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As Hillary Rodham Clinton gets ready to make her big announcement Sunday, there has been lots of sniping from the usual sources, but also some advice and encouragement.
She already has taken some advice to heart.
For example, the campaign is not going to be much about the “I” in Clinton as has been in the past. There will be “Less mention of her own ambitions,” definitely no “I’m in it to win it” slogans and, hopefully, no more exuding that “perception of inevitability.”
Even her big announcement is going to be low-keyed: A video message on social media followed by visits to Iowa and New Hampshire where she is expected to have a series of small-scale discussions with voters — “everyday Americans.”
Clinton will deliberately avoid “the appearance of a battleship heading into the fight, as her organization seemed on her entry into the 2008 Democratic campaign,” when Mrs. Clinton “arrived at some events in Iowa on a chartered aircraft called the ‘Hill-A-Copter’” the New York Times says.
This time, Clinton will “focus on smaller, intimate events that will allow her to spend quality time with voters and connect with them in casual settings,” as Clinton aides tell MSNBC.
But the Clinton campaign also admits that it is difficult to “go small” — to avoid the battleship-heading-into-battle effect — when the “biggest political celebrity in the world…travels with a large coterie of reporters, aides, and Secret Service do intimate?”
“It’s a challenge the nascent Clinton campaign acknowledges they don’t yet have a perfect solution for, and likely never will,” says MSNBC, adding “Clinton’s campaign-in-waiting has worked with the Secret Service to try to pare down the agency’s footprint around Clinton as much as possible, and give the candidate room for spontaneous interactions with voters…”
Hillary Clinton’s “Prologue” also telegraphs a significant change from her previous aggressive, gender-neutral campaigning style. By accentuating her mother and grandmother joys and responsibilities, Clinton not only appeals to millennials and women but, by being “more vocal about her work on gender equality,” Clinton also ties “that message to her role as the potential first female president” something that “could counter precisely what Clinton neglected to do eight years ago,” says Debbie Walsh, the director at the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.
A piece of “unsolicited advice” comes from Jonathan Capehart at the Washington Post who tells Clinton, “Run free! Run like you don’t need the job of president of the United States — because you don’t.”
Stressing Clinton’s qualifications and desire to be president, Capehart wants Clinton “to run like she doesn’t need to be president” because:
…While Clinton isn’t close to being Bloomberg rich, she hasn’t a financial care in the world. And she has a granddaughter to spoil. So, Clinton should feel free to say what she really thinks, show emotion, talk up the historic nature of her candidacy and dress down the haters lying in wait. I’m not expecting her to go all Bulworth on us, but shades of that devil-may-care attitude would be refreshing…one could argue Clinton could have more power and freedom to change lives for the better without the beltway drama and gridlock that comes with living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. She doesn’t need to live there. She wants to live there. And Clinton must run free to ensure that voters know and appreciate the difference.
I mentioned encouragement.
Of course it is coming from millions of “regular” Americans who want to see Hillary run and win, but also from the present occupant of the White House who is making a “quiet case for Hillary Clinton in 2016,” but who:
To be sure…remains coy about an explicit primary endorsement and, officials say, will likely keep a low profile in the early stages of the campaign. He told CBS News in an April 2014 interview that Biden would also be a strong candidate as “one of the finest vice presidents in history.”
It is also coming — somewhat mutedly — from someone who in the past has repeatedly criticized Clinton, but now suggests that she may be ready “the second time around”
“Learning the lessons of 2008: HRC rollout plans stress humility. No Clinton Inc., the ‘inevitable’ juggernaut that left voters behind,” [David] Axelrod wrote on Twitter on Friday.
Not at all surprising, the Clinton foes who previously criticized Clinton’s “imperious,” “showboat” campaigning are now pooh-poohing her more “intimate” approach:
Here is Ryan Williams, a Republican strategist who was Mitt Romney’s press secretary in 2012:
It’s utterly impossible…My guess is Hillary Clinton’s intimate campaign will be nothing more than a staged photo opportunity designed to look like something that it’s not. You’re at a stage where it should be open access to voters, spontaneous interaction with voters, and that’s just going to be very hard for her.”
Oh well…
Run Free, Hillary!
