Sandwiches and snow shovels are no substitute for communication
Three days from now, the state of Iowa will take the first historic step towards the election of the next President of the United States. More money has been spent in the state than in any previous election, which means that snowed-in Iowans watching television are harassed every few minutes by a commercial for one or other of the candidates.
Of those commercials, the best by a mile, in terms of personal performance, is that of Rudi Giuliani. His Republican opponents are openly furious with him for — as they see it — appropriating 9/11 to promote himself, but their real problem with him is his ease, comfort and credibility when talking to a camera.
Meanwhile, Hillary has been ignoring Rush Limbaugh and buying shovels. Rush Limbaugh, a right-wing commentator, last week asked Americans if they really wanted to watch a woman getting older in the White House, when men do the visible signs of aging so much better.
Co-incidental support for this suggestion was provided, on the magazine racks, by a close-up shot of Hillary’s husband, snowy white as to the hair, fine-boned as to the face, on the cover of one popular publication, whereas the candidate herself figures only in small news photographs.
Suggesting that women — visually — don’t age as well as men do is one of those unacceptable truths which may actually benefit Ms Clinton. Because she’s hoping to get out a section of the vote that hasn’t, up to now, killed itself getting to the polls: women in their 60s. Just like her.
Those women are infuriated by the observation. They’re the generation who came through women’s liberation, who were educated to a level their mothers and grandmothers never experienced, who went out to work in unprecedented numbers, who saw the introduction of laws preventing overt discrimination against their gender and who are mad as hell at the very thought that a woman should be judged as a lesser prospect for the presidency because her wrinkles will make her less attractive after a few years in office.
The key task is to make sure those older women don’t get mad and stay home to fulminate in their sitting rooms.
Hillary has to update the old Joe Kennedy slogan, “Don’t get mad, get even,” into “Don’t get mad — get mobile,” because she needs every one of them in locations where they can translate outrage into votes. To that end, she has invested heavily in shovels and their distribution to clear the snow drifts off their driveways, lest their fear of a slip and a resultant broken hip immure them inside their homes on voting day.
The same thinking is behind the door-knob hangers and sangers. The Clinton campaign has printed hangers in large-size print so that older eyes will have no problem getting their message about precisely where they are to cast their vote.
The sandwiches are on order from local supermarkets to welcome and reward voters who turn out early and, by their presence, allow the campaign to work out which voters have NOT turned out by midday and send out Jeeps to pick them up and transport them to the right polling stations.
It’s this kind of practical strategic thinking which may lift Hillary Clinton out of the unhappy tied position she now occupies along with Barack Obama and John Edwards.
She has raised more money than either and had a higher profile, at the outset, than Obama but is not where she should be, despite those advantages, not to mention the constantly attractive presence of her husband on the campaign trail.
Right now, Hillary should be the inevitable candidate, the likelihood of her success sucking funds and friends away from the other Democrats in the field.
But the inevitability of a Clinton win has faded over the past few months. Obama has fought back against constant snipes at his lack of experience with the best argument possible: it’s time, he says, for a new kind of politics, so why would I need a rake of experience of the old kind?
Edwards, too, has overcome the negative sympathy factor in Americans which suggests he should stay home and take care of his dying wife. It was interesting, here in the United States last week, to see him dominate the front pages of two vastly different publications.
A supermarket gossip tabloid had him on the cover for a half-accusation that he had made an aide pregnant. The semi-accusation failed to achieve traction in the public mind. Newsweek Magazine, at the same time, had him on its cover, shirtsleeves rolled up, collar open, beside the proposition that he was the “sleeper” candidate who might surprise everybody by walking away with the Iowa caucus.
The Clinton camp might explain their candidate not reaching the position of obvious leader by reference to the playing out of anti-female prejudices, whether in the form of warnings about future wrinkles or regrets about present-day cleavage, but the real reason Hillary is not where she should be is a communications failure. Hillary Clinton has a series of communications “issues” that should have been addressed by her campaign a long time ago, but which don’t seem to have been tackled.
The first is an incapacity to — as Obama’s supporter Oprah Winfrey would put it — “live in the moment.” Bill Clinton always had that capacity. Bill Clinton always loves the audience that’s in front of him at the time. Or the interviewer interviewing him at the time. Or the issue being raised with him at the time. That capacity is infectious and ever-present. A clip of film lasting perhaps 15 seconds, taken during a visit to Government Buildings here in Ireland, demonstrates the contrast between husband and wife in this regard.
The two of them are with Bertie Ahern, who is saying something to them. Bill Clinton’s reaction is total, unconditional laughter and involvement. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, responds with a warm smile — but her eyes dart elsewhere, sending the clear message to both men “this is all very pleasant, but what about the next thing we’re supposed to be doing?” Bill is in the now. Hillary’s in the future, devoted to process, not people.
The second problem slowing Hillary’s progress is her emphasis on experience. The intent was to make experience a qualifier: these young lads may be academically clever (Obama) or smart and good-looking (Edwards) but they’ve no real practice, whereas I can hit the ground running.
It hasn’t worked. Voters remember that her only real executive experience, in healthcare, bombed spectacularly.
The final communications failure is the sameness of her answers to debate questions: “Well,” followed by a claim of familiarity with the issue, followed by a woolly, wordy and confusing conclusion. That pattern, once identified, is easy for media to mock and even easier for opponents to counter.
All three communication problems should have been identified and rectified long ago.
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