After a whole morning of thinking about what to say to prepare for Bush's speech, I've finally decided I am not going to watch it. To hell with Bush's SOTU speech. It will all be just a bunch of moldy leftovers from speeches past--some jingoistic fear mongering about terrorists "following us home;" some nonsense about "we cannot afford to lose in Iraq;" hollow promises about reducing gas use by 20% in 10 years (BFD); better education and affordable health care. It's all lies. We know it's lies. None of it will happen. Bush is over.
Instead of writing about Bush, I decided to head over to Hillary Clinton's website and I watch her "Let the Conversation Begin" web chat video from last night (transcript here).
And you should go watch it, too. I don't care what you think of Hillary. If you're interested in the Presidential election, this video is absolutely fascinating.
I'm almost afraid to admit this around here, but...(gulp)...I liked it.
First off, I have no horse in this race just yet. I am neither for, against, or indifferent to any of the Democratic candidates. It is my hope, rather, that over the next few months or so, I will be able to draw people's attention to framing aspects of the candidates that I think are worth noticing--aspects that go beyond individual issue positions and past errors.
Hillary's video is part of a broad frame that she has used in the launch of her campaign called "Let the Conversation Begin."
Here is the opening bit from the video of her Presidential Exploratory Committee Announcement in which we can see very clearly how she lays down this particular frame:
I announced today that I am forming a presidential exploratory committee.
I'm not just starting a campaign, though, I'm beginning a conversation -- with you, with America. Because we all need to be part of the discussion if we're all going to be part of the solution. And all of us have to be part of the solution.
Let's talk about how to bring the right end to the war in Iraq and to restore respect for America around the world.
How to make us energy independent and free of foreign oil.
How to end the deficits that threaten Social Security and Medicare.
And let's definitely talk about how every American can have quality affordable health care.
You know, after six years of George Bush, it is time to renew the promise of America. Our basic bargain that no matter who you are or where you live, if you work hard and play by the rules, you can build a good life for yourself and your family.
I grew up in a middle-class family in the middle of America, and we believed in that promise.
I still do. I've spent my entire life trying to make good on it.
Whether it was fighting for women's basic rights or childrens' [sic!] basic health care. Protecting our Social Security, or protecting our soldiers. It's a kind of basic bargain, and we've got to keep up our end.
So let's talk. Let's chat. Let's start a dialogue about your ideas and mine.
Because the conversation in Washington has been just just a little one-sided lately, don't you think? And we can all see how well that works.
And while I can't visit everyone's living room, I can try. And with a little help from modern technology, I'll be holding live online video chats this week, starting Monday.
So let the conversation begin. I have a feeling it's going to be very interesting.
Now, I will admit--at first I was quite pleased to see this idea of a [campaign] as [conversation] in her announcement, albeit for selfish reasons. The title of my book, after all, is Framing the Debate: Famous President Speeches and How Progressives Can Use Them to Change the Conversation (And Win Elections).
I felt pretty good thinking that the top polling candidate had chosen the metaphor that I use to define politics and campaigns in my writing.
But...then I quickly turned against this idea thinking that it was all pretty phony--artificial. Hillary Clinton, in my view, has been so guarded. It seems that her entire media image has been driven by the desire to show that she is strong--steely, even. How much of a "conversation" will it be under these conditions?
I concluded it was not worth watching and I let it go. I decided, in other words, not to take part in it. And I am willing to bet that 9 out of 10 Kossacks also made this same kind of decision--either because they'd already decided that Hillary's so-called "pro war" position (it's a bad position, but I don't know if it's "pro war") or just because they were not interested.
Then, out of the blue I got an email from Crystal Patterson over at the Hillary for President campaign. I don't exactly remember when I signed up for their list, but they sent me a prompter email drawing my attention to the archived video that was now up and ready to go:
If you missed Monday's chat or want to share it with your friends, you can watch the video archive on our website:
http://www.hillaryclinton.com/...
Sincerely,
Crystal Patterson
Hillary for President Exploratory Committee
OK, Crystal, I thought. What the the heck. Anything to take my mind off this damn Bush SOTU speech. So, I went over there to check it out.
To my surprise, the site was well-organized, there was a link to a transcript--there was even a typo on one of the pages (as a chronic typo-ist...I took this as a sign of humanity). And before I could click away, the video started and I started to watch.
Oh. My. God. I was transfixed from start to finish. There is something very eerie about this video--something that is both exciting and horribly uncomfortable at the same time.
The screen faded in and there was Hillary sitting on her couch announcing that she will answer questions fed to her by her campaign blogger--Crystal Patterson (my mate Crystal).
Oy, I thought. A bunch of rehearsed, pre-sorted questions in some kind of fake "conversation" that's really a long-winded campaign speech. But I was wrong.
This is not some two-bit 3 minute YouTube video shot on a cell-phone camera with dancing Sumo wrestlers off in a corner. This is a long video. Hillary took one question at a time and then proceeded to deliver what were clearly rehearsed, but nonetheless interesting answers.
Let me give you a few examples. Remember last year when Chris Matthews asked John Edwards to name his favorite movie? And Edwards was at a loss for words? Here's that same question on Hillary's video as an example of how rehearsed the video was at times:
CRYSTAL PATTERSON: Jean from New Jersey has a question, on a lighter note. What's your favorite movie?
SENATOR CLINTON: My favorite movie. I've had favorite movies at different stages in my life. When I was very much younger, The Wizard of Oz was my favorite movie. I just loved imagining myself being there with Dorothy and being part of that great adventure that she had. Probably when I was in college and law school, Casablanca. I watched it I don't know how many times. It always was so much fun. By the time we watched it over and over again, we were actually reciting the dialogue. And I suppose in the last years, Out of Africa. I love Meryl Streep and Robert red Ford. Those are three of my favorite movies.
Every answer is like this--overdone. We see in Hillary's "favorite movie" answer not just a quick response, but a presentation of personal growth, windows into her younger years, a glimpse of her humanity--blah, blah, blah. It was the kind of stuff that I can't stand. Too rehearsed, too controlled.
But I want to emphasize this point: I liked this video. I watched it from start to finish because in these long answer, these long moments, Hillary Clinton somehow managed to give herself up to this incredibly invasive medium. I found myself thinking that I could not remember the last time I sat and watched a candidate literally talk to the camera for more than a minute at a time. It was like watching an audition tape, a debate response, a dating site, and a video conference call--all at the same time.
It was fascinating precisely because it went on long enough to show a full range of the political person.
Here is an answer that I think gives a good sense of this dynamic I am describing--her long answer about dependence on foreign oil:
CRYSTAL PATTERSON: Linda from Pensacola, Florida, asks, "Do you plan to end our dependence on foreign oil?"
SENATOR CLINTON: Linda, I do. It's probably longer and more wonkish than I can tell you in a brief web chat, but just briefly, let me say that I've put on my web site a lot of the legislation that I've championed and my plans for how we decrease our dependence on foreign oil.
You know, obviously, this is a security issue as well as a jobs issue. Security wise, we know that, if we don't move away from our dependence on foreign oil, we are literally over the barrel. From people who do not wish us well and not just in the Middle East and not just places like Iran, but Venezuela. And we're also at the mercy of very unstable regimes than other parts of the world.
So I don't think there's a higher security priority, and the previous question about terrorism goes hand in hand because we can better deal with the terrorist threats we face if we are not funding them through all kinds of means where they get money that literally comes out of our pocket because we are so dependent upon the natural resource that they have in abundance. So we also, though, need to look at this as a jobs issue.
We need to create new and good-paying jobs in America. And alternative energy. What I like to call smart energy, home-grown energy, would be a tremendous way of giving a lot of our people a better future, helping them to have a more secure foothold in this very competitive global economy. So I think we've got to do more to look for alternatives. I support all kinds of ethanol. I support looking at the solar and geo thermal and certainly trying to do more on hydrogen, which are longer term goals. I think we have to do more on conservation and energy efficiency.
I'm really impressed with what California has done over 30 years. Because they have imposed conservation and energy efficiency standards, they have kept flat their energy use, and the rest of the country has just, unfortunately, continued to use more and more energy. We've got to do something to make our transportation system more fuel efficient.
And although there are some who think it's, you know, a difficult problem, I would like to see us approach the question of how we can use the great coal reserves we have without polluting the environment and adding to global change. I've asked to take away the subsidies from big oil and put it into a strategic energy fund that would be used comparable to what he did with the Manhattan Project, responding to Sputnik, the Apollo project.
Using the energy fund with a windfall tax on the oil companies taking away their subsidies, to expedite the creative genius of Americans. And I was up at a plant of GE's, their research facility, which is in upstate New York, and I saw what we can do if we use our imagination and our know-how. And I would also very much like to see us form an agency within our government that put all of this on a fast track, that went out to our universities, our colleges, our garages where creative people are thinking about how to make solar and wind and everything else much more commercially applicable. Let's put this on a fast track. There's no reason we can't do it. But the federal government has to make some investments in order for it to happen.
I've got to say this--when Hillary was giving this answer, her voice grew quicker, she leaned forward in her chair, it was--to my mind--an actual window into an issue that she appears to know a great deal about, and which seems to genuinely get her on a roll. Was it a perfect answer? Does she have perfect policy positions on energy? I doubt it.
But I saw her here in this video--I actually saw here lift away off her script into something that I took to be--authenticity.
More than anything, I am convinced that Hillary Clinton has taken an incredible risk by putting these long videos of herself up online. I wonder if she thinks she's taking a risk, but she is.
Her campaign manager must think that this is the exact situation they want--a controlled "conversation" where every question is pre-sorted, researched, rehearsed, and then staged. But despite all that, the length and intimacy of the video itself seemed to have cracked open something that was not just new in my perception of Hillary Clinton, but actually new in my perception of any politician.
If we are in an age where new technologies allow us to become involved in politics more extensively--allow us to participate in ways we would not have been able to--I believe that these videos by Hillary have allowed us to become involved with her on a a personal level that I was not expecting.
Not so much by way of a challenge, but by way of an invitation--I would urge everyone to go over and take a quick look at the video and see what you think. I am really curious to hear what people have to say.
All the candidates have both strengths and weaknesses--all of them. But when they do something interesting, we'd be crazy not to check it out and talk about it.
I don't know if I feel like part of her "conversation," right now, but Hillary's video's made me want to chatter, that's for sure.