Hillary Clinton’s announcement video is certainly sleek, well produced and carefully edited. It’s also what we call in the business a ‘real person’ spot.
Smart idea because we know that familiarity breeds contempt. So the idea that Hillary doesn’t make an appearance until the 1:33 mark near the back is intentional. She is far and away the most familiar candidate on either side.
Voters will soon answer the question, is she contemptible? Yes is a distinct possibility given Hillary’s overexposure through the long, agonizing years of controversy swirling around her.
The fact is that some candidates aren’t as appealing as others. A disturbing trend over the last few years in political TV production is lazy consultants merely pointing a camera at an unattractive candidate and letting him or her talk for the length of the spot.
We’ll see how Republicans like Rand Paul or Ben Carson wear over time.
Now of course those on the right will scoff and whine that Hillary can’t possibly relate to ‘real people’ for the simple reason that she doesn’t drive a car or hasn’t had a real job outside of government.
Voters may very well overlook that because very few ‘real people’ ever stand a chance of being elected president. Still, it is rather rich that Hillary derides the people ‘at the top’ while she is standing on top.
So now that it’s off to the races, Martin O’Malley should run a background check on the ‘real people’ in the video. Who knows, maybe they’ll get lucky and unearth a former porn star. Political campaigns have never been very good at vetting themselves. That would make for a great process story.