Hillary announced her widely expected run yesterday, and the liberals are, of course, showering her with accolades. Exactly why The Gay Blade @ The Daily Kos wants to reveal Hillary’s strategy to the public is sort of puzzling, though:
The candidate doesn’t even appear in the ad for the first 90 seconds. The visuals are a snapshot of very likable people, your fellow Americans, going about their daily lives. The mix of people is diverse, middle class and represent broad archetypes that will resonate with the average viewer. The characters depicted are real, approachable and totally believable. These people are your friends and your neighbors and they slip Hillary Clinton, someone who is most definitely not middle class, into this river of average Americana. Yet, for all its technical perfection, that’s not the real brilliance of the piece.
The real brilliance of this piece is that it’s inviting Republicans to stick their head in a noose. It’s pretty much a foregone conclusion that Republicans will respond with attack ads. By being so consistent, the GOP has made themselves predictable and this ad is calculated to capitalize on the contrast.
TGB goes on to explore how the ad will be used to tie up the GOP candidates into a package and make them look like fools.
Granted, The Daily Kos is a progressive website, but to be honest, it seems to me that this sort of strategy, if indeed it is the strategy du jour, is little more than an attempt to score cheap points – and that’s barely useful in an election. If all you’re trying to do is stir up your own side, well, it’s a little early in the game, and the independents may not see it the same way as the partisans on your side.
And the Republicans and right leaners? Ideally, you want to find a way to persuade the moderates that Hillary is not a lunatic, and that whatever mistakes she’s made, such as voting with the neocons for the disastrous Iraqi War, she has repented. Indeed, the willingness to admit to errors, to rue them, and to try to do better may make a superb contrast with the possible GOP strategy of never saying you’re sorry. Granted, that would be a very difficult theme to introduce; in fact, if they’re smart they’ll let the GOP throw the mud, pick their favorite and say, Yeah, I screwed up on that. The Iraqi War might be ideal – I can see Hillary standing up and saying,
Yes, I voted with the Republicans for that war, and that’s the biggest mistake I ever made. All they can think of is making War, wasting our lives, while we hold out our hands in peace.
Obama’s setting herself up for such a theme with the Iran and Cuba deals.
