As you may have heard, Hillary Clinton is running for president and she “announced” this already long-known fact Sunday with the release of a two-minute online video in which the candidate herself isn’t seen or heard until the 1:30 mark.
Personally, I hated the video. Too highly produced, too phony, too little of the candidate and almost zero of the candidate standing for anything. “When families are strong, America is strong.” “Everyday Americans need a champion and I want to be that champion so you can do more than just get by, you can get ahead and stay ahead.” “So I’m hitting the road to earn your vote.”
The closest she comes in her pitifully few “remarks” is: “Americans have fought their way back from tough economic times. But the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top.” Eventually, she will presumably make some suggestions for laws and policies that will change the way the deck is stacked.
The first minute and a half is a collage of ordinary people of all genders, races, ages and affectional preferences saying sweet “real people” things and doing their best to reek of ordinariness. (I should mention that the inclusion of gay couple getting married is perhaps the other closest thing in the video to associating Clinton with a policy position.)
OK, she’s now officially in. I’m ready for something a bit more substantive.
P.S. New Yorker-based satirist Andy Borowitz “reports” that “Hillary Clinton has followed up the official announcement of her candidacy with a new campaign ad featuring nothing but kittens.”
Hillary
“…Personally, I hated the video. Too highly produced, too phony, too little of the candidate and almost zero of the candidate standing for anything.”
Amen to that.
And yet, as Jonathan Chait suggests in a Sunday piece in New York magazine, “…she is the candidate of the only major American political party not run by lunatics.” What Mr. Chait left out of the sentence was the word “likely,” as in, “She is the likely candidate of the only major American political party…”
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/04/why-hillary-clinton-is-probably-going-to-win.html
She’s hardly my favorite possibility on the Democratic side, but most of those I’d like better either aren’t going to run, or have positions that make them unelectable, at least for the Oval Office. Nonetheless, at the moment I don’t see any alternative(s) on the Republican side, and as an independent voter, I’d like to.
Chait is being somewhere between charitable and realistic by labeling the GOP as a party “…run by lunatics.” Republicans who want to win the party nomination are going to have to cater to the party’s lunatic fringe, thereby denying climate change, massive income inequity, and supporting the ongoing corporatization of the nation’s government, as well as the smoke-and-mirrors policies of voodoo/supply side economics.
That way lies disaster.
Why are you surprised?
“Too highly produced, too phony, too little of the candidate and almost zero of the candidate standing for anything.” This is what she is.
Her campaign has already held at least one private, off the record meeting with select journalists to lay down the ground rules for covering her campaign.
the only way to do it…..
This is the only way that the coronation could be announced. Can you image her screeching out her vanilla message in a large room with delusional supporters.
That voice would have turned half the electorate to the GOP.
Hey Dems, please do not rent out the nearest NFL stadium with the plastic Greek columns for the acceptance speech.
Irony is so ironic
“Americans have fought their way back from tough economic times. But the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top.” For an example, Hillary claimed that she and Bill were “dead broke and in debt” after leaving the White House yet now have an estimated net worth of $250 million.
“The first minute and a half is a collage of ordinary people … doing their best to reek of ordinariness.” While trying to relate to the little people, Mrs. Clinton admitted last year that she hadn’t driven a car since 1996.
Oh, and stand by for an endless stream of PhotoShopped versions of her unimaginative logo that screams out for such treatment.
Phbbbt
Given that since 96, she’s been the First Lady, a US Senator, a major presidential candidate, and the US Secretary of State, she likely travels with a heft security detail.
Tell me, when was the last time John McCain drove a car?
George Bush
used to drive his truck whenever he went home to Texas.
Yeah
And Dick Cheney used to fire his shotgun into his friend’s face when he went quail hunting on a different Texas ranch.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Cheney_hunting_incident
But I am surprised to hear that George Bush can actually drive. Do you happen to know if he had a valid driver’s license at the time? (Just curious.)
George Bush
is afraid of horses.
So what?
So Bush drove a truck a few times a year. He was still a terrible president.
it was probably an automatic, anyways.
Please explain
What does George W. Bush driving a truck have to do with John McCain driving a car?
What does John McCain driving a car
have to do with Hillary Clinton not driving a car?
Good point
Although I am at a loss to understand what either person driving a car has to do with the presidency.
Voter identication
Probably. Maybe. But it’s definitely the kind of thing that could REALLY get the attention of the average voter and fill up their political attention span for weeks, if not months, because what average voter can’t identify with driving? Not so much the question of DOES the candidate drive, but CAN they drive?
I mean, can you imagine how tough it could be to get elected president if it came out that a candidate had never driven a car in their life? He or she could have the best foreign and domestic policy ideas and budgetary plans ever, but that kind of news would make a whole lot of Americans say, “What?… Oh boy… I don’t know. Can I really trust somebody that can’t drive?”
But whatever the case, thanks, Dennis, for your comment that started this “side thread.” It seems to have developed the flavor of a “Who’s on first?” routine and has been good for more than a couple laughs.
Great observation!
Depending on what state you are from: George, John and Hillary couldn’t vote because they can’t produce a drivers license! Now that is funny potentially a standing president that can’t vote!
On his ranch!
I’ll repeat, on his ranch!!!
A ranch
That he bought at the behest of Karl Rove in order to look more populist.
Campaign ads
The ad I have been passing around to my political friends is Martin Freeman’s Labour Party ad, which can be found pretty easily on on the web. What I ask is whether a Freeman type ad, can be more effective than a Hillary type cute kitten type ad. For myself, I find the Hillary type ad revolting, but I also understand it’s not aimed at me. A Freeman type ad is more appealing to me, but does it reach beyond the choir?
Is this a statement about
her campaign, or about the American electorate.
She was more specific in 2008; she lost to ‘hope and change’.
Or as the saying goes:
“Sincerity is everything.
Once you can fake that you’ve got it made.”
Bill Clinton showed how to do it.
More precisely, is it about the leftist electorate? Despite the best efforts of CNN, NBC et al, I don’t know a single conservative that bought Hope & Change as a viable policy platform.
We’re not buying the thin air Hillary is selling either.
Even Thinner Air
But conservatives seem quite willing to buy into the thinnest air in the political atmosphere. Witness their affection for Ted Cruz, Scott Walker, et. al. Go figure!
Since you won’t vote
for ANY Democrat, that really doesn’t matter.
There are more registered Democrats than Republicans, so all she has to do is turn out the Democratic vote and the game is over (again).
As if
willard romney’s ‘For a better America’ had substance.
Ahhh
Don’t you mean, ‘A Better Amercia?”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/romney-app-misspells-amercia/2012/05/29/gJQAgN8K0U_blog.html
Hillary
The media forgets that the voters punish politicians who stand for something. Did the Minnesota House turn Republican because Democratic legislators voted for Gay Marriage? Or was it because they supported the upper income tax, women’s rights, transit, gun control?
I think this election is too important to take pot shots at a video because it didn’t meet your high standards.
I know Hillary stands for the issues I care about. I don’t need her campaign to convince me to vote for her. Unfortunately, others will. And, unfortunately, issues may not matter.
Less than 2 years for Republicans to regain sanity and put up a viable candidate.
But hey, the prolonged primary season is the kettle in which crazy is distilled into the liquor of madness.
Not just two more years of frothing thanks to ODS, but recycling the CDS sickness also.
Crazy don’t do logic.
Kittens win over crazy.
Every day of the week.
I wonder how long it will take for Hillary’s henchmen to claim “war on women” if you disagree with her on any issue? If you disagreed with Obama you were a racist, now if you disagree you’ll be a sexist, very tiring and disappointing.
After 16 yrs of Bush and Obama growing Government and screwing the middle class shouldn’t we try something else?
No one has ever said merely disagreeing with Obama was racist.
But when that disagreement is couched is accompanied with nooses, fired chicken, watermelon patches on the South Lawn, or the birth certificate garbage, or the African witch doctor photoshops, or “magic negro” ditties?
Yeah, that crap can be labeled racist.
Cripes
This was her campaign announcement video. The fact that you expected policy specifics in such a video says far more about you than it does her.
It’s not like everyone HAD to watch it, or risk academic demerits… *cough cough CRUZ cough…*
The whole goal for this announcement was to be as low-key as possible. The only people watching this right now are hardcore supporters, haters, and political pundits.
Two political reasons for a “kitten” message now–both defensive:
The announcement now transforms virtually everything negative to be said about Clinton from here to the election into a partisan political attack. Which carries much less weight than before.
And kittens, because there is little to attack about kittens. Why should she commit to anything that can be fodder for attacks until after the primary?
So another year or so, wandering around the country, “listening” to America.
Wheeling around in an armored van, stopping at carefully prepared venues to expound ad naseum to vetted audiences while keeping the press 100 yards away….listening; sure, let’s call it that.
I keep asking myself what kind of Hilary Clinton announcement video you guys (all guys, note well) would prefer.
Something obviously sophomoric, un-sleek, full of rock-solid extreme left positions on issues that may not be the issues the electorate is interested in, now or when the election occurs, plastering the candidate’s face all over every second of screen time?
It’s an announcement video, Eric and buddies. It shows that her campaign can play with the big boys (especially at vague, generalized, kitten-level statements, which all national candidates, unfortunately, have learned to spout).
Oh, and incidentally, in the year and a half–a whole year and a half–that’s left before the November 2016 election, we’ll see her face, know her positions, have seen how she addresses different audiences. She knows she doesn’t have to BE of the struggling middle and lower classes to represent their interests.
And anyone who’s not out just to slam this first really viable presidential candidate will realize that if she hasn’t driven a car since 1996, it’s because–as First Lady, Senator from New York, and U. S. Secretary of State–she has been driven around by others. I’m not bothered by that, and can’t figure out what kind of person would be.
I don’t know what you expected to see. There isn’t any area of Hillary’s legislative or cabinet background she can talk about without dragging in the failure and scandal baggage in there.
Kittens and gay weddings are no more absurd than Hope and Change, and there is no reason to believe people who bought that have gotten any smarter. Looks like the best card she has to play.
In other words
No matter what she says or does,
she’ll be ‘Swift-boated’ by people who are not bothered by the facts.
She used her Senate seat like a place holder; wiped her hard drive clean while her email was under congressional subpoena. Her “reset” with Putin has concluded in an all out invasion of Ukraine. An American Ambassador and his security detail was assassinated by terrorists, in the Embassy, on her watch.
Those are facts that can’t be swept away by the swiftest of boats. Sorry Paul, but there it is.
The annexation of Crimea and the Russian crimes surrounding Debaltseve don’t constitute an ‘all out invasion.’
If the Russian went ‘all out,’ they’d have been in Kiev already. Of course, the annexation of Crimea and their incursions into Ukraine, along with their bellicose rhetoric toward the Baltic states has nothing to do with those countries being formerly in the Warsaw Pact, nor the expansion of NATO throughout the 90’s.
Benghazi is something that happened to us, not something we did. Or are you going to give Hillary Clinton credit for protecting the other approx 14,996 foreign service employees? I remember when several thousand Americans were ‘assassinated’ on somebody else’s watch, yet you give _them_ a pass.
To quote you “Ummm”… You *do* realize there are Russian troops fighting throughout Ukraine, right? Crimea is probably the only place bullets are not flying.
Is suggest Hillary use your reasoning in regards to the Benghazi scandal, but I think she’s decided it doesn’t matter at this point.
No one else cares
about Benghazi either…unless they wear a tin foil hat.
So, you’re mocking the families of the U.S. Embassador, and two U.S. Navy SEALS that died trying to protect him while waiting for reinforcements that never came. Tin foil hats, you say? Classy, Myron.
It’s obvious who he’s mocking, and it’s not the dead.
The families and friends of the men who were killed care about what happened in Benghazi. People who expect accountability from our government care what happened in Benghazi. The special ops guys that were ordered to stand down care about what happened in Benghazi.
So, who is wearing tin foil hats, who isn’t, and why?
Using the Benghazi event as a political weapon is the true insult to the dead, and to the families of the dead. Kind of like how calling John Kerry’s service into question is an insult to those who also served with distinction and were also decorated for same.
Or let’s go back in history to look at the deaths of
200+ Marines in Lebanon in a terrorist attack during the Reagan administration.
There was some criticism from Democrats about why the Marines had to be there in the first place and some criticism about security, but the Democrats didn’t use the word “Marine barracks” as a dog whistle for *years* after the event, unlike the Republicans, who are using Benghazi to make the Fox News crowd salivate.
Speaking of swept away…
“wiped her hard drive clean”
“The Bush White House email controversy surfaced in 2007 during the controversy involving the dismissal of eight U.S. attorneys. Congressional requests for administration documents while investigating the dismissals of the U.S. attorneys required the Bush administration to reveal that not all internal White House emails were available, because they were sent via a non-government domain hosted on an email server not controlled by the federal government. Conducting governmental business in this manner is a possible violation of the Presidential Records Act of 1978, and the Hatch Act. Over 5 million emails may have been lost or deleted. In 2009, it was announced that as many as 22 million emails may have been deleted.
“The administration officials had been using a private Internet domain, called gwb43.com, owned by and hosted on an email server run by the Republican National Committee, for various communications of unknown content or purpose. The domain name is an acronym standing for “George W. Bush, 43rd” President of the United States. The server came public when it was discovered that J. Scott Jennings, the White House’s deputy director of political affairs, was using a gwb43.com email address to discuss the firing of the U.S. attorney for Arkansas. Communications by federal employees were also found on georgewbush.com (registered to “Bush-Cheney ’04, Inc.”) and rnchq.org (registered to “Republican National Committee”), but, unlike these two servers, gwb43.com has no Web server connected to it — it is used only for email.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_White_House_email_controversy
“An American Ambassador and his security detail was assassinated by terrorists, in the Embassy, on her watch.”
“What has been the cost of the Iraq War? In strictly American terms, 4,486 U.S. military personnel died there (plus another 318 from Coalition allies); the dollar tab for the war is reckoned in the trillions. And in Iraq it is estimated that roughly 461,000 Iraqis died as either a direct or indirect cause of the war and subsequent military occupation.”
http://www.psmag.com/politics/better-stab-estimating-many-died-iraq-war-68419
I’m not sure about Putin’s “all out invasion” of Ukraine, or how a person gets from “reset” to “concluded” and “her fault” in the blink of a thought, but when it comes to comparing “records of performance,” or “dubious practices,” that result in missing messages or the death of Americans (and other people), I’d say Hilary Clinton comes off as a rank amateur when stacked up against kind of people you seem so swept away by and hot for all the time.
If Bush deleted email that was under subpoena, I think he should be tried.
There are a lot of things Hillary would qualify as a rank amature at (clearly, foreign diplomacy being first among them), but Machiavellian connivance isn’t one of them.
Just like
it is a fact that people made false statements about John Kerry’s military record.
It’s a fact people that he served with have made claims that Kerry supporters say are false, but I’m unaware of any accusations that have been disproven.
Did Kerry spend “Christmas in Cambodia”?
It’s kind of like
I’m reminded about the allegations about George W. Bush’s military record. Of course, there are no claims made by people who served with him, because no one remembers serving with him, so that part of the analogy fails.
PS Don’t waste your time telling me about Dan Rather. That scandal is no proof that GWB fulfilled his commitment to serve in the Air National Guard.
Nonsense
Bush’s glowing fitness reports made by his CO have been made public. By Dan Rather, no less.
Nonsense, indeed
There is still no proof that he served out his entire obligation.
In fact
The claims questioning his service were made by people who did NOT serve on his boat.
His own comrades agreed with his accounts.
So, military records not withstanding, he did spend Christmas infiltrating Cambodia?
The Swift boat controversy
was about whether he had actually been in combat in SE Asia (the borders in Indochina are rather murky).
The people who served with him said that he did; people on another boat in the area said he did not (but they were not in a position to know).
Not sure that answers the question….he was in Cambodia before he wasn’t?
“Something a bit more substantive”
In looking for examples of what more substantive might mean, we may want examine what the two official Republican presidential contenders had to say when they came out…
Ted, “the Canadian,” Cruz announcement at Liberty University:
“I’m running for President and I hope to earn your support! It’s a time for truth, a time to rise to the challenge, just as Americans have always done. I believe in America and her people, and I believe we can stand up and restore our promise. It’s going to take a new generation of courageous conservatives to make America great again, and I’m ready to stand with you to lead the fight.”
Rand Paul announcement in Louisville:
“I have a message, a message that is loud and clear and does not mince words. We have come to take our country back! We have come to take our country back from the special interests that use Washington as their personal piggy bank, the special interests that are more concerned with their personal welfare than the general welfare.”
We’ll all have to hold our breath until tonight when Marco Rubio makes his “official” announcement in Miami. We can only hope he’ll be able to come up with the words that will be at least as enlightening and revealing as those.
And by the way… Rand Paul sounds a little Lefty there, wouldn’t you say? Personal piggy banks and more concern for personal welfare than the general welfare?
Hmmnmmmmm.
Eric Black’s Hillary Clinton video
I do not understand Eric’s use of the term “affectional preference.” I honestly had to pause for a moment to think about what he meant; I’m not sure I had ever seen or heard it before.
Way back in the 70 and 80’s we used the term “gay lifestyle.” More recently, we have referred to a person’s “sexual orientation,” because it is neither a choice, nor a preference; people are who they are. If Eric is uncomfortable acknowledging that, he might simply have referred to “gay couples” or “same-sex” couples, unless the words “gay” or “sex” also offend him. Perhaps my greatest concern, however, is that if Eric is this uncomfortable with the words, perhaps it is not simply the video, but Hillary, herself, and her position on this matter that he hates?
I’ve always been uncomfortable
that the homosexual-is-normal movement has hijacked a perfectly fine word (gay) from this society’s vocabulary for its own misguided use.
I know what you mean…
It’s pretty much the same as the way the heterosexual-is-all-there-really-is folks gobbled up “queer” and “fairy” way back before the homosexual-is-normal movement got started. And while I do know what you mean, I can’t say I remember all that many people ever actually using the word “gay” in everyday-speak (as in, “We were all feeling really gay after winning that state tournament hockey game!” or “after seeing that Eddy Murphy movie,” or “after having a few drinks”). But I DO remember a lot of hetero’s-the-only-normal-movement people using the words “queer” and “fairy” – and let’s not forget the fine old British cigarette nickname, “fag” – when discussing people they didn’t like, or “weren’t sure about,” or just going for a cheap laugh among friends.
Those were pretty good members of society’s vocabulary too. But a person can’t use any of them anymore without getting in trouble with SOMEbody.
Bahahaha!
That made my morning.
I can’t imagine
why anyone would have expected anything other than what she offered. The convention is over a year away, the election more than more than 18 months from her announcement. We’ll be lucky to get any details before the election, much less the convention. Frankly, I’m hoping for a challenger for the nomination. But then, I’m also hoping for a GOP candidate other than the current crop of wannabes.
There’s little doubt that Clinton has the best credentials for the job. If she loses, it will be because of her policies.
The left’s insistence
that experience and accomplishment didn’t matter when they ran a community organizer for president pretty much lowered the bar for future candidates.
None of the GOP candidates declared or undeclared has less experience or accomplishment than the current president had when he ran the first time, so like presidential candidates serving their country in the armed forces, executive leadership and political accomplishments are apparently no longer a requirement.
.
No longer requirements
When were “serving their country in the armed forces, executive leadership and political accomplishments” ever requirements for the presidency?
You can look at some of our greatest Presidents (e.g. Lincoln) and wonder how such a lightweight ever bamboozled the electorate into voting for him. On the other hand, the President who gave new meaning to the words “abject failure (Buchanan)” had a record as a lawyer and businessman, ambassador to Russia, ambassador to England, US Senator, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Secretary of State. Look how his presidency turned out.
As I recall
Obama (if that is whom you’re referring to) was in his first term in the U.S. Senate when run for President.
How many first term Senators are currently running for the Republican nomination?
Thanks
for making my point.
Really, isn’t “hate” a overly strong reaction? One wonders what word Eric would have used if Hillary had, say, denied climate change?
And the the video had no substance? I guess substance is in the eye of the beholder. NPR (All Things Considered) just did an entire segment on the video’s rather substantial theme — income inequality and how, increasingly, government has come to favor the wealthy. Maybe the fact that the video wasn’t framed as an attack ad makes the theme unrecognizable to those expecting one. (This may be a brilliant stealth strategy: revolution disguised as kitten talk!)
It should be mandatory for anyone intending to cover Hillary’s bid to read “Beyond the Double Bind,” the 1995 book by Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg School for Communication. She says women are damned no matter what they do: when female candidates are strong they’re deemed “b–chy”; when not, they are “weak.”
And anyone truly unfamiliar with Hillary’s positions on a whole range of issues has to have spent the last dozen years or so under a rock. Let’s try to view her candidacy as it is, not through some distorted lens.
Campaign ads
Your description describes the majority of campaign ads, except for that are fabrications or distortion. Hillary will get things done the things she talked about. Talking about change and getting them done is what Hillary will delivery.
Good point
That’s one thing I remember hearing in the “public commentary” about Hillary Clinton when she was the Senator from New York: She kept a relatively low profile (“kept her head down”) and worked hard, smart and effectively for her constituents and got a lot of low-key practical things done.
hate, a sad commentary.
Sad, a respected editorialist has to use charged words I don’t think he really means to rise above the noise. Really, we have special laws that elevate those crimes that rise to hate. What can we expect now from Eric to keep us coming back?
The Clintons
The point of the Clintons is not so much that they will do good things, rather the point is that they are fairly decent in preventing a lot of bad things from being done. The Republicans, not the Democratts, are the party of new ideas. Unfortunately Republican ideas are mostly bad ideas, which last time they were tried, literally brought the country close to ruin. I find it amazing that anyone wants to return to those disastrous policies of the past but the inexplicable truth is that a lot of people do.
Slow News Day?
I find it difficult to gin much emotion over a campaign announcement video, much less something as strong as “hate.” Sure it’s your job to follow politics closely but who really cares about the video? It’s something that will be forgotten about in weeks, if not days, and has no bearing on the candidate, the race, or it’s outcome.
Our Friend Eric Is Nothing
if not a “policy wonk.”
What he wanted in her announcement he will undoubtedly find on her web site (or SOON will find on her web site).
It would also have failed miserably with the American public.
The public isn’t much interested in the details of policy. They just want to live their lives, go to work every day (which, of course, requires that work be available), and feel as if they have a decent chance of being rewarded for doing so.
If this video is the beginning of former Secretary of State Clinton redefining the Democratic Party with careful use of words,…
we can only hope more honestly than the Republican redefinition of “patriotism,” “liberty,” and “freedom,” has come to mean fascistic control over everyone and everything worldwide that they don’t like, of whom they’re afraid, or with whom they disagree,…
it’s a good opening volley.
Those old Republican wealthy white men (and their sometimes younger sycophants) are so fearful of women and have been raised to so thoroughly detest within themselves anything that might be regarded as feminine (lest they be seen as not being completely straight),…
that they will be completely unable to resist delivering increasingly sexist, woman-hating, “how dare she be so uppity,” eventually completely unhinged attacks leveled at her simply because she’s a woman.
Their most faithful male followers will celebrate such attacks (even the Phyllis Schlafly types), but in the process, they’ll turn most women against them, nationwide (including some of their own wives and daughters). It’s inevitable. They will not be able to stop themselves.
It’s quite likely that Hillary will never have to run anything but “kitten” ads while she, (and we) watch the Republicans destroy themselves and each other attacking her because of who she is rather than because of what she might do as president.
Meanwhile, lets all try to be sure that she also gains the perspective of the Warren wing of the Democratic Party so she won’t be willing to sell out her presidency to Wall Street the way Bill did (and probably wouldn’t have if he had been able to predict the results of doing so for regular folk).
In defense of Eric Black
Saying that you ‘hate’ a video doesn’t conjure up true hatred for a person or their policies. I think that, as someone who as part of their career has to watch all of this fluff, Eric is in his right place to gripe about a contrived video in which the candidate in question says nothing of political substance. As a Hillary Clinton supporter myself, and someone who’s done a lot of work with video and film, I will frequently use that term when I am talking about productions, or techniques, but not people. I don’t think I’ve ever read Eric Black say that he hates a person.
I don’t necessarily want to live in a world where everyone is judged solely by their most hyperbolic or least articulate moments. I know I’ve had mine.
Thanks Jonathan.
And you’re right. I’m not much of a hater, and probably shouldn’t have used the word, but I do crave substance.
And Gregg: I checked. Still no “issues” section of the website. But you and several other commenters are also right. It will be there eventually. And several other commenters are right too. Hillary Clinton has taken plenty of policy positions of the years and can and should and will be held accountable for them. And she will take plenty of positions on the most current issues. When she does, I hope she will be brave, strong and clear.
As far as some in the thread who suggest that no one ever goes substantive in an announcement statement, that’s not true, not even close. There are several unprecedented aspects of the video, and many of them advance the seemingly never-ending triumph of marketing over substance.
Marketing?
Eric is right. It’s a lousy video. But don’t chalk that up to marketing. it’s lousy marketing.
Good marketing says something, maybe something innocuous, but at least something. This doesn’t. The footage of everyday people doing everyday things is flat out dull, too dull even to be relatable, let alone inspiring. The trouble isn’t that Hillary doesn’t pop up in the first five seconds. It’s that neither she nor the video make any kind of statement that interests me in following her.
I realize she doesn’t want to alienate people right off the bat, but she shouldn’t lull them to sleep either. If Democrats would do advertising that stands for something, maybe all those undecided voters would pay attention. At least they’d be able to tell the parties apart.
Commercials
Look at your average TV commercial.
Minimal content — a lot of identification.
The main message: people like YOU use the product.
That’s what she’s trying to achieve.
If this is the new Hilary…
I would wonder if she’s been reading the handbook for the chamber of commerce on how to talk in the marketplace…or better yet…she could go door to door and sell magazine subscriptions for Real Americans; could just be a big seller for the uncommitted out there still lost on the campaign trail?
My question and reluctance to applaud her speech is that she follows a sad pattern that could be viewed as citizen abuse…talking down to the people?
She could do better I assume?
After stomaching the bevy of republican candidates is almost too much to hear, bear; more of the same almost, in a democratic society? Pardon my cynicism but something is wrong in this nation when that’s-all-there-is?
Call me a lefty – although certainty is not one of my virtues – and I fear we are a country broken in spirit…harsh criticism is needed to shape up the Democratic party and its candidates so we do get “substantive” political voices and at least revive the Democratic party to its initial promise?
Call this candidate’s speech a disappointment to be sure and to borrow a phrase, hers could be viewed as a ‘ teleological suspension’ of the credible? And yes, I expected something more as her candidacy supports the Democratic ticket?
I’m naively hoping but still hoping someone will more sincerely.represent the “Democratic ticket of the Democratic party” paraphrasing Paul Wellstone…
Concerning
The hubbub over Hilary’s hard drive. Maybe this should herald a call for all representatives and even lobbyists to make their hard drives open to the public whether used for business or private matters. Plus all their emails should be automatically copied to a public site for viewing by anyone interested.
Let this be the moment, and the can of worms, that makes our American Politics truly transparent.
(I’m pretty sure the Conservative contingent would, in deep sweat, immediately balk at doing this.)
Hillary’s video comment
Hillary is not the candidate yet. The video wasn’t all about her. Families, middle class were front and center. I liked it for a clear simple start in the process that is really about everyone.
See?
You liked it and I’m sure you are the target audience. Those of us who look at things “differently” were not the people she is trying to reach. We’re not even on her radar.