Barack Obama has wide appeal. Democrats, Republicans, commentators, opponents, they find themselves tagging along, like he's the new cool kid on the block. Sometimes the support is overt. John Edwards endorses him, as does Senator Byrd, Congressman Henry Waxman, and the United Steelworkers. But sometimes an endorsement is more subtle.
When Barack pulled ahead of other Democrat contenders under the banner "Change You Can Believe In", Hillary Clinton decided to adapt his slogan as her own, calling hers "Change and Experience". Clinton promised voters that "change" would happen on "Day One". Same, same, but different.
After springing into "change" mode though, Hillary began leaving audiences around the world spinning with her own image defying change. She morphed from one character to the next, leaving people gasping in her wake. What accent? Southern y'all? Gravely, standing on a flatbed truck? What new activity?
When she was swilling beer and flipping back shots with some Pennsylvanians, she reminded Bill Moyers of Marlene Dietrich in Destry Rides Again, specifically the song "Go see what the boys in the back room will have, and them I'll have the same." As time went on Clinton began to remind more people of more movie characters.
Hillary's Change
Hillary herself decided her image resembled the determined boxer in the movie "Rocky", but others had different ideas. To some, she was the Black Knight in Monty Python. To Scranton, Pennsylvania voters, she was the home girl, and then in West Virginia she was a West Virginia girl. But she's no coal miner's daughter, her victory speech in West Virginia reminded one reporter of the character played by Warren Beatty in Reds cheering for a revolution.
I found this tendency to compare Clinton to various movie characters fascinating, since for months I had found myself thinking she was a bit Reese Witherspoon in Election. Over time, I wondered whether she might be more like Tilda Swinton in Michael Clayton. While mine were contemporary, human, female characters, however, other depictions were less flattering. Dana Milbank in the Washington Post recently compared the ongoing debate over Clinton's electability to the fate of the parrot in the movie "Monty Python's Flying Circus".
Customer: "That parrot is definitely deceased, and when I purchased it not half an hour ago, you assured me that its total lack of movement was due to it being tired and shagged out following a prolonged squawk."
Pet-shop owner: "Well, he's, he's, ah, probably pining for the fiords."
Customer: (Takes parrot from cage, bangs its head on counter, lets it drop to floor.) "Now, that's what I call a dead parrot."
Pet-shop owner: "No, he's stunned! . . . You stunned him, just as he was wakin' up! Norwegian blues stun easily, Major."
Customer: "He's not pining! He's passed on! This parrot is no more! He has ceased to be! He's expired and gone to meet his maker! He's a stiff! Bereft of life, he rests in peace! . . . His metabolic processes are now history! He's off the twig! He's kicked the bucket, he's shuffled off his mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleeding choir invisible! This is an ex-parrot!"
Why do so many of us compare Hillary to movie characters? Is it that we're so unaccustomed to a strong woman in the President role that we have no real comparisons we can make? She's not many female politicians we know, Margaret Thatcher or Nancy Pelosi for instance...Unlike countries where female presidents or prime ministers are the norm, we have few figures to cast from (aside from The West Wing). This is not the first time people have looked to the movies to reflect a reality they can't fathom. People exclaimed that being in lower Manhattan when the terrorists flew into the World Trade Towers was "like being a movie".
Baking Cookies, Making Tea, That's Just Not Me
Some people, like Bill Moyers, welcome the Clinton change, say she's found her voice. Clinton recently spoke on behalf of her gun-owning church-going supporters when Obama "insulted" her working class comrades.
But mere months ago she was hanging out with Bill in the country diner cheerfully wondering idly about Chelsea's whereabouts. Journey's 1981 "Don't Stop Believing" hummed nostalgically in the background. Not too far from Fleetwood Mac's, "Don't Stop", which Bill's theme song, the theme was no change. While the Clintons awkwardly but quaintly attempted to build edge-of-your chair suspense at the diner over her campaign theme, Celine Dion's "You and I", their spoof of the Sopranos seemed one drive-in away from On Golden Pond. After declaring her new change theme, every day forward left quaint 'ole Hillary-and-Bill-at-the-jutebox a little farther in the dust.
Perhaps Hillary has found her voice. Male working class voters are warming to strong women, and maybe women wouldn't be as indignant as they were when she mused back in 1992 on Nightline "I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas but what I decided to do was to fulfill my profession". This prompted William Safire to offer advise: "You do not defend yourself from a conflict-of-interest charge by insulting a large segment of the voting public." He wrote that Clinton's remarks were: "elitism in action". 16 years later you can say she's absorbed Safire's patronizing lesson. Hillary went on to leap past her 'elitist gaffe' and has since been appeasing voters left and right.
But when she took the Obama change challenge last fall was her intent to prove herself more adept at corralling the "white non-college educated vote"? Is that what Democrats aspire to? Has the change helped her break through a glass ceiling? While some argue yes, other voters and superdelegates have veered over to Obama's side, and he's pulling ahead.
The question remains, why does Clinton remind everyone of fictional movie characters, while Obama reminds everyone of male presidents like John F. Kennedy, or Ronald Reagan (not in ideology, they quickly say), or George H.W. Bush? Hillary may have changed, from picking through old jutebox favorite with hubbie to being one tough bitch who'll obliterate anything in her way. But have we?
Star power
While Clinton strode defiantly, talked stridently, slagged Obama, and sank still lower with her the traveling hillbilly act, Obama coolly brushed it off. He refreshingly acts like he's being himself. An article in the New York Times yesterday quoted a publisher who said Obama's feat was to make millions writing autobiographies..."two books not based on a job of prodigious research or risking one's life as a reporter in Iraq. He has written about himself. Being able to take your own life story and turn it into this incredibly lucrative franchise, it's a stunning fact."
Perhaps Hillary could have taken away another Safire nugget before hiking up her pantsuits with such determination to wade into the rhetorical swamp. Safire's advice to the Clinton's in 1992 for what he gratingly labeled "The Hillary Problem", was a six step solution: "1. Hillary: Stop defining yourself by what you're not." Who is she?
Just as Safire raked Clinton across the coals in 1992, Maureen Dowd recently eviscerated Obama for making comments about arugula and bitterness which made him, in her eyes, a "charter member of the elite". However a lot of working class people I know know arugula quite well. Remind me about the working class cred of New York Times columnist? Aren't they the ones whose capital is hobnobbing with the ruling class in fine restaurants ? If Clinton has progressed to a more modern time, then perhaps media has not.
Republicans' Me-Too Change
As he accumulates endorsements and attracts 75,000 people to his stump speech in Portland, at times he even seems to have the Republican party skipping along after him acting for all intents and purposes like Democrats. The Republicans just launched their new slogan "Change You Deserve" -- hat tip to Obama's "Change We Can Believe In". [update: And an Effexor commercial apparently]
They're out to remind us to keep YOU in Republican, I guess. Do you see a "we" in Republican? Certainly not. If too many Republicans started saying "we", who knows the trouble it would cause? The whole country might slip into socialism, or worse. Would everyone's voice be important, would all votes count? That Obama "we believe" phrasing sounds like the U.S. is a team, like there's no decider in charge. Republicans can't have that.
Republicans may have deduced from polling that people feel like they "deserve" change. But which slogan would you bet on? People may feel like they "deserve" change after the last eight years but McCain will continue the tax breaks and war so what are the Republicans talking about? You know they don't mean "deserve" as in entitlement -- they're virulently opposed to Social Security, safety nets and all that. So then what does "deserve" mean? Anything? And looking at Hillary's record, will the Republicans lose themselves like she did by trying to emulate Barack Obama?
Not if some people can help it. David Brooks suggests that Obama is actually co-opting Republican politics. Brooks grilled Barack Obama after George Bush described the candidate's foreign policy statements regarding Hezbollah as "appeasement." Not grilled as in Chris Matthews and Mark Green, on Crossfire, mind you, but as in conservative NYT columnist grilled. Brooks writes in "Obama Admires Bush" that he wondered whether Obama would really consider approaching Hezbollah diplomatically as George W. Bush implied last week. If so, the pundit said, affably of course, "[h]e's off in Noam Chompskyland".
No, when they spoke, Obama "reaffirmed" for him that Hezbollah is "not a legitimate political party", but a "destabilizing organization...", supported by "Iran and Syria". Brooks goes on to explain some details of Obama's foreign policy before concluding (seemingly approvingly) that it reminds him of George G.W. Bush's approach to foreign relations.
So which brand will win? Will Barack Obama prevail by being "himself" as the Republicans dance around chanting "me-too" change? Or will the Republicans win by making it look like they have all the ideas?
