Hillary's Online Charm Offensive

The background music's a bit schmaltzy, but the many warm personal testimonials to New York senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's character at her new micro-site provide a welcome break from the steely politician seen grinding away day after day, and also from the nasty cheap shots online.

Some cynics on the web have, predictably, noted that the launch of this site is a calculating. Of course it exhibits a level of shrewdness.

But this is kind of the way Clinton got elected in New York. Upstate voters got to know Clinton as she did ground-floor campaigning to be their senator, and they liked her enough to elect her.

So it makes sense that the campaign would try to extend that kind of politicking to the Web.

But will this calculus it work? That's the big question.

Progressive Strategies president and former Clinton staffer Mike Lux on OpenLeft has these thoughts:

1. As a website idea, in general, I think it's an intriguing idea. I haven't seen one exactly like it, although obviously candidates have been putting on TV ads with people they know talking them up for a long time. But the website strategy allows a wide and diverse variety of voices, telling stories about a lot of different topics. I'm interested to know if any of you have seen similar sites, or have ideas about how such sites can best be used.

2. As a strategy for Hillary's campaign, I think it's useful. One of her biggest weaknesses is that, especially in contrast to her husband and some of her rivals, she doesn't show a lot of warmth or emotion on the stump. The site really humanizes, shows a different side, and I think that's very important for this campaign.

3. My final thought on this is more personal, because I did work for her and the President in the White House, and I did get to know her on a more personal basis. I have some real disagreements with some of her stands on issues. I prefer Edwards' message, Obama's ability on the stump, multiple candidates' policy positioning. But there is a part of me, as I've written before, that feels a deep personal loyalty to her, which I think is true of the vast majority of people who have worked with her closely. She does care about individual people, she does try to help make folks' lives better, and she does reach out to people she's met when they are in trouble. That's a very special quality in a politician, one that is not easy to dismiss in a world where a great many politicians easy to dismiss in a world where a great many politicians give a shit only about themselves. This site really captured that personal quality of hers in a powerful way, and I like it for that reason.

Update: The Iowa Independent blog has some interesting footage related to this subject. I've embedded their related videos below:

And here is a follow-up interview with the questioner in the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhcQ4BsA4wU