planning to be spontaneous

"All that we don't know is astonishing.  Even more astonishing is what passes for knowing."
~ Philip Roth
   American novelist
   1933 - 2018

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{"Donald Trump Is Saving Our Democracy"
an article written by Frank Rich,
published in New York Magazine, September 20th, 2015}


----------------------- [continued] ------------- A perfect paradigm of how lame old-school, top-heavy campaigns can be was crystallized by a single story on the front page of the Times the day after Labor Day.  Its headline said it all:  "Clinton Aides Set New Focus for Campaign -- A More Personal Tone of Humor and Heart."  

By announcing this "new focus" to the Times, which included "new efforts to bring spontaneity" to a candidacy that "sometimes seems wooden," these strategists were at once boasting of their own (supposed) political smarts and denigrating their candidate, who implicitly was presented as incapable of being human without their direction and scripts.  


Hilariously enough, the article straight-facedly cited as expert opinion the former Romney strategist Eric Fehrnstrom -- whose stewardship of the most wooden candidate in modern memory has apparently vanished into a memory hole -- to hammer home the moral that "what matters is you appear genuine."

     We also learned from this piece that Clinton would soon offer "a more contrite tone" when discussing her email woes, because a focus group "revealed that voters wanted to hear directly from Mrs. Clinton" about it.  The aides, who gave the Times "extensive interviews," clearly thought that this story was a plus for their candidate, and maybe the candidate did, too, since she didn't fire them on the spot.  

They all seemed unaware of the downside of portraying Clinton as someone who delegated her "heart" to political operatives and her calibration of contrition to a focus group.  

By offering a stark contrast to such artifice, the spontaneous, unscripted Trump is challenging the validity and value of the high-priced campaign strategists, consultants, and pollsters who dominate our politics, shape journalistic coverage, and persuade even substantial candidates to outsource their souls to focus groups and image doctors.  

That brand of politics has had a winning run ever since the young television producer Roger Ailes used his media wiles to create a "new Nixon" in 1968.  

But in the wake of Trump's "unprofessional" candidacy, many of the late-20th-century accoutrements of presidential campaigns, often tone-deaf and counterproductive in a new era where social media breeds insurgencies like Obama's, Trump's and Sanders's, could be swept away -- particularly if Clinton's campaign collapses.

     Another change Trump may bring about is a GOP rethinking of its embrace of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision unleashing unlimited campaign contributions.  

Citizens United was supposed to be a weapon wielded mainly against Democrats, but Trump is using it as a club to bludgeon Republicans.  "I'm using my own money," he said when announcing his candidacy.  "I'm not using lobbyists, I'm not using donors.  I don't care.  I'm really rich."  

By Washington etiquette, it's a no-no for a presidential candidate to gloat about his wealth.  Especially if you're a wealthy Republican, it's axiomatic that you follow the George H.W. Bush template of pretending to savor pork rinds.  But Trump has made a virtue of flaunting his fortune and glitzy lifestyle -- 

and not just because that's the authentic Trump.  His self-funding campaign may make him more effective than any Democrat in turning Citizens United into a political albatross for those who are enslaved to it.

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