Hillary Clinton Talks SNL, Being Cubs Fan, Her Love of Dance Parties and Presidential Debates
Hillary Clinton, looking to close her general election campaign against Donald J. Trump by establishing a strong contrast with her opponent, is out with a new ad titled Example, which highlights her experience and criticizes his temperament.
THE AD The voice is the actor Morgan Freemans, but the theme, Our Children, is unmistakably that of Mrs. Clintons campaign. Scenes of children babies cooing, schoolchildren laughing on a bus, a woman helping a young boy with homework fill the frame. Now theyre looking to see what kind of leaders we chose, Mr. Freeman says.
Mrs. Clinton is shown at the United Nations and described by Mr. Freeman as respected around the world. Mr. Trump is seen alone onstage, and called one who frightens our allies. Mrs. Clinton tours a factory, Mr. Trump huddles with microphones around him. Mrs. Clinton stands stoically with military officers as secretary of state, the steady hand, as Mr. Trump sneers at reporters, a loose cannon. The ad dips into the past, showing Mrs. Clinton as first lady, smiling with children, and Mr. Trump mugging for the camera, slouched on slot machines.
A woman who spent her life helping children and families, or a man who spent his life helping himself, Mr. Freeman says as the ad winds down. It ends by returning to images of children and a final narration: Our children are looking to us. What example will we set? What kind of country will we be?
THE MESSAGE: The ad makes the case that Mrs. Clinton has spent her career preparing for this moment while Mr. Trump has spent his enriching himself and is unfit to be president, because of both to his past record and his recent statements.
THE TAKEAWAY: The tone of the ad is more negative than in those candidates generally produce in the campaigns closing days, but it is softened somewhat by having Mr. Freeman, and not Mrs. Clinton, deliver the attacks. It also seeks to reinforce what the Clinton campaign has been trying to convey as it courts both Democrats and Republicans that Mr. Trumps campaign is all about himself and for his own ego, while Mrs. Clintons is about children and the future.
Changing channels ...
Microtargeting Trump
The Trump campaign has yet to run a Spanish-language advertisement, but in sensing a new pocket of support among Indian-Americans, the candidate himself speaks Hindi, or at least tries to, in a new ad targeting them. Ab ki Baar Trump Sarkar, Mr. Trump says, although the Sarkar seems to be taken from another take. The ad is tracked by what sounds like traditional Indian music, but features so many clichs and shoddy graphics that many Indian-Americans initially took to social media wondering if it was a spoof.
Greatest Hits
Priorities USA calls it Trumps Symphony, but what follows is probably music to the ears only of Democratic political operatives and supporters. Over the course of 30 seconds, the primary super PAC supporting Mrs. Clinton seeks to cram in every caustic comment and controversial policy from Mr. Trumps 17 months as a presidential candidate into one ad. From calling Mexicans rapists to his sexually aggressive comments, the ad closes with big white text on a black background: We can end this.
Daisy Style
A new super PAC, formed by former Democratic Senator Bill Bradley and called the 52nd Street Fund, exploded onto the airwaves in Ohio, with an ad that opens with a split-second view of a mountainscape, before a flash and mushroom cloud eviscerate the vista as a narrator notes that a nuclear explosion could kill a million people. A news clip follows, of Mr. Trump being questioned about the use of nuclear weapons. The ad has the feel of the famed Daisy ad from 1964, which warned of the consequences of a Barry Goldwater presidency. That was intentional: The group announced during the week that its name was derived from a poem about World War II that President Lyndon Johnson read during the famed Daisy ad from 1964.
Numbers
$1.8 million: amount the Clinton campaign has reserved during the election.
$107 million: amount reserved by Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Trump and Priorities USA during the election.
Watch Hillary Clinton"s Full Democratic Convention Speech
PHILADELPHIA I was there, in the arena of the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, when a woman accepted the nomination of a major American political party for president. But dont envy me for witnessing history, because thats not really how it felt.
To people watching Hillary Clintons Democratic National Convention speech on TV, like my colleague Dylan Matthews, The first speech as nominee of the first woman nominated by a major party was always going to be a moment. And sure enough, Clinton delivered [...] She nailed it.
She delivered the speech fluidly. The crowds enthusiasm seemed to boil over spontaneously into chants of HIL-LA-RY!. The speech ended with a spectacle that included not only more balloons than Bill Clinton or anyone else had ever seen, but fireworks.
But in the arena, Clinton couldnt hold the audience; it wasnt hers to hold. There were just too many pockets of dissent and rejection.
Chants of No more war! and No TPP! felt liable to erupt at any moment. The back of the California delegation booed for 20 or 30 seconds at a time.
What sounded on TV like oddly-timed Hillary and USA! chants were usually attempts by Clinton supporters to drown out attempted disruptions. In the arena, youd hear a buzzing undercurrent for a few seconds, then an over-strident Hillary! chant surge dutifully to meet it.
Pockets of Bernie Sanders supporters in Day-Glo T-shirts refused to participate in the card stunt at the end of the speech. Cards distributed to audience members was supposed to turn the audience into a living bunting of red and white; it ended up looking like an awning someone had tried to deface with a highlighter.
The interruptions werent constant, but they were frequent enough. Even after one round of boos subsided, it was hard to return attention to the speech instead of bracing for the next one. The arena never felt uncontrolled, in the literal sense. But despite the amount of energy the Democratic Party poured into the spectacle, the dissenters managed to signal-jam the vibe.
The Democrats wanted transcendence. But politics is about dissent.
Its ironic that Clintons speech felt a lot more momentous on television than it did to those of us who were in the room. (And I cant help but feel bad for the delegates whove exhausted themselves for months, only to see or hear less of the speech than their less-invested peers who were watching at home.) But in a way, its fitting.
Its often true in politics that things that look very smooth and unified from a distance are actually, up close, the result of a lot of scuffling and scratching: a coalition held together with athletic tape and bruises.
As others have pointed out, Democrats convention presented democracy as a kind of civic religion; it was designed to give everyone watching at least one reason to feel proud to be American. It was brilliant stagecraft. Hillary Clinton is not a candidate who inspires the ecstasy weve seen this year at rallies for Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump; her party built up an ecstasy around her.
(Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images)
It made sense as a declaration, over the next three months, of a unified threat against Donald Trump; it was not in any way a coherent expression of who the party will be if Trump fails. At a certain point, it will have to choose between the patriotism of the Chamber of Commerce lobbyist who spoke against Trump on Thursday and the patriotism of the Sanders supporters who Clinton, and everyone else, bent over backwards to praise.
Actual politics is about making choices. It is about dissent. Things only happen because people disagree and someone wins.
For eight years, weve had a president whose rhetoric, almost to a fault, always emphasized unity and endorsed the middle path between two competing extremes. But the things hes done of consequence are the result of fights his side won. And Obama and his administration, in turn, have been pressured to change along with the rest of society in how it views same-s*x couples, transgender people, unauthorized immigrants, black communities relationships with the police by activists challenging the status quo.
Its impossible to say, especially after the last several years, that dissent and disruption whether its Black Lives Matter activists blocking intersections, or Lt. Dan Choi chaining himself to the White House fence to protest Dont Ask, Dont Tell dont work as tactics. It feels inappropriate, honestly, to get mad when a political event is interrupted by a reminder of how politics actually works.
Clintons going to continue to be challenged from the left but shes shown she responds to strategic demands
So far, the media has characterized dissenters within the Democratic Party as Bernie Sanders supporters. So far, thats made sense. Sure, Clinton formally defeated Sanders during the roll call vote on Tuesday, but hundreds of delegates had come to Philadelphia for the purpose of supporting Sanders over the course of the week.
After this week, that wont make much sense. Opposition to Hillary Clinton, from the left or right, is going to be about opposition to Hillary Clinton. (Support for another candidate, like Jill Stein, isnt necessarily about Clinton but protesting Clinton rallies with Stein signs is.)
Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty
Its going to continue. Maybe not over the next few months, during the general election (though maybe so). But definitely after the election. Winning for Clinton doesnt mean her leftist dissidents will go away. The American public may like Hillary Clinton better when shes holding office than running for it, but activists of all stripes have been aware from the start that theyre going to have to mobilize to pressure a President Hillary Clinton to do right by them.
There were times during the Obama administration when it was fair to assume hed be interrupted during a big public speech: before the repeal of DADT during his first two years; before he implemented the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program for young unauthorized immigrants in 2012.
Whenever it happened, you could almost feel Obama stiffen in annoyance. President Obama usually believes hes doing something (or not doing it) because its the right thing to do; that always makes it hard not to take a heckler personally.
But in private, he more or less acknowledged it worked. In meetings with progressive activists, Obama often tells a story about Franklin Delano Roosevelt telling labor leader A. Philip Randolph, "I agree with you, now go out and make me do it." Ironically, FDR probably never said that but Obama"s use of it reflects how he himself understands politics. And when pressured enough, on immigration or the Keystone XL pipeline, he delivers.
Hillary Clinton has also shown that she can be made to do it. She"s a transactional politician; her biggest selling point is that she can deliver things to her constituents. If her constituents demonstrate that she"d better show an awareness of mass incarceration to earn their trust, she"ll call for criminal justice reform and become the first nominee to use the phrase "structural racism" when speaking to a primetime convention audience.
Is there anything Hillary Clinton can do to redeem herself to you?
Heres the thing, though, about working to get a politician to move to the left (or in any other direction): when the politician tells you what you want to hear, and supports a policy to pander to you, thats a victory. It doesnt matter whether they actually believe the sentiment. It matters that they know you believe the sentiment, and theyve decided the most important thing is to do what you want.
That usually means that the most effective activists in this style make clear demands of politicians about what they want to see, and then praises the politician when it happens.
When Bernie Sanders was asked to say that black lives matter, and did and started name-dropping Sandra Bland in speeches that was a victory. The activists whod criticized Sanders and his campaign acknowledged and praised it (even while remaining annoyed with some Sanders supporters).
Compare that with, say, Code Pink which is very good at interrupting speeches, but less good at articulating what it is asking politicians to do (beyond ending war). Its worth noting that, by the end of the week in Philly, the loudest and most constant protests in the arena were from antiwar protesters even though Sanders barely touched on foreign policy in his campaign (another indication that ultimately, this is about Hillary Clinton).
If you believe that Hillary Clinton is a fundamentally corrupt politician in a fundamentally corrupt system, this makes sense. In fact, Clintons willingness to tell you what you want to hear merely confirms your thesis that shes insincere and not to be trusted. But at that point, your problem is not with the things that Hillary Clinton is saying or not saying its with Clinton herself.
At a certain point, moving a politician to the left is not the goal anymore. The goal is to demonstrate that the politician is illegitimate. When protesters interrupt speeches as part of a pressure campaign, the interruption is usually finite; they know theyll make their point and be escorted out. Constant booing and chanting doesnt communicate a discrete point; rather, it delegitimizes the politician, and the whole pageant. (Think of the Chicago protesters who successfully shut down a Donald Trump rally before it began.) Breaking the spell of the Democrats convention stagecraft was a goal itself; it exposed the whole thing as a sham.
Denying a politicians legitimacy is a very, very big deal. You can no more be half-legitimate than half-pregnant; you cant make fine distinctions between two illegitimate politicians (or rather, you can make them in your head, but you shouldnt be surprised when you fail to communicate them clearly).
Its essentially a call for revolution. And if the revolution fails to materialize, its just an expression of belief that it should.
This is the question that left dissenters need to ask themselves about Hillary Clinton, if they havent already: is there anything that Hillary Clinton can do to redeem herself to you?
If there isnt, you can continue to protest her existence, but dont be upset if she doesnt respond you wouldnt accept a response if you got it.
If there is, figure out how you can make her do it especially (if she is elected) in January. You wont be alone. In fact, you might be surprised to see that some of the people who supported Clinton in 2016 are right alongside, waiting to remind her of what she owes.
When Hillary Clinton said she was going to hit the road, she meant it.
The newly declared presidential candidate is on her way to Iowa, from New York, in a van after announcing her candidacy online Sunday afternoon.
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The former secretary of state, who is trying to become the first female president, is set to appear in Iowa the influential early-voting state on Tuesday for a series of small, private events. But first, shell be driving with two campaign aides Nick Merrill and Huma Abedin making unplanned stops along the way.
While she has no planned pit stops on her road trip which was her own idea the candidate stopped by a gas station in Pennsylvania on Sunday. She later tweeted a picture of the stop, saying, Road trip! Loaded the van & set off for IA. Met a great family when we stopped this afternoon. Many more to come. -H
Clinton asked top aides whether a road trip was feasible about a month ago, one of her staffers said. Instead of a motorcade, she is traveling in a three-car caravan, the smallest possible arrangement given the former first ladys security constraints.
We know at some point shell get OJed like the White Bronco, said one campaign aide, anticipating a highly-watched drive. But its worth the risk If she gets mobbed or we have a circus-type scene, thats one day in an 18-month campaign, and we can deal with it.
Clinton is not filming ads during her road trip, the aide said, adding that the trip will allow Clinton reap the political benefits of small, spontaneous events without a large crowd or media contingent. Even the launch video was filmed in-house, under the eye of digital strategist Teddy Goff, partially to avoid leaks.
Clintons much-anticipated launch came in the form of a web video on Sunday afternoon, ending months of speculation about her intentions. Her campaign kick-off is expected to include a series of low-key events with private citizens, as opposed to large speeches and her road trip reflects that plan. The presumptive Democratic front-runner is not planning any major speeches or campaign rallies until May.
NEW YORK -- Hillary Clinton is expected to take questions from reporters Tuesday afternoon, more than a week since revelations surfaced that she exclusively used a private email account while conducting State Department business and amid continued questions about the Clinton Foundation accepting millions of dollars from foreign countries.
Clinton will be giving the keynote address at a women's conference, but her choice of venue, the United Nations, may help the former Secretary of State avoid a media circus because of how difficult it is for reporters to quickly get U.N. accreditation.
Politico reported Monday that Clinton was expected to hold a news conference this week, but it wasn't until Tuesday morning that reporters began tweeting news that her much-anticipated availability to the press likely would be that afternoon.
Reporters now frantically trying to get accreditation Tuesday morning to an event several hours later could be out of luck, as applications for credentials needed to be made 24 hours in advance, according to MSNBCs Alex Seitz-Wald. A Clinton spokesman said Tuesday that they are trying to get additional access for reporters not already credentialed to cover the conference.
Still, a reporter would first need to apply for a U.N. media credential by submitting a letter from a manager on company letterhead. If a reporter has current U.N. media credentials and is accredited to cover Tuesdays conference, he or she would also need to wait in line at a nearby office Tuesday morning to receive a pass, which along with a passport, is needed to gain access.
The process could prevent not only political reporters who don't normally cover the U.N. from getting inside, but also, say, a Howard Stern regular who may lob oddball questions.
Clinton has so far bypassed the media filter by speaking directly through Twitter and stating late Wednesday night that she wanted the public to see her emails.
But that tweet didn't answer questions such as why she exclusively used a private email that could prevent transparency and accountability, how her staff determined which emails to recently provide to the State Department, and how secure her communications were on a private email server.
Clinton has avoided answer questions when approached in public. An enterprising TMZ reporter, though somewhat mangling the question, asked Clinton last week about the emails and didn't get a response. On Monday, Clinton didn't respond to reporters' questions at the Clinton Foundation's "No Ceilings" event.
While Republican 2016 hopefuls are frequently doing interviews, Clinton, the presumptive Democratic frontrunner, has engaged little with the media in the run-up to an expected campaign launch in April.
Clinton sat down last month with Re/codes Kara Swisher at the Watermark Lead On conference after giving a speech. That was Clintons first interview with a reporter since August, when she spoke with The Atlantics Jeffrey Goldberg.
She also appears to have last taken questions at a news conference in July 2014 at an event to encourage reading to children.
This story has been updated to include comment from a Clinton spokesperson.
