.
And for two weeks leading up to those 57 minutes, the most pivotal of the Democratic National Convention, a tightly organized hierarchy of delegates, floor "whips," floor captains, and regional coordinators honed a system unseen by viewers at home to counter hecklers in real-time and track and intercept rumored protests, aided by secret allies in the ranks of agitated Bernie Sanders delegates.
The whip operation relied on the same strict preparation and careful execution that Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook has made his trademark, according to details provided by two operatives involved, including a state floor captain.
Some Sanders delegates were recruited to act as moles, sniffing out plans for demonstrations on various pro-Sanders email and chat threads, the floor captain said. Over GroupMe, a messaging app, alerts went out about what to look for, including rumored plots to disrupt Clinton’s speech by ringing cowbells, throwing toilet paper, blocking doors, and lying down in the aisles of the Wells Fargo Center.
The floor captains for each state briefed their delegates on what to do in the case of near every possible protest: banners stashed under chairs to block disruptive Bernie-or-Bust delegates, signs distributed across the floor to outnumber anti-Clinton posters and t-shirts in the crowd.
“None of it was intimidation or muscular or silencing. It was all just preparation,” the floor captain said. “You’re gonna chant? We’re gonna chant louder. You’re gonna have a banner. We’re gonna have a bigger banner.” A lone heckler? “We had them surrounded.”
The orders came from regional coordinators stationed in the boiler room, the campaign's headquarters for the duration of the convention, down to each state's floor captains, the supporters tasked with managing delegates, maintaining the best visuals in their section of the hall, and running a team of floor whips. In the lead-up to Thursday's speech, floor captains were subjected to surprise dress rehearsal drills, testing out each state's response to a disruptive pro-Sanders scenario.
Delegates were told to respond immediately to boos or heckling with chants, prompted by a phonetic GroupMe command: chant “HILL-A-REE," the command read.
“As soon as it started, we knew what we must do, and every delegate knew what they must do,” the floor whip said. Instantly, the Clinton delegates in the state nearest the heckler received the text, raised their signs, and chanted.
In the arena, the effect of the operation was a series of chants from small pockets of the crowd at random and occasionally ill-timed points in Thursday’s speech, causing Clinton to pause as the chants caught on across the hall.
Many of the loudest hecklers came from Sanders’ California delegation. To prepare, the campaign sent 50 Clinton delegates to the Wells Fargo Center to stand in line and reserve seats, ensuring the section had a heavy Clinton presence up front.
The campaign employed a similar operation during the Rules Committee meeting last weekend, implementing three tiers of safeguards to ensure delegates voted according to plan: a GroupMe chat, a system of hand signals (two fingers for yes, one for no), and a code word embedded in the testimony Clinton supporters gave on behalf of every amendment.
The whip team was put together by David Huynh, the campaign's director of delegate operations and ballot access, with help from the Sanders campaign aides, who repeatedly encouraged the senator’s supporters to soften their protests amid tensions over the leaked emails from the Democratic National Committee.
On at least one occasion during the convention, floor whips had to unveil a “Stronger Together” banner, blocking a group of progressives holding “Oligarch” signs. In the end, the campaign did not have to deploy its largest banner.
"It's not that we were expecting anything," the floor captain said. "It was that we prepared for anything."
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