Let's chat

Rob Price

I received 10 e-mails from Hillary Clinton in the last few days. I usually get a couple e-mails from Hillary every day, but the count shot up the day after she announced she is a candidate for the presidency.

The e-mails aren't exactly personal; nothing along the lines of: "Yo Rob, just checking in!" They're are more along the lines of general alerts. The first made this announcement: "Clinton candidacy garners huge online response." The e-mail claimed Hillary's campaign website racked up 10,000 "messages of support" in six hours of her announcement. Bloggers also have been raving about Candidate Clinton, according to Candidate Clinton. One popular liberal blogger, The Daily Kos Diary, announced: "I'm profoundly moved by (Hillary's) announcement." Wow!

The gist of these messages is that if I want to be on the right side of history, I should forget about worrying whether I can spell "Barack Obama" correctly and climb on the Hillary locomotive, along with mega journalists like Patrick Buchanan, a wild-eyed conservative who, according to one of Hillary's e-mails, called her announcement "soft ... feminine, it is conversational. ... A brilliant move."

If you haven't heard, Hillary made her announcement on the Internet, using her campaign website as the forum. She wore an attractive red jacket and sat in a comfortable-looking couch. "Let's talk, let's chat, let's start a dialogue," she said. I watched it myself, and Buchanan was right. It was truly conversational.

Except for the fact she was speaking into a digital video camera that converted her message into a computer file that then was uploaded to a web site on the World Wide Web. Anyone can watch it who has access to a computer. Of course, when was the last time you had a conversation with a computer?

Barack Obama also announced his presidential candidacy on the Internet, and I watched his computer file too. Barack seemed serious, sober, and he wore his dress shirt open at the neck to signify he felt comfortable and maybe just a little casual. It was Barack's message that started me thinking about how presidential candidates are taking advantage of the Internet to make their pitch. Hillary's web performance last weekend confirmed my initial suspicion, and that is: Skillful candidates have figured out how to use the Internet precisely to avoid any real conversation.

Back in the good old days, candidates held a press conference to announce a major candidacy. In 1965, the conservative columnist Bill Buckley held a press conference to announce he was running for mayor of New York. "What will be your first act if you win?" one reporter asked. "Demand a recount," Buckley replied.

Now that's a conversation. It has the back-andforth rocking motion that is characteristic of real conversations. It involves intelligence and emotions, humor and irony; it even demonstrates a willingness to be vulnerable - a critical feature of conversations, as anyone who has been married for more than 10 years knows.

I suspect we will find little irony, humor and vulnerability in the conversations political candidates hatch for us on their campaign websites. What we will see is something the best political candidates have always been good at: acting. And as Ronald Reagan demonstrated, the better the acting, the better the chances of winning the brass monkey.

I look forward to receiving more emails from Hillary. I may even drop in on her website for the 21st century version of a political conversation. Of course, I''ll drop in on Barack's website site too; I'll also send him my e-mail address so he can send me electronic announcements. We will have our virtual conversation.

What we won't have is the chance to drink a cup of coffee in some local diner, where we can put our elbows on the table and lean toward each other, tell some funny stories, exchange some information, share some ideas. Of course, I wouldn't have had that opportunity with Ronald Reagan, or Jimmy Carter. But those guys didn't go around pretending to have conversations.

Yo, Hillary! If you read this, please give me a call. Let's have a real conversation. I actually have an interesting question I'd like to ask; you may find it interesting too. But that's something you'll never know unless, as you say, we chat.