She’s Nice! Really!
USA Today reports that Senator Hillary Clinton’s campaign has decided to change its strategy: from now on they’ll try to convince voters that Clinton really is a nice, warm person. “[F]riends, associates and constituents she has helped” will testify, as a matter of speech, in her behalf.
Or else.
No, Clinton’s campaign considers this to be necessary because approximately 50% of the American people think unfavorably about her. Quite some Democratic voters like her, but everyone else hates her.
And that’s a problem.
The Gun Toting Liberal reacts: “It’s not going to work, Hill. You’ve been trying to recreate yourself in the public eye for years and years and the public sees you for exactly whom you really are — cold, calculating, and a frighteningly power hungry authoritarian neoconservative and it hasn’t worked thus far and it will not work in the near future either.”
Um. I’m quite sure that many people consider her to be “cold, calculating’ and “power hungry” but that ‘neoconservative’ monicker in there is quite ludicrous. If you look at what neoconservatism stands for, well, you can say a lot, but not that she’s a neocon. Sometimes I wonder whether those who throw the neoconservative label around so easily know what neoconservatism is and stands for.
Gaius: “One gets the mental image of a battalion of blow-dryer wielding political operatives trying to melt an ice sculpture.”
Perhaps so, but I think that Clinton is right to do this. Remember, she doesn’t need to influence 10 or 20% of the voters. If she improves her ratings with a couple of percentage points she’ll have done what she needs to do. Is this convincing to most of the 50% who dislike her? No. May she ‘convert’ some people? Perhaps yeah.
As it is, I have to say that I’m not 100% sure whether it’s a good thing actually. She should present herself, basically, as an Iron Lady. “You don’t have to like me, as long as you realize that I’m a good leader / I’ll do what’s necessary for the country.” That’s what she should say.
For the most part, I think it is that "Iron Lady" image that scares the other 50%.