Peter Sage Introduction: I am posting this article by Thad Guyer because it creates an imagined cause for a characteristic I have noted in Hillary's campaign, beginning from my very first post in this blog over 100 entries ago. Hillary, I said, seemed "lawyerly" in the speech she gave to a 150 donors at an event in Portland.
My wife objected to the implied criticism, noting "She's a lawyer!" My observation was that she came across as someone required to testify who was thoroughly coached and prepared by her attorney, saying things carefully, avoiding potential potholes or land mines.
Thad is a litigator, specializing in whistleblowers. Litigators do high stakes message judo, so his observations on messages come from a practiced eye.
By Thad Guyer:
"Helping Hillary To the Stage"
Up Close once again is feeling the rifts in the Force, and asking readers “do you feel it?” Checking this blog is now in first place for me before I click my phone icons for New York Times, Washington Post and BBC. I’m an old liberal with habits searching for insights into what is happening in the politiverse. There is something happening that doesn’t lend itself to prediction because the rules of selection are not just changing, they are morphing and shape-shifting in response to the Force. Up Close could watch the television ads online, but that would be sterile and detached. Even to watch a TV ad, you have to be there in the milieu to feel it, like being among the native tongues to master the language and the culture that makes it intelligible.
As I read these reports from the front, my mind wants parables and visions. I picture the Hillary tv ad that Up Close described and interpreted. Hillary too wants to speak in code, people will only listen to code now. Naming a specific enemy is risky business, her campaign staff tells her nervously, themselves no longer confident what to do or say. The vision takes hold. I see Hillary being led up the back stairs of a stump stage, hoping security can keep the reporters away. She mutters to herself “dishonest, they are so dishonest with their questions and soundbites”. Is this the first sign of Trump delirium, she asks herself.
“Remember mam, don’t name my religion as the enemy”, whispers Huma Abedin, vice chair of her campaign. “Never say ‘Islamic terrorism’ no matter how hard they push you. It would be better to lose than bow to that fear”.
“And honey, don’t name sexism toward women as an enemy, if you’re just talkin’ about wage parity”, her husband cautions, “because they’ll twist that into sex exploitation, and start asking again if you helped me shut up Lewinsky, Flowers and the others”.
Hillary is starting to resent the way the two clutch her arms, pushing and pulling.
“And for heavens sake”, Bill reminds her, “don’t say anything about gun ownership, guns are not the enemy, it’s the manufacturers, you can go after them, but not ownership”.
“Yes, your husband is right mam”, Huma chimes in, but avoiding eye contact with him, “don’t even talk about the mentally ill shooters because they will twist that around to Muslims as the enemy, do not go there”.
“And Wall Street, honey, remember they’re not the enemy”, Bill says as they approach the curtain ready to push her on to stage. “Don’t piss off that superpac again, you go after Bernie how he’s always yapping about Wall Street over and over, Bernie is the enemy on that one”.
Hillary turns to him and seethes, “oh, so I can name Bernie as the enemy?”
“No, no mam, no enemies, we have no enemies, remember that trouble you got in when you called Republicans the enemies”, Huma rebukes her boss. And to reassure herself, she adds “or they will turn that around to Muslims”. And Bill takes his last shot, “or turn it around to men who want to get women as the enemy”.
“So gun manufacturers, I can say they are the enemy”, exasperation in her voice. She hears only “no, man”, “no honey”, then in harmonic a cappella, “no enemies”.
She enters the stage fantasizing being like Trump, and saying what she wants about the press, liars, and enemies. “The gun manufactures”, she begins to a crowd of supporters, seeing even fewer
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