It's sad enough for the first family of dirty politics, that they happen to be competing against Barack Obama, a man so apparently squeaky-clean that all they could scrape together was an alleged incident of plagiarism. Plagiarism? They stuck Capone with tax evasion, but at least they got him locked up. Besides, this charge was made all the more entertaining in that it came from a woman that claimed authorship of a book she didn't write (the Grammy-winning "It Takes A Village").
Nonetheless, in terms of impact, it was an "A-Ha!" moment that couldn't have been less riveting if it were, "A-Ha! That's the bank teller's pen!" or "A-Ha! The eggshell finish does work nicely in the guest bedroom!". Somewhere along the way it had been divulged that the line in question was written by Obama's campaign manager, who penned it for a congressional colleague's 2006 election. But that wouldn't keep the former first lady from missing yet another opportunity to take yet another ironic and well-worn turn toward the unoriginal.
She's trying. Like a Hollywood starlett after signing the big money-grab contract, trying to act her way out of a lousy script, Hillary Clinton is attempting to be the hip/cool female counterpart to Barack Obama and capture a larger chunk of the fresh new 20-something voter population.
First was her response to the Illinois senator's inspirational, relevent and widely popular "Yes We Can" video. Ms. Clinton released a me-too YouTube follow-up effort, a "We Are The World" ensemble piece as awkward in its construction as it was in its execution. The contrived piece left viewers with a warmed-over, "I'd like to buy the world a Coke" vibe, and an inescapably embarrassed feeling akin to watching your father dance techno.
Then came The Punchline. That scud missle she dropped upon the single biggest cable television audience of 2008, during their most recent debate. If the video was wrong, this was wrong on wrong with a side of wrong.
The hackneyed pasttime Hilary chose was something known as the "Debate Zinger". A sound byte one can own for the duration of his or her campaign, as Reagan enjoyed with his "There you go again" critique of then President Carter. Or GHW Bush's "Read My Lips, No New Taxes" proclamation, one he ultimately betrayed after winning the 1992 election. I'd say the best-delivered "Zinger" was the verbal sword the late senator Lloyd Bentzen drew to lance little Danny Quayle in 1998. The sitting Veep even teed it up for Bentzen, who did to the set-up for his "You're no Jack Kennedy" bomb what Manny Ramirez does to an 80mph change-up: take it yard.
This new line, Hillary envisioned, would be the video clip of the campaign, and as Sen. Obama responded to Brian Williams' question, she stood there with her pearly-white overbite aglow. She couldn't wait to drop it on Barack, on MSNBC and much of the Western Hemisphere. And when her moment came, she let her well-rehearsed ad-lib flow: "Using other people's words isn't 'Change you can belive in.' It's 'Change you can Xerox.'"
"Change you can Xerox"?
Obama shook his head at the former First Lady, who seems to lower the bar as much as a limbo artist. The audience would have been cricket-chirp silent were it not for a few hundred boos echoing through the auditorium. Even those in her section sat open-mouthed and stunned, making better fly-catchers than supporters.
Okay, forget that it was entirely inappropriate. Forget that it was dirty politics and a cheap attempt at a sound bite. Forget all that. Xerox?!? Weren't they a duplication company back before the computer chip? Has anyone used that reference since the 1970s?
Honestly. Has anyone even heard the name Xerox since the Carter-Ford debates? What in the world wide web was Hillary thinking? Short of rolling a mimeograph machine out onto the stage, she couldn't have tried to be more out of touch with today's pop culture. A culture watching her stand-up routine falter while downloading network sit-coms onto their iPhones.
Even with all that, at least it could have been funny. But she flat-out bombed. I had to explain what Xerox was to my teenage son. Here's a thought Hill, how bout "Change you can download?"? "Change you can drag-and-drop"? "Change you can import"? Or, to appeal to the broader 1.0 crowd, "Change you can cut and paste"? This was the post-Internet sequel to Pappa Bush not knowing the price of a gallon of milk. A "floppy disk" joke would have vaulted her into the '90s, for the love of God.
Okay, the Zinger was dead on arrival. So as a follow-up, Hilary reached into her holster and came out a-shootin' with, of all things, her recent Saturday Night Live drop. She referenced a humorous debate sketch in which the Obama character was faced with such grueling questions as, "Are you comfortable? Can I get you some coffee or a pillow?" Yet being that the show is watched every week by an audience safely reaching the dozens, it was lost on the vast majority of blue-collar Ohioans, many of which work early shifts and therefore are in bed long before the late-night variety show airs.
Campaign Co-Presidency is about as healthy as a face-down Jane Doe floating slowly along the Potomac. Not only has Hillary Clinton trusted the abilities of "her people" in Camp Clinton--despite their Tysonesque ability to burn effortlessly through tens of millions of campaign dollars. But she has put her fate in the hands of a writing staff that, given the material they have cranked out so far, might be best served drafting her political epitaph.
"Change you can Xerox"? They should have written her a few Nixon jokes while they were at it.
