They love him they really, really love him
by digby
Unencumbered by the artifice and awkwardness entailed in not quite campaigning for the last six months, Mr. Bush on Tuesday seemed a different kind of presidential candidate: disarmingly playful and noticeably relaxed, quick to joke and eager to connect.
Who Is Running for President (and Who’s Not)?As she neared the door, Mr. Bush mischievously singled her out. “You’ve left!” he said.
“Sorry,” she replied, “got to work.”
Mr. Bush’s wry response: “Well, I’m glad you got a job.”
The audience erupted into laughter and applause.
They erupted! He is so darned playful.
Meanwhile from Chris Cillizza in the Washington Post:
Time and time again I have heard stories from people working or going to work for Clinton that she is “totally different” in private than in public. She’s funny! She’s sarcastic! She’s relaxed! She’s unscripted! You would love her!
And yet, Clinton’s public persona never seems to match those effusive descriptions. She is remarkably guarded, overly serious and, most dangerous of all, deeply cautious about what she says and does. That’s all the more remarkable given both her deep and impressive resume as well as her status as an overwhelming favorite to be the Democratic nominee in 2016.
Again, Lehigh:
With a little candor, some spontaneity, a dash of Joe Biden’s tell-it-like-it-is impulse, she could be a captivating candidate. Instead, she’s conducting a classic frontrunner’s campaign, rhetorically focused on the general election, even while intent on finessing any issues that might give her Democratic rivals an opening.
It’s possible that she has been “Hillary Clinton” for so long, that it’s literally impossible for her to be just plain Hillary Clinton in public anymore. Whether you like Hillary Clinton or not, it’s hard to argue that she’s been picked over by other politicians, the media and the public in a way few other public figures have. Her allies, citing that fact, argue that her cautious and guarded approach to how she presents herself publicly is not a choice but a necessity born of the way she’s been treated over the years. Once you’ve been raked over the coals 10 times, you stop walking anywhere near the coals.
Those experiences may make Clinton into what I was as a high school basketball player: Great (ok, good) in practice, terrible in games. As in, when she is in her comfort zone, surrounded by friends and people who work for her, Clinton can be herself. And, she can even accept the guidance from that group that she should be a little less scripted and cautious when in public. But, when she gets around strangers and the media, she reverts back to what she knows — a caution bordering on paranoia.
But that public persona is deeply problematic for Clinton as she tries to convince voters that she represents the future not the past. In order to sell that argument, Clinton has to find ways — ways that go beyond just words — to show that the things people didn’t like about the Clintons in the 1990s are in the rear view mirror and that she is a new and improved version of herself.
Basically, unlike the relaxed and congenial Jeb!, Clinton’s an frigid old bag who needs to prove that she’s human because nobody believes it. Surprise. Women in authority are usually one of two things: frigid bitch or crazy hysteric. Either way, you don’t win.
This harping on how she has to “prove” she isn’t the candidate of the past and giving this fatuous “advice” about how to be more likeable has some very unpleasant echoes of the last campaign when the press behaved like a bunch of halfwit Dr. Phils:
MATTHEWS: Hillary Clinton, this question of tearing up, is this now become part of the story line of this campaign?
JILL ZUCKMAN (Chicago Tribune reporter): You’re not suggesting that she teared up on purpose in order to win tomorrow, are you? I —
MATTHEWS: Well, you have that interesting grin on your face as you ask that question.
ZUCKMAN: I’ve got to say, I think that when people tear up, they tear up. I don’t think you can really turn it on and off very easily. I mean, she doesn’t —
MATTHEWS: She’s not a method actress.
ZUCKMAN: I don’t think she’s really someone who cries very easily, and we certainly haven’t seen much of it in the past.
MATTHEWS: I’m going to suspend my judgment until Gene has spoken.
ROBINSON: No, with some people it’s sad movies; with some people, they see a puppy, they want to — with Hillary Clinton, it’s a —
[crosstalk]
MATTHEWS: It’s me, I cry in movies. It works for me.
ROBINSON: — it’s an impending primary. It just breaks her down.
MATTHEWS: I usually cry at heroic scenes when somebody does something really great in the movies that you don’t expect them to.
Margaret, what is your judgment on the veracity, the verisimilitude, the genuine nature of that scene we just saw of Senator Clinton where she was obvious — well, she was taken to some extent with a very warm greeting from an old classmate?
CARLSON: I think the tears are genuine. I think the cause is maybe different than just going back to a place she once worked where she has good memories and they welcomed her. But that she’s extremely fatigued — as they all are — under tremendous pressure. Because the pressure isn’t just from without, the pressure is from within. “What are you doing wrong? Why can’t you fix it? Maybe you should cry more often.” All those kinds of things inside a campaign. And then the very thing she thought was hers. Remember, she was inevitable. Everyone around her told her that. And now she sees it not as inevitable and receding possibly from her grasp, and it’s very distressing. I would cry, too.
MATTHEWS: You know, I wonder what we’re focusing more on this than we would if it were a male candidate…
I still laugh when I see that. (But don’t worry, I’m not laughing hysterically. Just being “playful.” )
Look, being an old bag may very well end up being a problem for Clinton. But no matter what, being the first woman presidential nominee of one of the two major American political parties is more than a little bit of a “break with the past”: it’s fucking unprecedented.
I know the Village thinks that’s irrelevant. To them it’s all about whether Clinton is warm and fuzzy enough or tough and resilient enough or too cold or too soft or some other permutation of her personality, which they always find lacking in some regard. Cillizza seems to think that her age and the fact that she’s been in politics just as long as say … oh, George Bush or John McCain or John Kerry or Mitt Romney were when they ran — or Jeb Bush or John Kasich or Lindsay Graham — all of whom were major political figures at either the Governor or congressional level in the 1990s. Graham was a House Impeachment manager! Kasich was in the House leadership at the time. Bush as Governor of Florida famously greased the skids for his brother’s dubious election victory. There are quite a few people who remember those times and place blame for all that ugliness at their feet not Hillary Clintons. There’s nothing unprecedented about a bunch of (male) Republicans turning our democracy into a sewer. In fact, they didn’t stop in 1999. They’re going stronger than ever.
I don’t recall this obsessiveness about any of those Republicans “representing the politics of the past” and how they have to demonstrate that they are with it and now and happening. In fact, as I pointed out in this Salon piece yesterday, they are often feted as men of stature and maturity. Jeb certainly is. They love him for his “playfulness” and they love him for his sober maturity and long experience. It’s all good for him. McCain took some heat for his age, but he wasn’t trolled every day in the press about having to answer for everything we hated about the politics of the 1980s and 90s. He was there, right in the middle of all of it, as national figure too.
Putting Hillary Clinton on the couch has long been one of the beltway media’s favorite pastimes. She fascinates them and I would guess it’s largely because she somehow manages to survive despite their absolute assurance that she cannot possibly do it. If they were half as fascinated by our dysfunctional system and how and why it got that way we might have a chance of doing something about it. Unfortunately, that would require them to take some responsibility for it. They’ve been right in the middle of this mess for a very long time and they have never learned a thing.
Cillizza is a good reporter and I often enjoy what he writes. But this tiresome hobby horse about Clinton needing to show her “true self” and disprove that she’s a relic of the past is certainly not one of his better insights:
h/t to @PCalith
Golly, maybe somebody ought to talk to Jeb about proving that he isn’t a relic of the past.