I should blog this idea while it's still (barely) timely. Yesterday, I was on a plane home to NYC and everyone on the flight had CNN on and was watching, first, Hillary Clinton's non-concession speech and then Barack Obama's acknowledgement that he's going to be the Democratic party's presidential candidate. Pretty amazing, historical stuff.
But the vast majority of people I talk to (understanding and acknowledging that there's no small amount of selection bias here) feel that Hillary's speech was off, being insufficiently conciliatory towards Obama and a bit too aggressive about puffing her own chest out regarding "her" 18 million supporters. That's probably true.
The thing that I think has been misdiagnosed, though, is the case of the problem. Basically, everyone wants to say that Hillary is a dick, who was being a total sore loser. I am not so sure that's what happened.
I'm a little bit familiar with trying to communicate complicated, nuanced messages to the public, though of course no where near on the scale of a presidential campaign. I have had a bit of a glimpse into campaigns in the past, in the tiny capacity of having friends or colleagues working on the technical part of such endeavors. But I understand the machinations of press and publicity very well, and I also happen to live just a few blocks from Baruch College, where Hillary made her announcement.
A few bits of background info:
- Most of the attendees at Hillary's rally had likely lined up hours and hours in advance, well before the day's primaries were called or the superdelegates began piling on to Obama's count
- Baruch College's auditorium is underground, as I was reminded by seeing Choire tonight and re-reading his piece on Hillary's speech
- As a result, Hillary's diehard supporters in that room had almost no cell phone coverage or data plan coverage with which to receive updates on the day's progress as they waited, relying instead on word of mouth and (likely skewed) reports from organizers
- The bulk of Hillary's speech was her standard stump speech of the past few days and weeks, delivered with such familiarity that supporters were able to chant along with signposts such as her recitation of her website's address
So here's what I think happened: Hillary said, "we're not going to plan for failure", and had only prepared what was basically a standard stump speech/victory speech. When it became clear Obama had a lock, whomever (if anyone!) is in charge of communication said, "just preface your comments with a nod to his success".
Hillary did exactly that, opening with a (likely genuine) tribute to Obama and then launching into her traditional schtick. But the people in the room, remember, were underinformed, extremely zealous, and word-for-word familiar with everything but her comments on Obama.
So, the points that seemed most inflammatory and aggressive got amplified by the reaction of the crowd and the energy of the room. Moments that seemed surprising or even irrational, such as the chanting of "Denver! Denver! Denver!" may have seemed entirely plausible to that crowd. And the impression of the crowd and Hillary amplifying each other played worst of all on television and on replay on the web.
In some ways, right down to the recitation of a list of states where she'd seen primary success, this was kind of a mirror-image of Howard Dean's fateful scream. It was a perhaps-canny reading of a room at the expense of being extremely off-putting in all the living rooms where she was also appearing at that moment. And it was, like Dean's scream, a moment that seemed to confirm everything that opponents or the unconvinced might have feared about her.
There's one shot at undoing that legacy, and we'll know this week if it's going to happen.
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