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..and that's the notion that these high paid high profile DC lifer consultants and strategists aren worth a single goddamned thing, let alone the obscene amounts of money they're paid for negative results.
Yes, I personally am favoring Obama to win so let's get that out of the way. But the times in this campaign and this primary season that Senator Clinton has done well and gained the most not just electorally and vote-wise but also my own personal sympathy/empathy was when she was allowing herself to drive both what she said and what she did. When it felt like she wasn't being consultant driven. When she was speaking for herself and not letting her strategists speak for her. When she would speak and it was from the heart and seemed sincere I would think to myself "This is why at the outset of this primary I thought I'd be pulling for her." But when Mark Penn or Terry McCaullife or James Carville spoke, or when Senator Clinton would say things that sounded like they were written by any of those people it showed in the results and it speaking for myself it showed viscerally in my reaction and the reaction of many people that I knew. I'm from NJ so I watched closely her campaing in 2000. I watched how it started as what seemed to me to be a poll driven, back room decision maneuver that I feared would strike most as cynical. I watched as she won over not just the easy parts of Manhattan, New York City, etc. but also the rest of the state. I watched as she let people see who she was, rather than who Bill's advisers and consultants and strategists positioned her as. And I watched as she won it.
At it's worst those negative, consultant driven moments that I speak of reminded me of what happened with Gore in 2000 and Kerry in 2004. How much more evidence do we need to see that a sizable enough chunk of the democratic base and the average voter responds more to seeing someone speak from the heart and speak as a fellow American rather than seeing their surrogates and high paid DC consultants speak for them. I can't explain it but we have the inverse problem I think from what Republicans have. Their media strategists and their insider consultants tend to play the game better than their actual candidates. Their insiders can take the biggest turd of a candidate who left on their own would repulse most voters and turn them into a palatable candidate who can win an election. Conversely our candidates are better, more intelligent, have more experience and heart and passion and prowess than even the best republican, but our consultants and strategists are buffoons who sap them of all of their strengths and powers and mire them in a poll driven bog that turns off far too many voters both in and out of the Democratic base..
If Senator Clinton pulls this out (and I think there's every possibility she might) I hope someone, ANYONE in ANY position of power and authority within the democratic party realizes that it was because SHE did what SHE needed to and SHE said what SHE needed to say and that the times in this primary season where this person of influence, authority, intelligence and power faltered was when she let these other people, so devoid of any kind of connection to average people speak for her and seemingly decide for her what she should do or say.
And let me make it clear I'm under NO, absolutely NO delusion that Obama does not have consultants and strategists and insiders, etc. But they appear at least to me to be more behind the scenes and I think this is how his appeal has seemingly gone from zero to 60 in such a short period of time on the national stage. They appear to be more a cog in the machinery rather than the ones pulling the levers and calling the shots. The times that Senator Clinton has gone toe to toe and won, the times that she has risen above, and the times that she has prevailed both before this primary season and during it has been when she has commanded the stage. When she has SHOWN people what she is made of. When she has taken the reins and commanded the drivers seat. If she wins.....when she wins?.....I hope this is a lesson that's gleaned from this. And maybe I'm wrong, and I'm sure there are plenty of Hillary supporters who will hate me for saying this and that's fine. But after tasting success in the 2006 election by bucking this insider, blue state plus one only mentality, and comparing that to the insider playbooks that cost us 2000 and 2004, I just want to make sure that whoever our more than capable candidate is of these 2 people that this is the lesson that's taken away. I fear that it won't because there's too much money and influence and power at stake, but I can wish.
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