Hillary Clinton.
Two words guaranteed to evoke a response and 95% likely to be a passionate, almost histrionic one at that.
Last night's powerful final 90 minutes gave a fantastic summation of why the reaction from Democrats in support of HRC needs to ramp up the intensity. Booker, FLOTUS Michelle Obama (henceforth her royal badself!), Warren and finally Sanders all gave impassioned defenses of HRC and the need to prevent a President Trump administration in this reality...but what was present in the hall and through the TV last night is exactly what seems to be missing from the Clinton campaign to date.
They seem TOO cautious, TOO guarded, TOO protective and it plays directly into the meme of dishonesty and shady dealings. The e-mail scandal notwithstanding, HRC is failing to make personal connections and emotional pleas to the people. Americans, especially anyone who states they remain 'undecided' THIS cycle, are famously suckers for 3 things:
1) Underdogs - of ANY kind, even lying sociopaths like the Talking Yam
2) Emotional Connections - real or perceived - via TV or Social Media (more and more the later)
3) "Winners" (or perceived winners)
The first two can be easily morphed into action for Hillary...she is the ultimate underdog, the first EVER female candidate for POTUS by a major political party...that is 0-for-90+ (45 presidential elections with at least 2 candidates each time, I know its actually more, just too lazy to search out the exact number of major party candidates). THAT is as underdog as it gets. Time to steal the thunder of the Yam and shut him up about beating "16 other Republican candidates" (A narrative that I have seen too many times on media interviews and pundit air time rants).
The same can be said for emotional connections...just DO BETTER, revisit the emotional shift in the 2008 campaign around the time of the New Hampshire primary.
Hillary is an empathetic person; and DOES care - she has dedicated much of her life to helping people improve their lot in life; but her stump speeches are ham-fisted, finger-pointing, head-nodding snoozefests when it comes right down to it. She comes across as robotic and programmed when she is relating story "X" about time she spent with person "Y" from state "Z" and the hard times that person "Y" was experiencing. The part of this that bugs me is it was the same in 2008 up until she had some real moments of humanity in New Hampshire and "found her voice"... that was powerful then and could be again now...come out of this convention and TALK ABOUT BEING MOVED BY THE EMOTION OF THE SANDERS SUPPORTERS!! Empathy towards their feelings of loss and then a follow up about the distance the two camps crossed to come together on the platform...which contained FAR MORE Sanders proposals than I thought would be included at all...could go a long way towards humanizing her within the party, but also appealing to the wishy-washy undecideds as well.
Finally, the reason for all the polls and horse race coverage is 2-fold: 1) it's EASY for the media...they do not have to work hard to quote polls and then waste 30 minutes of air time saying the same things ad nauseum and 2) it sells to America's tattered attention span and need to feel part of the winning side. There is a reason the Dallas Cowboys, New York Yankees and Duke Basketball all have huge national fanbases...they win. A lot. Or they are remembered for when they DID win and Americans LOVE that shit!
Can't do much about the last part unless the polls show a spike to HRC, but if she were to capitalize on the first two...it would go along ways towards moving the needle on the last...
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