Democratic convention’s goal: Build trust in Clinton
Party aims to build up Clinton’s image and offer insight into her character
“There will be some people talking about things that neither she nor they (her family) have really discussed in a big public way before.”
Joel Benenson, Clinton strategist
Hillary Clinton’s nominating convention that begins Monday is being choreographed to tell a life story about the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee that, despite her decades in the public eye, aims to reveal insights while offering a sharp contrast to last week’s GOP confab.
In addition to Washington and Hollywood luminaries, Democrats convening in Philadelphia have lined up “everyday Americans” — those she’s helped over her career and those she’s met on the campaign trail — as character witnesses for prime-time speaking turns and video presentations. The goal is to demonstrate a lifelong commitment to public service and to share more about Clinton’s Midwestern upbringing and middle-class roots that preceded her years as first lady, senator and secretary of State.
“There will be some people talking about things that neither she nor they (her family) have really discussed in a big public way before,” said Joel Benenson, her chief strategist.
Campaign officials want to go straight at her biggest vulnerability: Many Americans say they don’t trust her or view her favorably.
The GOP convention featured Republican nominee Donald Trump’s allies bashing Clinton — and delegates frequently chanting, “Lock her up!”
The Democrats’ approach borrows from Bill Clinton’s New York convention in 1992 that featured average Americans and a video dubbed “The Man from Hope” that reintroduced an elite Yale Law School graduate as a Southern boy who grew up poor.
Officials said the videos and speeches in this year’s convention will demonstrate a consistency of
character over her lifetime, including her activism on issues such as child welfare, health care and women’s rights.
“Voters will see very much a connection from life lessons she learned growing up in the family she did and what has really rooted her in what have become the causes of her life,” Benenson said.
The release by WikiLeaks of approximately 20,000 hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee — which show party officials favoring Clinton over primary rival Bernie Sanders — will compete with the narrative Democrats hoped to present.
Clinton’s team knows it can’t easily flip her trust ratings, which, along with Trump’s, are among the lowest of any presidential candidate in memory. Staffers will try to make voters dislike her a little less by offering testimonials from people she’s had a positive impact on, while making her more relatable.
“She grew up as an ordinary kid in the suburbs of Chicago who went to public school,” said Melanne Verveer, the former first la- dy’s chief of staff, who remains a close confidante.
Among the things people may not know: Clinton’s Methodist faith is “very significant,” Verveer said, citing an influential youth minister who encouraged her to focus on the underserved, including arranging for her to babysit the children of migrant workers while they picked vegetables.
Clinton, raised in the Sputnik era, once aspired to be an astronaut, and when she was short on cash in college, she scavenged the Wellesley campus for discarded items. The emotional impact of learning about her mother’s mistreatment as an orphan was formative. “Out of that has sprung some, if not much of, Hillary’s commitment to children and what they are owed and deserved,” Verveer said.
“You think you know somebody, but you really don’t know their biography, you don’t know what makes them who they are,” she said.
Democrats “have a tremendous opportunity” because “they are following on the heels of a highly negative convention,” said Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia politics expert.
“People want to know that the next four years is not going to be a dumpster fire,” he said.
The convention is the cam- paign’s best chance to reach critical audiences before the election in November, Benenson said.
“We feel we have some big opportunities with some groups of voters who have leaned a little more Republican in the past,” he said. These include suburban college- and non-college-educated women. They are also focused on younger voters, who may associate the Clintons with 1990s-era controversies.
The candidate herself, in response to attacks based on past scandals, may have reinforced her negatives by developing a bunkerlike attitude, including a reluctance to talk about herself or to the media.
“It becomes a timeless narrative,” said Mo Elleithee, a 2008 campaign official who’s a Georgetown University scholar. “They don’t know the details,” he said of younger voters. “They just know she’s had a lot of controversy around her.”
Though Clinton is beating Trump by nearly 2-1 among those ages 18 to 29, nearly one in five are undecided, according to a new Harvard Institute of Politics poll.
In addition to changing perceptions about Clinton, a goal of the convention is to create a portrait of party unity in contrast to the GOP convention, something that may be made more difficult after the WikiLeaks email release.
“The stars of the Democratic Party are all on board,” said Patti Solis Doyle, a Clinton 2008 campaign manager. First lady Michelle Obama and Sanders will headline Monday’s opening night and will be followed later in the week by Bill Clinton, President Obama and Vice President Biden.
Clinton’s “stronger together” message will remain the overarching theme of the four-day convention. It will “stand in stark contrast to the dark, dismal speakers we had at the Republi- can convention who were screaming and shrieking at people,” Benenson said.
Philadelphia speakers include Anastasia Somoza, who was born with cerebral palsy and spastic quadriplegia and interned in Clinton’s Senate office; Karla Ortiz, an American citizen whose parents are undocumented and fear deportation; and Lauren Manning, one of the most severely injured survivors of the Sept. 11 terror attacks whom Clinton helped to secure medical care.
There will be musical performances and entertainment aimed at creating a celebratory mood and drawing more eyeballs. Confirmed celebrities include Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Snoop Dogg, Demi Lovato, Lady Gaga, Eva Longoria and America Ferrera.
The convention is among the campaign’s last chances to recast the personal narrative about Clinton, especially as her favorability ratings dipped further after the FBI director’s criticism of her use of a private email server as secretary of State.
“The simple message is ‘I have been and always will be your champion, and Donald Trump’s only in it for himself,’ ” Elleithee said. “The second part’s not hard. People believe that about Trump. It’s the first part she needs to focus on.”