Republicans are the usual targets for caricature on the popular American comedy show Saturday Night Live (remember Tina Fey as Sarah Palin?). But the comedienne Kate McKinnon’s impersonation of Hillary Clinton last week gave Fey a run for her money. On the eve of Hillary’s announcement, one biting SNL skit imagined what her announcement video might sound like. “Citizens, you will elect me,” McKinnon barked. “I will be your leader!”
The satirical message was simple: Hillary Clinton believes she is entitled to the presidency. In 2008, it was widely perceived that Hillary’s sense of entitlement cost her the White House. So this time round, she is making a concerted effort to appear “normal”. After announcing her candidacy, Hillary and her entourage took a 1,000 mile road-trip in a van she dubbed the “Scooby Doo van” (presumably named after the “Mystery Machine” in the classic children’s cartoon).
En route, she made a pit stop for a chicken burrito bowl at a Chipotle Mexican Grill restaurant. But her efforts backfired. Hillary didn’t shake hands with any of the employees — or leave a tip. Believe it or not, this story received about four days of press coverage in America.
On arriving in Iowa, at least one of Hillary’s meetings appeared staged, with Democratic supporters posing as average Iowans. And film footage of her leaving one such event showed the “Scooby” van idling in a handicapped parking zone.
This led one conservative website to crow: “Elderly Presidential Candidate Uses Handicap Parking Spot on Campaign Trail.” This all sounds petty and superficial; the best ridicule usually is. The more one watches the coverage of Hillary, the more it becomes apparent that it won’t be the serious scandals — the Benghazis or the private email account — that will matter. Rather, the much greater danger is that she could become a joke.
Unlike US President Barack Obama’s early days, Hillary isn’t viewed as “off limits” to the entertainment and media worlds. And unlike her husband, former president Bill Clinton, Hillary must get elected in a world where conservative websites and citizen journalists with camera phones are ubiquitous.
Hillary seems temperamentally unsuited to overcome this problem. SNL skits from the 1990s showing her husband jogging to McDonald’s felt almost endearing. Hillary’s affable — almost childlike — charm allowed him to be in on the joke. But Hillary is a serious adult, and this is a problem. When the famed Republican dirty trickster Lee Atwater advised George HW Bush on how to defeat Bob Dole in the 1988 presidential primary, his strategy required employing psychological warfare to get under Dole’s skin.
Living in a world full of Atwaters
This involved engaging in as much petty, childlike behaviour, as possible. As John Brady recalls in his book on Atwater, Bad Boy, Atwater’s theory went like this: “The overly mature are inflexible and over serious, making them highly vulnerable in politics, particularly in the age of television. Dole was the mature type, Atwater the child.” In some ways, Hillary is the new Bob Dole — and she’s living in a world full of Atwaters.
The day after Hillary announced her presidential campaign, Marco Rubio, the 43-year-old Florida senator, who is young enough to be Clinton’s son, made his own presidential announcement — a soaring speech which contrasted with Hillary in every way, casting her as his perfect foil. “Just yesterday,” Rubio said, “a leader from yesterday began a campaign for president by promising to take us back to yesterday. But yesterday is over, and we are never going back.” The funny thing is that some serious news involving Hillary came out this week, but has mostly elicited yawns.
First, it was revealed that she had simply ignored congressional inquiries into her use of private emails during the time she was serving as secretary of state in 2012. Second, it was reported that the Clinton Foundation would continue taking money from foreign governments — even as Hillary officially ran for President of the United States.
None of these “serious” stories garnered as much coverage or commentary as her failure to leave a tip at Chipotle. This is both a commentary on the American public and the American media. But it’s also a warning to Hillary about how it will be the little things that kill.
— The Telegraph Group Limited, London 2015
Matt K Lewis is a senior contributor at The Daily Caller website in Washington, DC.
