Hillary Clinton's America: One Nation, Invisible...with Liberty and Justice for All

Hillary Clinton has started the country deep into an election campaign with her first ad: "Invisible"

As far as campaign ads go, I think this is one of the best emotionally. And she doesn't even say the President's name. The ad takes cues from pages of Frank Luntz's book, specifically the part about invoking imagination-- the word "invisible" is mentioned at least 7 times and hinted at more. INVISIBLE is a very powerful word for people who feel powerless and may become the new word for her campaign. We'll see if it has legs among voters though.

She's definitely her husband's wife---which means she knows how to effectively communicate to the emotional turmoil of those who feel disenfranchised. Remember the lip-biting Bill Clinton--big hit, and people felt that he cared. He knew what to say and left the White House with approval ratings of 66%--not bad for an impeached president.

One of the ads weaknesses though is that it's still a negative campaign ad. People don't like to be reminded that their life isn't all it could be or that people are keeping them down. They like to be teased with the dream that it will get better, even when it probably won't. The Kennedy's knew this "Ask not..." and "We choose to go to the moon..." The Kennedy's were great communicators---then again, it didn't hurt that they were attractive too.

I'm sure this ad has been focused-grouped to death. It's already struck a nerve with the George Bush White House: http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/ny-ushill081507,0,5475176.story

My Reading List

Among the many things that I am reading including my Google Reader, I'm reading 4 books at a time right now, and doing only an adequate job of finishing any of them. They are (in order of % complete):

-The Invisible Computer
-Words That Work
-The 9/11 Report, The Committee to Investigate Terrorist Acts Upon the United States
-Thomas Paine's Common Sense & Other Writings

Essentially all 4 books have absolutely nothing in common with each other, except for the fact that they were all written by American white men.... but other than that, nada.


The Invisible Computer is an interesting book on the future of what is to be known as information appliances---computers currently function in this role for now, but in the future (supposedly) we will encounter smart machines that perform tasks that computers currently do, only in much more specialized, more efficient ways....it's not technical a technical book, but is for very technically oriented people.


Words That Work: some of my "liberal" or (or "progressive" as the trend is moving towards) friends may hate me for reading this book, but I enjoy it. And I enjoy it for no other reason than it is a reminder to always communicate to the lowest common denominator; and for no other purpose, it forces you to make what you communicate clear to everyone (yes, everyone). Smart people are the worst at expecting that everyone else comes to the conversation with as much information as they have---intellectuals are notoriously bad at confusing people this way. And As Frank Luntz mentions in his book, once you say something, you are opening up your ideas to the world and now your statements can be manipulated by anyone. So you want to make sure that the words are right, and that its damn hard for someone to confuse what you say for something that its not. And if you can turn it into a catch-phrase---all the better.


The 9/11 Report: You guessed it---it's about the terrorst attacks on the World Trade Tower 1 and 2 on 9/11 and the actions that transpired on that day---at least as far as the government was able to witness and respond (or not repond) to them. If you want to have an idea of how 9/11 happened, what goes on when our country comes under attack, what is reccommended to keep it from happening again, be sure to read this book first.


Common Sense: It's almost surreal to read a book that begins to show the outline of the U.S. Constitution. But when you consider that Thomas Paine was the man who is reponsible for most of the content of the U.S. Constitution, it makes you appreciate his role and "revolutionary" (yes, the pun is ---as all puns really are--- intended).