Mr. Empathy

Citizen R1 Comment

The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers ad guys.

But before we get to that, let’s get this out there to begin: while the before and after party coverage of Monday night’s debate was every bit as appalling as expected, the moderator for the debate itself, NBC’s Lester Holt, is getting, as far as I can see, zero coverage for the solid performance he turned in. He put some curbs on the road, but mostly let the two candidates drive while pointing them, much more often than not, to substantive issues.  Good for him.

By now you’ve heard all of the analysis of the debate you want to hear, so I will spare you from mine. Here’s all you really need to understand: no one will really know the effect of the debate on the race until Monday–by which time there will be enough post-debate polling to get a sense of who benefited and who didn’t from their performances.

Also understand this: if Hillary does not get a poll bump from this debate, where by all accounts she clearly outperformed Trump, her campaign is in very serious trouble. 

I can’t predict whether she’ll get the bump or not, but if she doesn’t it really should surprise no one in this up-is-down, black-is-white of an election season, because there are other signs that she’s just not connecting with voters. If anyone asked me what to do to improve things, I’d say fire her media strategists and ad guys.

For me, this single video would be enough to tell them all to clean out their desks and not to let that door knob….you know the rest. What the hell is this lugubrious monstrosity suppose to convey to a voter? Any ideas? Anyone? I can tell you it’s well beyond my ken.

But the global evidence of their repeated misfires and miscalculations is also out there if you bother to look. One need only examine her ad spending from mid-August to mid-September when she outspent Trump by huge margins in Nevada, Iowa, North Carolina, Florida and Ohio (and this includes the PACs supporting both candidates). In some cases the ratio was 85/15.

Now look at her poll numbers. She lost major ground to Trump in those states over that same period. There’s not much better evidence that would suggest an ad campaign is saying the wrong things in the wrong way, maybe to the wrong people. So without a bump from this debate, Pennsylvania comes into play as a realistically potential win for Trump (her average lead there is already down to under two points) and he’s already taken the lead in Colorado. His path to 270 starts looking a lot less obstacle strewn.

Why are Clinton’s ad guys missing  so badly? It’s hard to pinpoint these things with certainty because there are always such a vast array of factors at play in an election. But I will tell you this. I looked long and hard for a Hillary ad that was positive and inspiring and delivered a simple message of how she was going to fight for the middle class and the poor or that in some other way connected to their economic situation. I found almost entirely negative  ads about Trump, many with the intent to shame people into voting against him. These are all those ads of people listening to Trump sound bites or talking about how they are offended by him. This is no way to inspire turnout of your supporters.
It’s worth revisiting at this point a post of mine from January in which I wrote about the studies showing traits the left and the right tended to look for in their presidential candidates. For the Republicans, it’s leadership and for Democrats, it’s empathy. And in many ways, this is what our presidential elections boil down to: empathy vs. leadership.
Empathy should be the natural ally of a woman candidate. Yet from the beginning of August to this past week in the McClatchy-Marist poll’s question, “do you think ‘Cares about people like you’ better describes Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump?” Hillary’s advantage over Trump in this area has disappeared, from 48%-33% to a dead even 44%-44%. That’s right, there are just as many voters who think Donald Trump cares about people like them as there are who think Hillary does.
Donald Trump, Mr. Empathy.
How can this be? Well, one reason for sure is that Trump’s people know what his message is and present it in a straightforward way in their ads. Forget that the content is basically bullshit, but I’ve yet to run across an ad from Hillary’s campaign or her PACs that has the clarity and inspiration of the Trump Two Americas ad or of this Movement ad. This one comes close, but just doesn’t quite pack the same punch.
So we’ll see what next Monday’s polls bring, trouble or some relief; but if the head scratching of her media team over their feckless performance has not already become copious beads of sweat on their foreheads, they’re already in trouble.

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