(HOST) Commentator Jay Craven is a filmmaker, teacher and producer, so while everyone else is analyzing the current presidential campaign in terms of politics, commentator Jay Craven naturally sees it as performance art.
(CRAVEN) The New Hampshire primary reminded me of the old days of vaudeville. Candidates toured town halls and old opera houses, combining theatrics, statistics, outrage, and oratory. Occasionally, voters even witnessed
an unscripted moment. This happened twice during the closing days of the primary when Senator Hillary Clinton apparently galvanized her base, especially among women.
Political pundits have focused on the incident the day before the Primary, when Clinton was asked, in Portsmouth, "How do you do it?" The candidate appeared to briefly lose her composure, with tears in her eyes. And just two days earlier, during televised debates, local commentator Scott Spradling suggested to Clinton that New Hampshire voters liked Presidential candidate Barack Obama more than they liked her. Clinton showed an uncharacteristic vulnerability in her reply.
"Well, that hurts my feelings," she told Spradling. The audience laughed and applauded while Clinton paused, unguarded, revealing sensitive behavior and emotion.
Spradling apologized. "I’m sorry, Senator," he said. "I’m really sorry."
Clinton continued. "But I’ll try to go on." More laughter erupted. "He’s very likeable," she said, referring to Obama. "I agree with that. I don’t think I’m that bad."
At this point, Obama responded to the focus on him. "You’re likeable enough, Hillary." Again the audience laughed.
Pundits have asked whether Clinton’s emotions were natural, or calculated as part of the never-ending process of shaping a political persona. As someone who works with actors, I felt that her performance was truthful. But how about Senator Obama’s comment, calling her "likeable enough?" Some fault him for a lack of grace and even a patronizing chauvinism. Perhaps they’re right. Obama could have played it better, though I thought he intended generosity, lacing it with a touch of irony revealing his own emotions. After all, the Clinton’s have geared up hard against him, attacking Obama’s central themes of hope and change. And both the New York Times and Washington Post have cited racial subtexts in Clinton’s campaign, including one where she emphasized how the experienced white politician Lyndon Johnson, not black activist Martin Luther King, actually delivered change on civil rights.
Performance matters. Al Gore suffered in 2000 because he could seem stiff and condescending. Ronald Reagan was never considered a great Hollywood actor but, as politicians go, he was one of the best. When Warner Brothers boss Jack Warner heard that Reagan was running for California Governor, he remarked, "No, Jimmy Stewart for Governor. Ronald Reagan for best friend." But many Americans warmed to precisely that quality. Hugh Sidey, who covered the Presidency for Time Magazine wrote how Reagan crafted that persona in "rehearsals" of talking points, with a coach, nearly every afternoon in the White House. He wasn’t called "The Great Communicator" for nothing.
As a director myself, I’d advise today’s candidates to remain open to the discovered moment even when it departs from the script. And to play the truth. After all, as David Mamet writes in his play Glengarry Glen Ross, "it’s the easiest thing to remember."