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| [a] Kickback RF |
We have considered the musings of Clint Hamlet. Indeed, how abhorr'd in the imagination is the twisted chair of prime time carnage that some have called ad lib and others have spoken of as a weird twist on psychotherapy. Just talkin' to the chair...for twelve minutes. I have been watching politics since my early days on the North Dakota prairie, and I remember Richard Nixon (my grandparents were ebullient) getting the Republican nomination in Miami in 1968, balloons streaming from the rafters and a reinvention of self and society coursing through the humid south Florida air. I also remember disasters that everyone just wanted to do over, such as the Democratic National Convention in that very same 1968 in Chicago, the same party's convention in 1980, and the Republican National Convention in 1992.
All of these were disastrous, and had lasting, negative implications.
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| [b] Conceptual RF |
On one level, yesterday evening's "chair talk" did nothing to hurt the party in the manner of 1968 rioting, Kennedy-Carter animosity in 1980, or Pat Buchanan's 1992 anger. Not even close. On the other hand, having watched both conventions without fail for forty-four years...I have never (ever) seen anything like what I saw last night. I looked around my own room uncomfortably, wondering how a Hollywood icon had stumbled onto the stage straight from the bed on which he had been napping (the suit was hardly "crisp," and I have seen many Hollywood hair styles...but none like this).
Then there was that chair, standing next to the podium, taking up physical, conceptual, and dramatic space. Apparently, Eastwood had asked for a chair just moments before he went on stage, and he was accommodated with alacrity by various helpers. One story goes that they thought he meant to sit on it, but no one asked.
The dozen minutes included a long talk, a confused audience, and a half-dozen half-saves by the speaker. It is worth noticing how Clint mini-saved himself against absolute debacle throughout the speech, and one wonders why they were all just saves en petite—miniature almost-falls, with each individual element amounting to just a scrape of the oratorical knees. Don't get me wrong; the overall effect of the bumps and scrapes was far worse than the sum of the parts. Despite the spin, it was a political disaster. This is an easy non-partisan assessment. You work for years to craft this very moment—the last hour of the political convention that nominates you for the final run toward the highest office in the country. It is the only hour (these days) when all of the cable networks and all the traditional networks are focused on you, you, you.
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| [c] Still life RF |
It's all yours. All about you...and you don't even show the meticulously crafted documentary that makes you out to be a mixture of Ronald Reagan, Henry Ford, the (re-elected) Father of the Year, Steve Jobs, and, maybe a little bit of just Job. Beautiful piece. It played for a small set of millions, many times smaller than the prime time audience. I saw delegates on the convention floor wiping their eyes with emotion. Strong stuff.
They didn't show it for the (tens of) millions. It "went early" so that Clint could man the stage.
Think about it. You have worked for six years for this very hour, and everything has to go just right. There is only one hour in the entire campaign when you are the main event for twenty-five to fifty million people, when you can craft your narrative in exactly the way you want. You are on the verge of the summit—the last trek to the very moment when you plant the flag into the snowy rock, breathing the thin air of a major party nomination for president. Only you, William Jennings Bryan, Al Smith, Alf Landon, Thomas Dewey, Barry Goldwater, and George McGovern (and a few others, some of whom actually won) have any idea what it feels like. It needs to be highly stage-crafted, and even candidates seen as quite "wooden" (I am thinking of George H.W. Bush, Al Gore, and John Kerry) routinely nail it. There is lots of time for practice, and your aides are going to do everything they can to make it a moment that will not soon be forgotten.
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| [d] Calm...down RF |
That is what was supposed to happen yesterday. The hour was highly crafted...with the exception of scrapping the documentary...and giving an Oscar winning actor-director a chair and no attempt at oversight (less noticed was the complete reversal of party ideology in an exhausted misstatement by Florida's junior senator). The hour will not soon be forgotten, but no one is quite sure how Dirty Harry drove his Gran Torino into Josey Wales' empty outlaw chair. I have watched it a dozen times (that's 144 minutes, people—like a full-length movie). Nothing makes sense, and I knew that things had not gone well when I saw the faces of the people in the VIP seats. One candidate's wife looked like a truck had driven into her living room.
What I saw was a confused cluster of...pale (chair) riders.
There is only one solution, only one shot at a do-over, and it would take an absolute master to help. Not much can be done to spin this, but if I were asked (no one has), I would enlist George Strait. George could tell everyone that it was all an elaborate version of a country-western song...and improvisation. It was about love. You see, the only way to save the chair disaster is to go right back to the empty chair. When the chair bucks you off, you need to get right back on it.
Do it over Clint. It's the only chance. You need to Cowboy Up, pardner.
Click here for the individual sections of "Soliloquy, With Chair."
Click here for the individual sections of "Soliloquy, With Chair."
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| [e] Perspectival RF |
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