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Gaffer Variety:
Some Notes For Hillary 005:
By Willie Gaffer:
Post date:
We noticed on the tube the hype for a new show called "Commander in Chief." In this unlikely scenario a female who is vice-president becomes the president when the elected "Man" has a stroke or some such thing. I sure hope it does not happen that way. I hope the first female president will be elected in her own right as the most qualified candidate. Could it possibly be you who will make that break through?
Currently, when I look at the political landscape I see no one who is qualified to become president of the United States. We need greatness and I see no one who even approaches that level. That means you are going to have to rise to greatness. There is historic precedent for that. Harry Truman had the job thrust upon him and measured up. Winston Churchill did it in WWII. Octavian did it when Caesar was taken out. So it is possible.
However, time is getting short. The election is only three short years away. Candidates are already queuing up to take part in the campaign circus. It's time to make your move. If you are to become the first female president of the United States you must begin to gird your loins. You must begin to gather support. You must state your position on the major issues. You must make sure we know where you stand.
While gathering your support, you must also distance yourself from the losers and the clowns. It is necessary to completely disavow buffoons like Michael Moore. He can only hurt you. The only people who think he is clever or effective are the people he is appealing to. These are the simple minded knee jerk democrats. His pitch is directed to them and no one else. These are the people who have no intellect and hence no choice. If they vote at all they will vote democratic. You need not beg them to do it.
In addition, you must distance yourself from all of the political hacks. Kennedy is for sure a democrat, but he can only hurt you if you allow him to embrace you. He is the Newt Gingrich of the democratic party. He has lost his edge if he ever had one. You can accept his support, but you must make clear that he does not speak for you. His only credibility is in his home state and that is waning. If his name were not Kennedy he would not be able to win a seat on the village council. Kerry is also a risk. He has clearly bungled and he will bungle again if he is allowed to participate. He does not know how to campaign and he takes the advice of the worst hacks in the party.
The best support and campaign effort you can get will come from Bill Clinton if you allow him to work for you. He is a tireless and extremely competent campaigner. In spite of his errors and peccadillos he comes over to the people as a warm sincere believable person. If the fool Gore had not deliberately alienated Bill, King George would never have come to power. Give him a chance and Bill will bust his butt for you.
Now consider how you must campaign with respect to the voting situation. I will guess at the numbers, but my guesses are close enough that my analysis will still be valid. Most important in this analysis is only about half of the people who are eligible actually vote. Of those who vote about 40 or 45 percent of them are knee jerk republicans. It is really dumb for a democrat to waste time appealing to those dupes. They will vote republican no matter what. In addition, most of them really vote no matter what. That gives you one very large handicap.
I will also guess that about 30 or 35 percent of those who usually vote are knee jerk democrats. Again, it is a waste of your time to appeal to these fools. If they vote at all they will vote democratic. Unfortunately, these are also the ones who will not vote if it becomes inconvenient. A rainy election day will be a republican election day. That is another large handicap for you. Making sure these fools vote, rain or shine, is a huge logistics task for your team. They are what they are because they are lazy.
The remainder of the people who vote are, to some extent or other, thoughtful intellects. To the limit of their abilities they will think about the issues and candidates and try to make informed choices. These people must be the focus of your major campaign effort. In general, these people will try to vote for what they consider to be the least evil candidate. They would rather not have that situation. They would like to see a situation where they could vote for what they could believe was a good candidate. Your task is to make them believe you are such a person.
The way you do that is to tell the truth. Explain the situation as you see it and explain what we must do. Do not pander to their baser ignoble instincts, rather demand their best. Don't promise them a free ride. Insist that they do their duty and earn their rights. Insist that they behave as good citizens must behave. Tell them what we must do with respect to all issues and expect them to stand up and do their part.
By telling the truth, you may attract another large group who could give you a landslide. These are the people who are eligible to vote, but do not. They are disenfranchised by choice. Political hacks call it apathy, but it is really despair at the knowledge that there is no real difference. There is no real choice between liars. You task is to tell the truth so effectively that they have no choice but to believe you. If you do that, they may vote. At least you will take away their excuses.
About the campaign, you can expect the dirtiest most dishonest slimy behavior in the history of politics. In addition to the regular filth, there will be a massive effort to stop a woman from winning the top job. Some of this nastiness will come from the members of your own party. You can expect a vile effort to defeat you in the primary. When that fails, some of these people will desert the party rather than help you. That is to be expected. To offset it, you must behave impeccably with the people who do support you such that they will go to the wall for you when it is time.
Now there are a number of issues you must address in this campaign.
The most important thing you must do is give them their proper
weight. You cannot allow yourself to be lead into dead end debates
about fringe issues. You must list and order the main issues and
make sure you stay at the top of that list. Your supporters can
give some exposure to the minor issues, but you cannot afford
the time. Nor can you afford to be conned into dealing with an
invented issue. Remember when Jack Kennedy conned Nixon in the
debates about a imaginary island off the coast of China. That
island was never mentioned again after the election, but it destroyed
Nixon because he did not know enough to laugh it off. Stick with
the top five issues and most of the time address only the top
three. As to the list of issues, I will get to that in a follow
on essay. Before I take up the issues however, I will discuss
the democratic philosophy, which is, in fact, a lack of philosophy
that must be corrected.
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