[caption id=”attachment_143753″ align=”aligncenter” width=”3000″] (AP Photo/Gaston De Cardenas, File)
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Looks like Hillary Clinton’s carefully tailored public appearances and campaign hasn’t kept the negative publicity at bay after all. Not even from her friends in the mainstream media.
With rumors circulating at Vice President Joe Biden might be ready to throw his hat into the presidential ring, Yahoo columnist Matt Bai wrote that Clinton has a major problem to worry about — her lack of personality.
In an op-ed that extolled the virtues of Biden’s potential run, he brutally compared Clinton to Tracy Flick in 1999’s Election and to Siri.
There followed this pretty remarkable quote from Palmieri: “That’s not the question voters have in their heads when they decide who to vote for. It’s who is fighting for me, and who has the solutions for the American people. She’s still the person who is most likely to be the next president.”
In other words, Clinton’s argument is, at its core, like Richard Nixon’s in 1968: You’re not hiring a friend or a babysitter. You just have to believe that I get what’s wrong, and I’m the only one with the competence to fix it.
You can see why the Clinton team is going this route. Yes, it plays to her strengths; she’s got more experience than anyone in the field, and a tireless work ethic is pretty much her calling card as a public servant. But it also nicely sidesteps her evident weaknesses. You work with what you’ve got.
According to the most recent CBS News poll, which echoes plenty of other polling recently, 47 percent of registered voters view Clinton unfavorably, and 55 percent say they don’t trust her.
Clinton’s first TV ad, released this week, tried to humanize her a bit by having her talk straight to camera about her mother. She looks great, and it’s an inspiring story. But Siri sounds more spontaneous when she’s finding me a gas station.
He’s not wrong.
There’s a reason she would rather literally rope off the press than have them catch her in an off-the-cuff moment.
