Get ready for the new Hillary Clinton: happy, affable, family-oriented, and perhaps even charming at times. With permanent grin and an “aw, shucks” guffaw, she’s the sort of person you could chat with at a neighborhood picnic.
Oh, what a difference a drop in the polls can make.
For most of this year, Mrs. Clinton and her handlers have run a campaign built on a self-styled aura of inevitability. Staying above the fray and frequently invoking the “failed policies of George Bush,” she essentially ran against Dubya’s approval rating, all while treating the primary process as a quaint, if annoying, formality that she would humor only out of necessity.
But somewhere along the way to Hillary’s coronation, voters in Iowa and New Hampshire decided that they didn’t buy the pre-ordained script and her sometimes cold, aloof demeanor. And so she finds herself in a steel cage match of a primary. Riding a wave of “hope” and “change” from the bridge of the SS Oprah, Barack Obama has nearly eliminated Hillary’s leads in every state of early importance. The Obama surge, combined with Clinton’s unfavorable rating of 50%, meant that it was time to show her “likable” side.
To do so the Clinton camp rolled out the big guns: mom. In a new TV spot, Mrs. Rodham says that she wants us to know “what a good person” her daughter is and how much she admires her commitment to helping others.
Which may be the case, but then again my own mother insisted that all the girls at the eighth grade Halloween Festival dance would think I was cute. (She was wrong.) Mrs. Rodham’s words, heartfelt as they may be, don’t tell us much about her daughter, other than the fact that she has a mother who is willing to say what any mother in a similar situation would say.
While part of the Clinton camp sprays her image with de-icing fluid, the rest of the team is finally treating Obama like a real threat, both attacking his record and lifting from his message. In a recent TV interview, Bill Clinton said that voters would have to “roll the dice” on an Obama presidency - a direct slap at his perceived inexperience. Another staffer – in an “unauthorized” move, according to the Clinton camp – brought up Obama’s admission of drug use as problematic for a general election.
At rallies in Iowa, Mr. Clinton unveiled the new talking points of his wife’s campaign: she is “a change agent,” “a proven agent of positive change” and “a lifetime advocate of a change agenda.” Chief campaign strategist Mark Penn seized on the new theme as well, saying, “If you want to have change in this country, if you want a new beginning, then how about electing someone who has a lifetime of making change?”
In case you missed it, the new message is all about “change.” By ditching the “experience” mantle from earlier in the campaign, it appears that the Clinton camp is determined to outflank Obama on the “change” front. You want change? We’ve got it! We’ve got so much change, even our idea of change is changing! (In the Democratic primaries, being for “change” is like being for “rights” – it’s a good thing, even if nobody has the slightest clue what it entails.)
At face value, the new strategy is an odd decision. “Clinton fatigue” is but one piece in Hillary’s long baggage train, so it’s going to be a tough sell equating “change” with the Clinton Years, Part Deux. Her co-opting of Obama’s theme is like Pat Boone releasing a heavy metal record. She should stick to her strengths.
This is the very reason that some liberals are wary, and most conservatives terrified, of an HRC presidency. Talented, smart, and tough as nails, Hillary is also the political equivalent of a windsock; her husband was too, but she is not blessed with his charisma. Calculated to the same precision as pi, Mrs. Clinton is experiencing the downside to being a little bit of everything, but not too much of anything. We have no idea who she is, other than someone who desperately wants to be president. Warm and fuzzy testimonials from close friends and family should do little to fix that image.
After nearly fifteen years in the national spotlight, she has had ample time to show us otherwise.