Political Blogging - The Hillary I Would Have Voted For

In the next week I will return to topics concerning Rousseau and the movie Into the Wild, but right now I want to mention something positive about the Clinton campaign.

As I recently wrote my first negative post about Obama, I now am writing my first positive post on Clinton. In the past months Clinton has couched herself as the edgy, policy-egghead that cares more about winning than being right. Her campaign has continually taken the low-road (see the New York Times article), and unfairly and unduly polarized and racialized the nomination process. That said, I was quite moved - even inspired - by the recent ad Clinton has running in North Carolina. The ad features Maya Angelo reading an endorsement for Clinton, see it here.

The message is a shift from here criticism of Obama's 'Yes we can' to her pragmatic rejoinder, 'how we can.' This message offers no policy initiative, no 10-step solution; it offers, 'just words.' It is a brilliant ad. Yet, it is unlikely to assuage black voters to the extent that they will vote for Clinton, but who knows? Everytime Clinton has shown her emotional side it has followed with fanfare (and, too, some incredulity by pundits). Whatever follows, all loyal Democrats are praying that Clinton's campaign (and Obama's) have more ads that look like these, and less like the 3:00a.m. ads.