Bronco Bob
11-21-2007, 10:25 AM
Much has been made about how disliked Hillary is. Some polls even claim
50% say they would never vote for her. Here is an interesting take on
how to counter that and get even the people that hate her to vote
for her.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/11/nixon_1968_clinton_2008.html
All good strategies have an antecedent. The antecedent strategy for the Clinton campaign of 2008 is the Nixon strategy of 1968. Then, the problem was: how do you make the country's most disliked politician electable? Frank Shakespeare and Fred McWhorter started by trying to make Nixon warmer, friendlier, your next door neighbor. A young turk named Roger Ailes came in, took a look and said (and I am paraphrasing here): "forget it. No one will ever warm to the guy. He's un-likeable. We've got to change the narrative. This is about a man in the arena; this is about grit and determination and hard work and brains and perseverance." Ailes went on to create televised "Man in the Arena" town hall meetings, at which Nixon answered voter questions, by himself, being himself. Voters didn't need to like Nixon to elect him. He only needed to earn their respect.
Like Nixon, Senator Clinton is widely disliked. Like Nixon, she cannot be made warm, even by a modern-day Roger Ailes. Like Nixon, she is a politician whose resentments are always close to the surface. And like Nixon, she is a politician about whom her peers have real doubts.
But also like Nixon, she is intelligent and diligent and determined and tough and she has been through hell and back. She is experienced in a way that only her husband and President George W. Bush are experienced. She knows what it's like to get her head kicked in every day, day after day after day, for months and years on end. She endures.
That was the whole point of the 1968 Nixon campaign narrative. He wasn't perfect by any means, but he was formidable and he endured. It's a narrative that fits Senator Clinton's campaign like a glove. For reasons either right or wrong, Americans will elect their first female president only when they are convinced that she is the tougher of the two (or three) choices. She won't be inevitable until we believe she is as formidable as Tricky Dick.
50% say they would never vote for her. Here is an interesting take on
how to counter that and get even the people that hate her to vote
for her.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/11/nixon_1968_clinton_2008.html
All good strategies have an antecedent. The antecedent strategy for the Clinton campaign of 2008 is the Nixon strategy of 1968. Then, the problem was: how do you make the country's most disliked politician electable? Frank Shakespeare and Fred McWhorter started by trying to make Nixon warmer, friendlier, your next door neighbor. A young turk named Roger Ailes came in, took a look and said (and I am paraphrasing here): "forget it. No one will ever warm to the guy. He's un-likeable. We've got to change the narrative. This is about a man in the arena; this is about grit and determination and hard work and brains and perseverance." Ailes went on to create televised "Man in the Arena" town hall meetings, at which Nixon answered voter questions, by himself, being himself. Voters didn't need to like Nixon to elect him. He only needed to earn their respect.
Like Nixon, Senator Clinton is widely disliked. Like Nixon, she cannot be made warm, even by a modern-day Roger Ailes. Like Nixon, she is a politician whose resentments are always close to the surface. And like Nixon, she is a politician about whom her peers have real doubts.
But also like Nixon, she is intelligent and diligent and determined and tough and she has been through hell and back. She is experienced in a way that only her husband and President George W. Bush are experienced. She knows what it's like to get her head kicked in every day, day after day after day, for months and years on end. She endures.
That was the whole point of the 1968 Nixon campaign narrative. He wasn't perfect by any means, but he was formidable and he endured. It's a narrative that fits Senator Clinton's campaign like a glove. For reasons either right or wrong, Americans will elect their first female president only when they are convinced that she is the tougher of the two (or three) choices. She won't be inevitable until we believe she is as formidable as Tricky Dick.