Hillary, Part 2

Denny Hatch wrote a follow-up to his comments on Hillary Clinton's suggestion that, as president, she would to "take [the oil companies'] profits" and use them for her own pet projects.

His comments came in the midst of an article about the power of fear to motivate people.

Who can forget the gaffe that may have cost John Kerry the presidency when he said the following about the senate vote on the Iraq War, "I voted for it before I voted against it." The Republicans replayed that line over and over again with lethal effect, scaring the voters into believing Kerry was a flip-flopper and therefore a danger. When Kerry refused to immediately dispute the Swift Boaters' charges that his Vietnam medals were not earned, voters perceived that maybe those allegations were true and feared that Kerry was a liar and a coward that could not be trusted to support our troops in Iraq.

The 2004 presidential election was won on voter fear of John Kerry.

Hillary Clinton is in for the same treatment—the result of the 20-second gaffe at the Democratic National Committee winter meeting in Washington early in February—that I mentioned in last week's edition of this e-zine.

Here is the fear-based, 30-second spot I would run were I managing the campaign of Barack Obama or Rudolph Giuliani:

[SIGN ACROSS TOP OF SCREEN THROUGHOUT THE 30-SECOND SPOT]

Should Hillary Clinton Be President?

[ON SMALL TV SCREEN INSET, SENATOR CLINTON SPEAKS TO DNC. USE THE JERKY, PRIMITIVE YouTube.com VERSION TO GIVE THE IMPRESSION IT WAS A HIDDEN CAMERA CAPTURING AN OFF-THE-RECORD SPEECH]

The other day, the oil companies reported the highest profits in the history of the world. I want to take those profits and I want to put them into a strategic energy fund . . .

[SOUND FADES TO SILENCE]

[ON SCREEN, WE SEE CLINTON CONTINUING TO SPEAK. NO SOUND]

[GIULIANI VOICE OVER]

In June 2005, the Supreme Court said that the government could seize your home and turn it into condos in order to raise more tax money.

Now Hillary Clinton wants to seize business profits. What will Hillary try to seize next? Your investments? Your savings? Your bank account? Your salary?

This is more than scary. It's un-American.

I'm Rudy Giuliani and I approved this message.

[LOGO]
GIULIANI IN '08

Beware your fears! Don't let them push you into doing something foolish. [I say this by way of encouragement to me!]

Fear: Declining mental powers

My brain seems to be working less and less well all the time. I'm more and more forgetful. I forget what I'm talking about in mid-sentence. I can't remember words. (I know the word is "out there"; I "just" can't remember what it is! . . .) And I'll be working on something, get distracted momentarily--an email will come in, or something--and I'll fail to remember what it was I was working on. . . . So I become less and less efficient, less and less able to accomplish anything . . . at least anything I have declared is of top importance.

I find myself--or, at least, I think of myself--as somnambulating [sleep-walking] through life. What was a curious and delightful diversion in college (I'd think "great and mighty thoughts" during almost every course lecture; my "notes" were all about my thoughts rather than about the professor's lecture) . . . --What was a curious and delightful diversion in college is now, it seems, becoming almost a prison. I find myself more and more unable to maintain focus on what another person is saying. I begin daydreaming during lectures, sermons, plays, musicals--any semi-passive listening opportunity--i.e., any opportunity in which I have no ability to interact with the presenter.

(New thought: Is that why I have always tended to be "the" person in a class who would "always" ask questions? . . . Maybe even back in high school, when I'd do that, I was attempting to overcome my penchant for daydreaming? Perhaps I have always been this way, but I just didn't realize it? Whether that's the case or not . . .)

I am becoming increasingly concerned that I might find myself literally "sleepwalking" through life. Sometimes I get the feeling that my brain is functioning about the way I have noticed it does--or the way it feels--when I find myself waking from an episode of attempted sleep-talking. (Ever had that happen to you? . . . I wake up from a dream in which I desperately want to say something, but I can't make my mouth form the words. It's as if my entire head has been stuffed with Novocaine or something. I can make my mouth move, and my vocal chords are moving, but at extreme slow-mo. And though I try to shout, and though my vocal chords are vibrating the way they should when I speak (and not when I whisper), I can't get much more sound volume from them than when I am whispering. . . . --And then I wake up!)

I don't want to "go gentle into that good night."