Vox, naturally, was impressed by Hillary Clinton's campaign launch video:
Lord knows: When I think "Hillary Clinton," I think "bold" and "fascinating." I wasn't shocked that Vox thought that something a Democrat did was brilliant, but I was a bit surprised by Todd VanDerWerff's analysis in the nut graf:
The video attempts not to minimize Clinton's placement in her campaign, but to portray it as a natural outgrowth of a mass, populist movement. The story of Clinton's campaign as expressed by this ad isn't one of an inevitable, indomitable candidate. It's one that attempts to portray Clinton's run as an idea she had a couple of months ago that she's been saving up for.
Emphasis mine, because that's exactly what it seemed like the video was doing. The Hillary Clinton campaign has absolutely no interest whatsoever in focusing on Hillary Clinton's biggest weakness: Hillary Clinton.
For the first 91 seconds of the two minute, eighteen second video, Hillary is nowhere to be seen. Instead, we are treated to a college-brochure-like demonstration of diversity: no box goes unchecked, no group ignored. And then, at second 92, Hillary's voice bubbles up and we see ... the back of her head.
We then cut to an image of her (sitting, notably) while straining as hard as she can to make eye contact with a Normal Person Who Has Normal Problems (TM):
You can see her struggling to do something a normal politician does with ease:
And then you understand why they've avoided showing her for so long: because she acts kind of like a robot and looks kind of like a Deadite:
It's actually kind of amazing: in a 138-second video, she's onscreen for just 9 seconds.
Let's be honest: Hillary Clinton's campaign understands that their biggest weakness is Hillary Clinton herself. Her voice grates and her manner seems phony. There's a reason Barack Obama—an unknown, unproven candidate with no real experience who lacked a fundraising base but had an actual personality that normal people liked—trounced her in 2008. So the Hillary Clinton campaign is minimizing the public's exposure to Hillary Clinton. It's genius! If only her team had thought of this in 2008.