Star Power
for release 01-26-06
Washington D.C.
Oh yes, America loves a star. Hillary Clinton is nothing if not a star. First she was the bright young, involved, smart First Lady. Then she went through her wicked step-mother, busybody stage when she advanced her program for health care reform and met the ridicule of the Congress for being "unelected." Then she was the woman scorned in the delicious MonicaGate affair. Then she bit the bullet and showed her grace and forgave Bill. Then she decided to get elected so that nobody could accuse her of being "unelected." Now she seems to be the default front-runner in the 2008 election. Why? Because she is the only Democrat with star power.
Hillary is the modern version of Scarlett O'Hara. She has real Story. And she can raise money. Lots of money.
My two favorite columnists, Arianna Huffington and Molly Ivins have both, in the past week, expressed their doubts about Hillary's viability in the 2008 race. Can she be elected on money and star power alone?
Which brings me to the subject of Friends. I'm talking about the insufferably smarmy sit-com that captured the hearts of the X, Y or Z generation, I forget which. I read this week that the cast of Friends has agreed, for a mere five million bucks apiece, to film 4 new episodes. None of these six charming people have distinguished themselves individually as actors since or during their tenure on prime-time TV. What they had were the magic ingredients--chemistry and familiarity. The Poet's Eye sees this group doing more reunion tours than The Eagles or The Rolling Stones or the Monkees. I can just see them all moving to Florida together in 2025 and being Friends in an old folk's community for ten million bucks an episode.
Maybe America is going through one of it's periodic phases of vapidity. Maybe image trumps message. Maybe you don't even need a message as long as you have personality. You can sell Nothing if you do it with style and conviction. Is Paris Hilton a candidate?
As much as I admire my colleagues, Arianna and Molly, I must disagree with them. I think Hillary is a shoo-in. So what if she waffles on most every issue? So what if she has no discernible position on the Iraq war or anything else? She has star power and she has money. In contemporary American politics, message is secondary to image, and policy is subordinate to posture.
Hillary Clinton is as familiar to the American TV viewing public as the characters from Friends. We love them because they have been in our living rooms so often and for so many years. It doesn't matter if they have a message or a policy, they have something much more valuable, they have familiarity. That's why they get the big bucks. That's why six mediocre actors can command five million dollars for perhaps two hours worth of work and why Hillary Clinton can raise a million bucks in campaign funds by simply showing up to say a few words at a catered dinner.
“Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.”--H.L. Mencken
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