Ray Malone's Commentary

It seems to me the media never learns. It is the most amazing thing. The media believes that painting a presidential candidate as being brilliant, and incredibly capable is a way to elect them. But that is just not true. The way to get elected is to be underestimated before the campaign starts.

Let me give you two examples. In 1980 the media painted Jimmy Carter as a brilliant and very accomplished man. They explained the severe economic problems and Iran hostage problems, as the result of the job of president becoming too big for any one man ...even for a mental superman like Jimmy Carter. Remember all the stories in 1980 about the need for two presidents? One to do the ceremonial jobs and one to run the country? Jimmy Carter started out the campaign of 1980 over twenty points ahead of Ronald Reagan. Even William F. Buckley wrote an article in National Review that got on Reagan for not overcoming the big lead held my Jimmy Carter late in the summer of 1980. But Reagan knew a bit more about winning voters than William F. will ever know.

At the same time the media painted Ronald Reagan as a handsome but stupid dunce who had managed to develop the art of looking good while reading the prepared lines of a written script. Reagan might be able to find his rear end with both hands and two mirrors but the media was not sure.

Look what happened in the final two months of the campaign as Reagan toured the nation speaking in hundreds and hundreds of towns. The people who came to see him were impressed. They expected to see a dummy but saw a smart man who could think on his feet. The people who saw him thought Reagan was a lot more intelligent man than the media said. On the other hand they knew that Jimmy Carter was not the brilliant man the media said he was.

The moderate voters were very surprised when they saw Reagan and Carter in their debate. They expected to see a brilliant man against a dummy and they did. Except the brilliant man was Reagan and the dummy was Carter.. They came away with their opinion 180 degrees different from the view with which they switched on the TV. It is always better to exceed expectations than to fall short of them. Hillary can do nothing but fall short. The expectations are way too high.

The second case was in 2000. Remember the media said Gore was the brilliant and creative man who was going to be the great successor to Clinton. They told G W Bush was the dummy from Texas who could not speak at all.. There was no way Bush could begin to hold his own in public discourse.

Yet the voters after watching both men came to the voting booth thinking that Gore was far less than they had been told and Bush was far more than they expected. As George W. Bush full well knew it is always better to be very mis-underestimated. Bush knew that mis-underestimation is the path to victory.

The media has never learned that painting a politician as more than they are, is a prescription for their defeat. The opposite is true.. Painting a politician as less than they are, is a prescription for their victory.

The problem for Hillary is she has been presented to the public as the smartest woman in the world. When she stumbles a bit in a debate, the audience is greatly disappointed and feels they have been told lies. The reaction to knowing you have been told lies is never good. NOT EVER!!!

Bill Clinton can describe it as guys going after Hillary all he wants. but that will not work especially with women. .Women want a woman candidate who can make mince meat of any half dozen guys she chooses to dice up. They have been told Hillary is a fantastic female. They will be disappointed when they figure out she isn't very good at all.

What the few watching in recent debate and what many more will come to see see is a woman who could not even handle a reporters questions as well as half the gals in the audience could. Tim Russert, without intending to, started her down the road to causing Democratic disappointment. Russert made it look easy to blow Hillary's cover because it is..

I doubt seriously if Tim Russert expected Hillary to be unable to handle his questions. I would bet he was certain that she had worked out answers to the the questions he asked. He must have thought she was prepared to hit his questions out of the park. I expect that Russert was prepared to say. "I hit Hillary with the hardest questions I could come up with... and she being the brilliant woman that she is, hit them all out of the park." Instead she looked like deer with its eyes in the headlights. She got hit hard by questions she should have known were coming. You can bet that Bill Clinton knew they were coming.

But Hillary fell flat on her face. Her lovers in the media will not likely ask her tough questions again. But I don't see how Hillary can avoid hard questions in debates. What happens if she gets into a real debate with the Republican nominee. It is obvious to every observer that Hillary is not nearly as smart as Bill and is not even close to being quick on her feet. I suspect that she never ever came close to handling Bill.

She does really dumb things. She will talk to a small town local reporter and say something that will get her into big trouble later when she must contradict her former statement. Not doing that is covered in Running for Office !01.

Either she and her staff did not anticipate the Russert questions, or she was unable to remember the prepared answers they gave her for those questions. She may just panic and her mind goes blank. If that is the case she is unlikely to get better with time. I also think it quite likely Hillary has hired a staff that is dumber than she is.

There is one big difference I have noted between the Clintons and George W. Bush. Bush although a very intelligent man has tried his best to hire people smarter than he is. Clintons on the other hand never hire someone smarter than they are. Compare Karl Rove to James Carville... That should give you a clue about the brains of Bush compared to Clinton employees.

I think Hillary does the same thing except she is a lot dumber than Bill.. She cannot tolerate a staffer smarter than she is or one that will tell her what she does not want to hear.. Her basic problem is Hillary is not very bright. And that means she likely hires a very dumb staff. Or at least staffers who must pretend to be not very smart or creative. I suspect that bowing low and offering subservient words is the job description.

Think of a truly strong woman ... Margaret Thatcher.. for example. She became a very successful Prime Minister of Great Britain all on her own.

But Hillary had to attach herself to Bill in order to give herself a future. She had to put up with all his faults in order for her to believe that she had a political future. She had to defend him when time after time he did things that no confident woman would tolerate from a husband or even a political partner..

That is not a confident or even very intelligent woman. For Bill Clinton, Hillary was just a prop he needed to look like a respectable married man. And Bill knew she was a woman who would not dare do what 99.9 percent of women would do to a man that openly cheated on them or do to a political partner that took such stupid risks. Bill knew what she would do and she did it.

That is not the record of a bright and confident woman. Hillary a bright woman? I don't think I have ever seen one in the political area who was less bright and had fewer political skills. At least for a woman running for an office higher than city council in a small town.

Hillary is vulnerable and there is not much of a way the media can protect her.