Stripping Off The Packaging

Blake D. Dvorak, writing at Real Clear Politics, takes a look at the first major gaffe from Hillary Clinton and her campaign machine. Others have looked at the unseemliness of Hillary's "damsel in distress" act after her misstep in the debate last week. Dvorak sees more than that in the misstep and in the reaction from the Hillary camp.

But let's not get too caught up in the hype, much of which can be explained by the simple fact that Clinton's answer has been the only somewhat consequential thing to happen in this race in a while. Nevertheless, the excitement coming from the Edwards and Obama camps following the debate is justified, if only because it's Clinton's first big mistake.

More significant, however, is what the gaffe has revealed about Clinton and her campaign. Following Russert's second attempt at an answer, Clinton appeared visibly annoyed and began by talking about "gotcha politics." And as her voice rose, rival campaign strategists' eyebrows rose in unison: If you corner her, they must have been thinking, she loses a lot of her grace.

This may sound like psycho-babble, but a very important objective of the Clinton campaign all year has been to soften Hillary's image. It's worked, too. Her high negative ratings, once the reason pundits said Democrats would never trust her with the nomination, have been going down recently. But for a brief moment Tuesday night, the veil dropped ever so slightly and threatened to unravel months of public-image building.

For candidates like Obama and Edwards, the key is not so much to show all the ways Clinton isn't a good liberal on matters of foreign-policy. The key is to show voters that behind the focus-grouped façade, there remains a Clinton — untrustworthy and ambition-oriented. It is easier to make the case that the country should move beyond Bush-Clinton if you can strip Hillary of the packaging designed to make you think she resembles "change." But since Clinton is unlikely to make the same mistake again, the campaigns will have to get creative. The weakness, however, has been revealed.

Just as significantly, Clinton's annoyance carried over into her campaign following the debate. First, the campaign started out blaming Russert, not only for the driver's license question, but also the question about Clinton's files held in the National Archives.

That is precisely what the Edwards campaign did with their devastating web ad (see previous post). They stripped off the packaging. What's underneath looks like a scheming, pandering politician willing to say anything to get elected. That is the real danger here for Clinton. A weakness has been exposed, a small opening exploited ruthlessly. That weakness is important:

The revelation? The candidate could be rattled, the campaign could be rattled, and suddenly the behemoth that is Team Hillary wasn't as sure-footed as it appeared.

That is a pretty important revelation.