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A few months through the presidential campaign season,
Senator Clinton remains ahead of all the other Democratic and Republican
candidates by large margins. Some of the candidates have tried to
distinguish themselves from Hillary by branding themselves as the
candidates for change and Hillary as a Washington
insider belonging to an old political dynasty. The reason that those
distinctions have not hurt her is because she has in fact been running a
smart campaign that constantly evolves to address and defuse criticisms
that are made against her.
An example is the fact that she is a woman running for president. The
general reasoning among those who are categorically against women running
for office stems from their belief that women rely on their emotions and
make decisions that may not necessary be logical. Of course, anyone who
possesses even a small intellectual capacity understands that there is no
scientific reasoning that can establish why a woman would empirically be
less fit to lead. But when conservatives began to subtly line up those arguments
against Hillary, she understood that the right way to defuse those
allegations was not to cite scientific studies, but to begin projecting a
strong and rational image that reflected who she really was. Watching only
a few of Hillary's political speeches and public performances from the
1990s and comparing them with the image that she projects today makes that
deliberate and precise metamorphosis very clear.
But she has recently embarked on a whole new set of changes to re-brand
herself to attract more voters -- and it is working. Hilary is aware that a
major poll recently demonstrated that her biggest demographic electoral
challenge is white men in their late 50s and 60s who are uncomfortable with
her as the president and only meager percentages of this group support her.
In addition, recent assertions by Elizabeth Edwards that Hillary has been
trying to act manly in order to come across as strong led the Clinton
campaign to realize that they must re-brand her image to maintain and
strengthen her appeal to both women and the men in their late 50s and 60s.
The way to address both of these concerns was to accentuate Hillary's
womanhood.
Shortly following Elizabeth Edwards's comments, Hillary appeared on the
Senate floor to give a speech in a blouse that showed her cleavage for the
first time in her public life. A simple look at the way in which she has so
closely controlled her image and appearance in various venues shows that it
is naïve to say that her revealing appearance was just a coincidence. She
understood that dressing as such will remind voters that she is not just
strong, but a strong woman. Following the "cleavage event," she
has consistently appeared at various debates and forums in bright red or
pink clothes -- a stark contrast to her regular black pantsuits prior to
the raising of questions about her womanhood. She has been smiling more,
showing more affection on the campaign trail, hugging more people following
the debates, and for the first time on Monday, she promised AFL-CIO voters
at the Chicago debate that if they are looking for someone to stand up to
powerful corporations, "I'm your girl!" -- the kind of language
that is often used as an expression of a sense of pride in being female and
everything a woman is.
What all of these instances demonstrate is that Hillary is running a
very intelligent campaign because she and her campaign staff are extremely
astute political observers; they swiftly pick up the criticisms that they
know may hurt her viability, and then instead of verbally refute criticisms,
they re-brand her through a deliberate and consistent series of efforts and
make it almost impossible for any criticism to remain relevant for longer
than a few months.
She responded to criticism about her strength by developing a strong
image over the past 10 years. She effectively diluted criticisms against
her 2002 Iraq
vote by leading the anti-war effort over the past few years, voting against
the funding of troops in the recent vote and recently challenging the
Pentagon to present Congress with plans for troops withdrawal. And she has
succeeded once again to address another criticism -- this time about her
womanhood -- by re-branding herself, emphasizing her pride in being a woman
and accentuating her female traits. Her ability to defuse criticisms
through adapting to the political landscape is arguably the most important
factor that has kept her on the lead in the polls and made her the most
viable candidate of either party.
Discuss this in Sam’s Blog. Link
to the article on The Huffington Post.
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