Earlier this evening on C-Span they replayed Hillary's DLC speech from July 25th.
It is supposed to be a visionary speech, outlining her hopes for Ohio and the country in 2020.
It's the most boring speech I have ever heard.
You can watch her speech to the DLC national meeting for yourself on the C-Span website.
Her voice is flat. Her affect is flat. Words that might be dramatic and inspiring coming out of the mouth of someone who understands the cadences of great speechmaking sound instead like a shopping list where every item has exactly equal interest and concern. Every phrase of every sentence more or less the same. No variations in pitch. No tension and release. No peaks and valleys. Flat.
She is saying almost all the right things, painting a lovely picture of Blue America, but she doesn't look or sound very excited about it. She threw all the spaghetti on the wall, mentioning all the progressive hot button issues, everything including the kitchen sink, with a little of that infuriating opportunistic DLC centrism along for the ride, but there was no focus, no overarching point, no sense of building up to something significant.
What is worse, I agree with a lot of what she's saying and I still can't generate any excitement for her. I want to like her more because I know she's an '08 possibility. Everyday for a week we would try to feel the motion... so i dug right down to the bottom of my soul and I tried, I tried. But I felt nothing. This is supposed to be her big vision speech? She has a dream? Are you frickin kidding me?
Bottom line: Hillary Clinton has no ability to inspire. When she speaks, she doesn't even appear to be interested in her own words. She will be worse than Kerry (and I never thought I'd say that about anyone) in terms of not being able to generate emotional connection in the general electorate. No, I take that back. She will whip the conservative base into a frenzy while leaving a good part of the Dem base asnooze. The handpicked DLC audience gave her the obligatory standing O (it would have been embarrassing if they hadn't), but the clapping during the speech was polite (just to show they recognized the applause lines) and after the speech it didn't last very long.
Even someone like me who should be her natural supporter can't find an emotional hook to feel connected to her. How is she going to reach Pam and Paul Purplevoter? And don't fall back on "she got votes from moderate suburban soccer moms in upstate NY." How many of the swing states in the country have anything in common with the demographics of upstate New York?
Can everyone please just stop talking about her as a presidential candidate? Stop encouraging her to reach beyond the Senate. I like her, she's on our side. But one of the most important skills we need in our 2008 presidential nominee is high energy--someone who can keep the energy level high in the committed Blue troops and at the same time light a spark under some of the people standing on the sidelines to persuade them to vote with us.
There are some people who get excited merely about the prospect of a woman at the top of the ticket. But in general Hillary's appeal lies with people who care more about content than presentation. That is usually an admirable thing, but there are not enough of us. We all know the Adlai Stevenson joke: a woman called out to him at a campaign stop, "You have the vote of every thinking person!" and Stevenson called back, "That's not enough, madam, we need a majority!"
We reality-based political junkies have so much influence at the primary level that, with the notable exception of the Big Dog, Dems in my lifetime have nominated people who have great positions and ideas but no flair for presenting them. The ideas are enough for us. But they are not enough for Clueless America or Purple America. If they were, we would have won the last two elections easily.
When are Democrats going to learn that the majority of voters can't (or don't choose to) analyze political campaigns for policy content? Whether we Kossacks like it or not, whether we think they should act that way or not, the vast majority of voters respond to presentation: emotional connection, personal identification, the general tone/atmosphere of a campaign, and a gut feeling of whether a candidate can be trusted. Hillary's skills on these intangibility scales are limited at best.
For better or worse, the Road to the White House is a popularity contest, and a lot of people make their electoral decisions the same way they did when they voted for class president in High School: Who's the most popular? Who's well-liked? Who do people just want to be around--who's fun to be with? Who's pleasant to look at and listen to? Who's the one I want to be like or imitate? Who's the one with the girlfriend/boyfriend I wish I had? Not the nerdy know-it-all who gets straight As. Not the aloof kid who tosses around big words no one else understands. Not the one with the voice that puts you to sleep or the voice that makes you stick your fingers in your ears. Not the funny looking kid who is stiff and uptight and uncomfortable in his own skin. Not the kid who tries so very very hard to say and do things to fit in and be cool that s/he becomes uncool by definition.
If we don't like those criteria and find them shallow, tough toenails. The honorable solution is to find someone who has a charismatic, passionate, inspirational personality AND the ability to promote progressive policies and values. The Big Dog had it. And too many of the '08 possibilities mentioned around here don't have it. Bayh? Vilsack? Given a choice between personality and policy, voters have been picking personality for the LAST SEVEN ELECTIONS. But Dems are still acting as if the voters have the same attention span they had during the Lincoln-Douglas debates, or even the Kennedy-Nixon debates.
Hillary's DLC speech bored me to tears. And scared me. Because too many people are talking about her presidential candidacy as if it were a done deal, and I am absolutely persuaded that she is a bad choice for us--perhaps the worst choice for us. I do not even need to get to my many differences of opinion with the DLC. Hillary is a weak candidate on the intangible personality issues that matter most. And it doesn't matter how good she is on policy wonk issues if the marginal voters don't feel attracted to her on the intangibles. Period.
I know there are a fair number of Hillary supporters around this blog. I beg you all to face reality about this ASAP. I definitely want her to win re-election to the Senate next year; we need every Dem we can get to help us recapture the Senate majority. But as far as the presidential race is concerned, I got so worked up by the negative indicators in the DLC speech that I stayed up all night writing this. I'm on my knees. I'm begging all of you. Please please please O PLEASE let go of the idea of Hillary for the nomination in 2008.