Hillary Having Fun On The Campaign Trail

If the stresses of dealing with tightening polling numbers, Joe Biden’s potential run, the looming Benghazi hearings or the never-ending email server story was starting to get to Hillary Clinton, you wouldn’t know it from her demeanor on her trips through Eastern Iowa and Council Bluffs this week. At her four events, voters saw a Clinton who seemed relaxed, confident and just plain having fun as she fielded questions and tore into Republican policies.

After just eight minutes of introductory remarks in Davenport, Clinton jumped right into questions, much quicker than she’s done at almost any event. She took twelve questions in all, taking a good mix of both serious and fun queries.

“Put him to work!” Clinton replied immediately to one questioner who asked what she would do with Bill in the White House. It was one of many moments where she appeared quick on her toes and was really enjoying interacting with the crowd.

She got laughs in Muscatine when she told the crowd how she essentially trolled the entire Republican field by mailing them copies of her book, Hard Choices, so they could read up on her accomplishments as Secretary of State.

It’s not just the candidate, however. The voters are getting in on the fun too. One man in Davenport asked Clinton to do her Trump impression (“Uhh, you’re a loser,” she obliged – it wasn’t as good as the one from Saturday night, but it was still funny). A woman in Muscatine introduced herself as an actual “Val,” showing Clinton her drivers’ license as proof. Several others there brought Val-related signage or pictures to sign. And the Davenport crowd got a touching moment when a clearly-struggling woman insisted on standing to ask Clinton a question, saying, “I’m addressing the 45th President of the United States.”

The SNL appearance clearly got Clinton a lot of traction. She opened up her remarks in Davenport talking about rehearsing at the studios for it, mentioning she had to keep being reminded to not laugh at the jokes Kate McKinnon – in character as Clinton – made.

“I have been trying out different possible careers, and you know I kind of like the bar tending idea,” she joked. “It’s a little bit of an out-of-body experience when you are in a skit with somebody who is playing you.”

Clinton in Davenport

She got particularly passionate when addressing gun violence, making a very emotional appeal on the need for stricter gun laws.

“It’s beyond my comprehension to send your child off to school, happy with a little backpack, and the next thing you know you’re being called because he’s been murdered,” Clinton said in relating how she had met with parents of victims from Sandy Hook and Columbine. She added in several other examples of children being killed in gun violence in a way that clearly emotionally moved many members of the audience.

She also delved once again into Iowa-specific issues, deploying some notably specific language for Iowa’s healthcare setup, calling Wellmark’s dominance of Iowa’s healthcare market “monopolistic.”

There was also an interesting response she made in Davenport that could have been interpreted as a criticism of President Obama’s legacy, overshadowed by all the other news she made.

“One of the differences from my running last time and this time – a lot of people, particularly a lot of young people are really disappointed, discouraged and disheartened by politics,” she mentioned in a larger comment about partisan gridlock. “And there’s just a sense of ‘what difference does anything make?’ … I think we have unfortunately gone backwards in our care and concern for the poor in our country. I think we were making progress, and now we are stalled.”

A more cautious Clinton might have avoided such a potential comparison (even though that’s probably not what she was hinting at), and seems to highlight her more off-the-cuff approach now.

Finally, she did not hesitate or equivocate on some of the dicier news-of-the-day questions that emerged.

“Right now I don’t think the conditions are in place and I would not support that,” she stated bluntly in response to a veteran’s question about sending ground troops to Syria.

That trend continued when she took a stance in opposition to the finalized Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal in an interview the next day. Between that and her opposition to the Keystone Pipeline two weeks ago, she has come down in specific terms on two major issues that she hesitated on and refused to commit to during the summer.

Near the end of her Davenport forum she insisted with staff on taking another question or two, saying she was having too much fun. Nearly every candidate likes to make a show of rebuking their watch-tapping staff, but she seemed like she really meant it.

All in all, there has been a clearly noticeable shift in the Hillary Clinton of post-Labor Day. She appears more emotional, and not in the touchy-feely focus-grouped “grandmother” way like earlier on that can come off fake at times. This is a Clinton who gets visibly angry when talking about the inability of the country to do anything about schoolchildren being gunned down in schools.

The two events in Davenport and Muscatine also felt different, even though they were largely the same format. Unlike Bernie Sanders or Bobby Jindal or Ted Cruz, who will use the exact same, perfectly word-for-word phrases over and over again in every event, Clinton seems to be sticking less to precise talking points these days. She commented on similar issues at both stops, but took somewhat different approaches on the topics at each.

And from a purely anecdotal personal standpoint, I noticed a real difference in her facial expressions this last month. I take a lot of photos at these events to build up my photo file, and when scanning through my pictures I found considerably more shots where she had more passionate, smiling or energetic expressions on her face than in prior months.

Clinton in Council Bluffs

It all seems like a smarter approach. At times in the past – both this cycle and in 2008 – it felt like the campaign worried too much about the perception she could come across as too harsh or unpleasant. That resulted in “softening” efforts of her persona that never really felt genuine. This is a woman who’s sat across the table from dictators and despots to negotiate tough cease-fires and security deals. She’s taken every personal criticism and attack in the public eye from Republicans for decades and is still standing.

Is she very pleasant and fun in person? Absolutely, and she’s nothing like what you’d expect from some of the national media narrative that portrays her as cold and ruthless. But playing up being a grandmother as the main thing that defines this former First Lady and Secretary of State always seemed off.

I don’t think it worked in part because we’re not electing someone who we’d like to have a chat with over coffee or who we’d trust to babysit our kids. We’re choosing someone to be the next Commander-in-Chief, who directs where missiles are fired and where American troops go to fight terrorists, and there’s arguably no one with better experience to handle that than Hillary Clinton.

Right now she seems to be striking the right balance between funny and personable, while still tough and ready for a fight. She’s less scripted and less cautious, quicker to take a stand on controversial issues, game for a funny moment and is better energizing crowds with direct and forceful messaging.

A candidate receiving a second wind in a campaign, retooling their message and finally clicking better with voters is no new phenomenon for the Iowa Caucus. Plenty of struggling front-runners or former front-runners have regained their footing here after facing a near-death political experience (though that’s perhaps not as of dire a situation as Clinton faces), John Kerry in 2003/2004 chief among them. If this re-energized Clinton continues, the process started in plenty of time to right the ship for the early states. But these re-calibrations have taken many candidates significant time to undergo, finding their inner fire only after months of slogging through countless small town Iowa events. What’s particularly surprising with this transition is how quickly she seems to have flipped the switch to “OK, let’s do better.”

by Pat Rynard
Posted 10/8/15