The Hillary 1984 Hype
This site has been getting a lot of hits lately for “Hillary 1984.” I posted the Apple commercial vs. Hillary Clinton candidacy announcement mash-up YouTube video two weeks ago, but it just recently got picked up by the mainstream media as an item of interest, so people have apparently been prodding around all over the internet for it. This has prompted a lot of discussion in the MSM on the impact of guerilla-style campaigning from third party sources. The Political Wire has a quick item written by Stuart Rothenberg on the subject:
Nobody should be surprised by the overreaction to the Hillary Clinton/Apple pseudo TV spot posted on YouTube. Reporters (and political consultants) simply love anything new and creative, even if its political impact is non-existent.
The ad, fashioned after an Apple ad from 1984, got tons of airtime earlier this week as the cable networks and talking heads buzzed about how creative it was, how technology is changing politics and what it all means for the future.
Here’s a news flash: the “ad” will have no political impact. Entertaining: Absolutely. Creative? Certainly. An interesting example of modern technology? Sure. But the ad won’t change any votes, and it is unlikely to create or re-make impressions of Senators Clinton or Barack Obama.
Interestingly, more people will see the ad on or hear about it from “traditional” cable or broadcast television networks than will watch it on YouTube. So if the ad had any impact anyway, it would be because of the reach of traditional forms of media, which played the spot repeatedly.
But at the end of the day, the YouTube ad will be a footnote about the campaign. It’s yet another example of the tactical nature of this 2008 campaign, and while tactics can and do matter, the Democratic race will be decided in Iowa and New Hampshire by a relative handful of Democratic participants, not by Washington, D.C. insiders who are all aflutter with the latest hip happening.
Technology obviously changes campaigns, and one day YouTube, Facebook and the Internet overall may determine who wins and who doesn’t. But for the 2008 cycle, it’s still those dreary “old media” that matter, no matter how many people want to get ahead of the curve and how creative and interesting the new technologies of the day.
And here’s the video again for those who may have missed it:
I mostly agree with Rothenberg that this type of ad is unlikely to change many minds or win many voters either way, but I also think it’s far from being ineffective. In a way, it crystalizes what may already be in the back of many peoples’ minds by suggesting that Hillary Clinton is the establishment candidate who always says the right, calculated, things to win people over. 1984 is about deception through making truth pliable as opposed to absolute and firm. Seeing an “ad” such as this might make people who had doubts about Clinton come to more firmly believe that she subscribes to such practices.
Basically, you never know what’s going to get a fence-sitter off their fence. It just could be something like this.
I find this ad very suspicious.
The soundbites seem to be completely wrong for the ad. I realize there is a certain irony in the original, which juxtaposes “we shall prevail” with the throwing of the hammer. But in the original, the voice has an obviously evil quality to it. These soundbites are Hillary’s explicit attempt to come across as a regular person, having a “conversation” with each of us individually, whereas the original ad speaks of “one people, one will, one resolve, one cause,” and “a garden of pure ideology where each worker may bloom, secure from the pests of any contradictory thoughts.” Meanwhile, the Hillary soundbite says “I don’t want people who agree with me.” Also, the image of big brother is dark, and blends in with the dark wall in the original commercial, while the imagine of Clinton is bright white, an aberration in the monolithic room
If I had to guess at the source of this video, I would bet it came from the Clinton campaign. Imagine seeing it without any knowledge of the original. Most people probably don’t remember the original all that well. Here is an alternative interpretation of the Clinton video: Clinton is trying to awaken people who have become used to politics as a competitive sport, or partisan war, rather than a discussion, an exchange of ideas, about how to make everyone better off. Hillary says that it’s “really good” that “so far, we haven’t stopped talking.” However, some evil forces don’t want you to keep talking. Right before the hammer is thrown, the text on the screen over Hillary reads, “this is our conversation.” The next time we see the screen, a smiling Hillary again says she “hopes to keep this conversation going,” just before the sledge hammer smashes into the screen. In the original ad, following the initial explosion as the sledgehammer crashes into the screen, we hear a light, cool breeze, suggesting freedom. This sound appears to have been slowed down in the Clinton video, lowering the pitch and suggesting the cold wind of emptiness and despair. By this point we are really wondering who would be so evil as to want to end “our conversation.” We then see a bright white screen which says, “On January 14th, the Democratic primary will begin. And you’ll see why 2008 won’t be like ‘1984.’” Note that 1984 has a significance in presidential politics quite apart from Orwell’s book. 1984 was the year Walter Mondale, running as an unabashed liberal, lost every state in the nation except Minnesota. The white screen, associated with Clinton, promises a different outcome in 2008, until it is covered over by a pitch black screen bearing Barack Obama’s web address. It must be he who wishes to end the conversation.