It doesn’t seem to matter who has the byline, when it comes to Hillary Clinton the establishment media’s mantra is that she lacks spontaneity.
What Biden is, even to those who dismiss him as slightly doddering and in over his head, is as real and authentic as they come…With Biden, you get the politically incorrect verbal lapses, the Veep-like comedic value. But you also get warmth and authenticity and a handshake that means something.”
“Clinton’s pitch is pretty much the polar opposite…Clinton’s first TV ad, released this week, tried to humanize her a bit by having her talk straight to camera about her mother…But Siri sounds more spontaneous when she’s finding me a gas station.
Oh, and she’s an ice queen.
So, here’s my question: is this a legit thing or is it more of a coalescing common wisdom or is it just a hatchet job?
Politics is easy — learn to fake the sincerity, and the rest falls into place.
An old friend, and an NH elected official says this about the Clinton campaign:
Every morning they wake and act like they are under siege. This is how they understand politics, and the inevitable relationship between the Clintons and a press they view as hostile and unfair.
He said they need to let “Hillary be Hillary”.
The ad is good. I highly encourage you not to read Bill Clinton’s acceptance speech in 1992:
Hillary has a voice that most men would do anything to make it stop.
Barf. I don’t care for her voice either, but leave it to a guy from Texas to make it a gender thing. Do you also drive a red sports car?
Assumptions can run wild. I’m not from Texas but I was stranded in Austin several years ago where I made my living playing in the bars on 6th Street for the better part of a year. I’m not even a guy plus I drive a rather old white VW wagon that’s always got something wrong with it. I should have said people. My bad, it was an old tired line.
You say you don’t care for her voice either but I assume you don’t extend that to all female voices. Neither do I. It’s more than that grating sound she tailors to the region she is addressing; it’s the things that come spewing out of that mouth, even things she will not address. She’s a Corporatist Democrat who will just make things worse. She’s had good training from Bill who did more damage to the middle class than any Republican could have ever accomplished by triangulating to that magic center. The best way to stop that voice is her defeat in the primaries. Feel the Bern.
Hear, hear.
There you go. That was better.
at least we had fun.
hatchet job. They’d rather talk about anything but policies.
Speaking of which, i do NOT get the appeal of Joe Biden. Except to those people who like Hillary’s policies but want a man presenting them.
If he had any non elected position he’d surely be fired for harassment.
Bollocks. Women, and I assume men as well, know the difference between sexual harassment touch and friendly non-sexual touch. We probably have too little of the latter in society today.
All harassment need not be sexual
I’ve seen the videos. If a work colleague did that to me it would ansolutely be unwelcome touching.
What videos?
About right. He’s more naturally likeable than Hillary. That’s partly why before he was thirty years old he beat an incumbent Senator. Forging his political identity in a small state mostly on his own. Personally, he’s also always been decent.
It is legit, but it’s also conventional wisdom.
Didn’t Biden already run against Clinton?
If team Clinton is savvy, they should welcome these early so-called hatchet jobs — the more outrageous the better. Far easier to formulate effective rebuttals to spurious claims when one has plenty of advance notice. More acceptable for a candidate to come out swinging in a defensive mode early in an election cycle rather than last. (Poor John Kerry never saw that swiftboat thing coming until it arrived in August 2008 and then he only half heartedly hit back.) Plus the GOP will run out of material long before they get to the general election.
One reason why the early attacks on Gore remained potent throughout the 2000 election cycle is that they were defining him before he had anywhere near 100% name recognition. Yes, Vice-Presidents aren’t as widely known as political junkies assume they are.
While a candidate dominating in political news coverage can hurt, “call me anything, but spell my name correctly” beats not being seen at all.
A long series of hatchet jobs, which have coalesced into convention l wisdom. To which is lent an air of legitimacy by the fact that, in the face of a long series of hatchet jobs, it is all but impossible for an ordinary human being to retain much spontaneity.
Booman writes:
All three.
Bet on it.
AG
More the latter two. But if there’s some grain of truth to the first, it’s hard to blame her for being a little too scripted and largely keeping her distance from the press as she wakes up and opens up her newspaper and on a regular basis sees another bogus scandal mongering bit of nonsense about her on the FP. Most normal people wouldn’t have the warm and fuzzies towards the media either. Especially the big name papers.
And a thousand times more than Jeb or most other pols, she needs to be careful what she says. No media margin of error for the Clintons. That’s been true since Whitewater et al in 1992.
As for Biden: a charming but sort of superficial warmth and authenticity. Million dollar smile, looks you in the eye, asks your name, pats your back, and five minutes later he’s forgotten you and your name. Likable fellow, had more than his share of personal tragedies, yet for all his likability and experience he’s never caught on with the national voting public. Likability appears to be overrated, at least going by the number of times the media bring it up as a key factor.
Politics. They got to push something back after she jumped all over Jeb and his no need to fund women’s health. Jeb’s response was a mumble about he misspoke. The next day Hillary pushed back harder and today, 72 hr after Jeb misspoke, Jeb has issued a statement explaining his misspoke. More mumbling. So, if this comes up in the debate, does Jeb pretend to be angry?
This is especially ironic, given it’s the same guy not that far removed from trying to use another pol’s personal history and pass it off as his own. It’s one thing to plagiarize passages of a speech from someone else, but quite stunning to insert into his own speech the life story of the other.
And again, speaking of authenticity, it wasn’t just the one-time Kinnock life story appropriation, but charges also he stole lines w/o attribution from RFK, and did so repeatedly in the 1988 campaign. Also the rumors (can’t recall if confirmed) about plagiarism charges against him in law school.
Real and authentic I suppose in some fact-free, ahistorical media zone where they intend to use him to further go after Hillary.
It is narrative, which the press corps loves. Narrative allows them to seem to be smart and incisive without any of the work required for actually being so.
Pundits could just as easily make the case the Clinton’s video is evidence of her deeply emotional, touchy-feely side, if that was the prevailing narrative. In short, facts must always fit the narrative, not the other way round.
Well, the narrative is also about Biden’s signature “gaffes.” The NY Times ran a story yesterday about how Biden’s friends were afraid to tell him it was a bad idea to run.
Instead they evidently “placed” a story on the front page of the Times about how his famous “gaffes” would be likely to destroy his “legacy”. Just to get the message to him in a subtle way.
This is obviously the rejoinder: Biden’s “gaffes” are kind of endearing, they just show he’s real people (unlike Hillary). It’s all bullshit.
But personally, I hope he does run. A Biden/Sanders ticket, should it come to pass, would be killer.
all of the above;
Hatchet job.
Anyone under the gun as much as Hillary is, is justifiable cautious about “off the cuff” remarks.
The only real politician whose been thru the wars and is still spontaneous is Jerry Brown.
DAMN, I’d like to see Hillary and Jerry together.
I saw Hillary’s ad and immidiately thought it was inauthentic and too packaged. It seemed overly produced and mostly showed how much money she has spend. I literally reached to turn it off as soon as she started to talk about her mother. IMO it lacked passion and vision to stir the base and will do little to convert anyone not already prone to vote for her.
I noticed that in he recent speech in FL she was speaking in a lower voice which is probably a good thing. Sad but true but higher voiced in women are not as appealing to men or women.
That all said I will probably vote for her if she is the candidate.
Since when are hatchet jobs excluded from the common “wisdom”? See: “Al Gore has a problem with the truth.”