An email from Hillary’s campaign shows the desperate moves staffers have had to consider in order to make people see Hillary Clinton as a normal, approachable, everyday American they can relate to. Staffers had been considering arranging photo ops depicting Hillary doing everyday jobs.
An email addressed to Clinton’s campaign chief John Podesta and high-ranking staffers Jennifer Palmieri and Charlie Baker, titled “a humble suggestion,” was sent to help Team Hillary “combat the meme” that she is “out of touch” with the American people.
The message was sent by liberal talk show host and former Michigan Democratic Governor Jennifer M. Granholm and suggested that Clinton’s campaign should start “taking a page from former Florida Senator Bob Graham, and doing, say, 8 ‘work days’ over the next 15 months.”
The Canadian-born Granholm went on to explain how the campaign would go about this scheme to convince Americans that Hillary isn’t really a privileged, rich, white woman.
She could acknowledge flat-out that she’s been in a security/privilege bubble, and is determined to break out of it. Then she selects 8 occupations that she is willing to spend one day working at. She humbles herself, but gives dignity to the workers whose salaries she wants to raise. Perhaps she makes beds in a hotel for a day. Perhaps she busses tables at Denny’s or works behind the counter at McDonald’s or Chipotle’s! Perhaps she works in a nursing home. Or is a janitor in a school cafeteria. Or works at a daycare center. You get the idea — have her pick some low wage service jobs that she’s actually willing to spend 6-8 hours doing (any shorter and she’d be criticized for not putting in a full day).
The two-term Democratic Governor and firebrand talk show host insisted that Hillary’s fans would “go wild for it,” and the fantasy storyline would be an “acknowledgement that she is determined to ‘see’ real people, despite her own good fortunes.”
Granholm also hoped the massive, artificial photo op project would help Hillary see Americans in a new light, too, saying, “She would be humbled and inspired by the experience.”
Apparently, the Clinton campaign did consider Granholm’s scheme to “humble” and humanize Hillary as the suggestion seems to have been forwarded to a group of Clinton insiders. But ultimately, It appears that Granholm’s artifice was rejected, likely as ludicrous.
In the end, it appears that Team Clinton decided that the scheme was just too far-fetched.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.