Do You Really Think the Gloves Came Off on October 30th?

The masters of the mainstream and other media outlets love to do two things: They love to find the narrative they can use to tell the stories of the candidates and then they love to find the brand the candidate is using and see if it matches what they are saying. If these two fit, then there is some kind of potential magic in the selling of their newspapers and magazines. If there is no fit, then the candidate might as well go home and talk to his or her friends about his or her experiences on the campaign trail.

I want us to begin looking for other narratives and to begin evaluating the candidates based on something other than what the chattering class spews out every day. Due to some circumstances I still do not understand, the Kucinich campaign asked me to go to Philadelphia this week and watch this process in action. I have to tell you, it is a civics lesson every American should be allowed to witness. They should also be allowed to wander around with credentials so they can see what all the candidates' worker bees are doing and how they situate themselves and they should be privy to the private conversations that people whispering in a loud hall think no one else can hear.

Given this rare chance to report back on what I saw and heard, I do believe that a counter-narrative is in order here and is necessary so that before we come to any conclusions, we stop to realize that no votes have been cast yet. Let's just hang on for a while and see for ourselves what works these days and what doesn't.

For starters, I am personally frightened by the barrage of stories that came out of the debate that pretty much sounded the same. Everything was about how Hillary did. I saw some other things going on in the debate but I would like to add my narrative about Hillary to the discussion threads going on all over the country. Too much of what is being printed these days sounds the same. Who is paying for these stories is the subject for another story. If I tell you a different story about what happened that night, then I am asking you to start asking some other questions about what the real narrative could be and to help to differentiate the kinds of narratives we can all be building for ourselves as to what issues affect you the most and think about that rather than living with just the overarching bought and paid for story of this election cycle.

I am no fan of Hillary Rodham Clinton and do not find her tactics for competing in this election much different from the way Bush's campaign was run and that is the danger of having let Bush and company get away with their crimes. But that is another story, too.

So, here is my narrative of what happened on Tuesday night in Philadelphia. A strong woman stood on the stage at Drexel University to show how she could take on all comers. It was an unfortunate circumstance of life today that none of the major contenders, i.e., Obama and Edwards, are truly up to the task of really holding her feet to the fire. None of them is clean and pure and despite Edwards moralizing tone and his constant repetition of complaints against Mrs. Clinton, they could all be said about him too. Then the other also running, Obama, who came across to this observer, as a redundancy, a man wishing he had Mrs. Clinton's credentials. He is so unseasoned as a speaker and as a candidate and as a thinker that it was at times unpleasant to watch him squirm as he tried to talk about anything of substance.

At the end of the two-hour debate, she was standing and smiling and happy. She was not struck speechless and she was not out for the count. She had taken them on and proved to the press she was the real contender. Had she broken in any way, they would have seen blood in the water (one of their favorite expressions) and gone after her. She was not in any way visibly affected by the clashes and I think that was the point of this debate.

Tim Russert asked some of the most unhelpful questions but they helped her to show her mettle as a fighter. Brian Williams even looks air brushed in person and was trying at times to elevate the tone but came at the candidates with very little of substance either.

My narrative of the evening's event was they, the Clintons, used it to show she could take a licking and keep on ticking. She did that. She came out looking healthy and smiling. They didn't need her to do much more than that. There can be all kinds of pundits talking endlessly about how she was triangulating her way past everyone but in fact, she is who she is and who she is stood up there and took it and came away without looking the worse for wear. I think the campaign needed to show that about her and they did. They needed to keep her looking and acting like the frontrunner, the one who everyone must take down in order to win and no one took her down. For some of the other candidates, it was not in their script to take her down, they actually wanted to talk about issues. But the political press in this country, which controls how we see these candidates, didn't want any of us to think about anything of substance. Substance is not a good way to control the non-debate. You cannot answer a substantive question in 30 seconds no matter how fast you speak.

Anyway, that is my story and I am sticking to it.

Comments

[Ravenlea]

At least you mentioned Kucinich's name, but you like everyone else, seem only able to talk about Hillary. The press has told us that Hilary, Obama and Edwards are the only people that count and virtually boycott giving the other candidates - most of whom have a good deal of excellent things to say - any air time at all.

Personally, I think Kucinich is the best man out there and the only person so far truly pushing to do the right thing and impeach Bush and Cheney. There is campaigning and there is right and wrong and doing your job.

Vote for Kucinich. Let's take our country back. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec07/kucinich_10-04.html

[elcid]

Oh, dear god. Will our American citizens *please* try to remember that *we* are the vulnerable little 'guy' or 'gal', that *we* are under attack -- and NOT Hillary Clinton or other incredibly powerful, wealthy, and forever guaranteed a comfortable and influential life politicians?

If my fellow citizens are truly eager to have the issues addressed which have dogged them all their lives -- such as the insanely obvious takeover of all of our politics by the stupidest of right wing and corporate-leaning dogma -- and want to concentrate on idiotic fantasized biographies of so & so who's a "strong woman" or so & so who's a multiracial multiethnic black man on stage, by all means, go ahead.

But if in another 10 years you see that the fundamental problems we've been lugging for 30 years of New Right and Reaganist idiocy are still with us, getting worse, and making us *actual* little people suffer, well, just feel comfortable that instead of identifying with yourselves and your fellow citizens, you pretended that you were right there up on stage temporarily inhabiting the body of your favorite soap opera or comic book politician star.

[spinstahbabe]

I think finally someone saw the same debate that I saw. I won't support Hillary because she is too divisive--some of my real-life swing voter friends who are totally reasonable people despise her in the most unreasonable way, and I don't want to spend the next year fighting with them about her. But I thought she took everything they had to dish out with strength and grace. And shame on anyone who says she won't give a straight answer: She gives nuanced answers at times to complex issues that present real dilemmas---I should think we progressives would appreciate that. Haven't we had enough "straight talk" sound bites from 7 years of Bush?

[MrLion]

What happened on October 30? For the first time, Senator Clinton's opponents--and the media--took her to task for her "shadows and fog" campaign.

[Mrrar]

I believe Mika Brzezinski has it right. Obama's 'gloves off' is that

a) He's no longer talking about just what he is going to do, but why he can do it better than the others, and why the others aren't capable of doing it.

b) He is going to take on a more aggressive and leadership oriented stance in the Senate, making himself more visible, and leading through example and legislation.

So yeah, I think the gloves came off.

An interesting theory though.