The Politics of “Let’s Have a Conversation”

When Sen. Hillary Clinton announced her presidential bid, she did so by “beginning a conversation” with voters. “So let’s talk. Let’s have a chat. Let’s start a dialogue,” she said. “I have a feeling it’s going to be very interesting.”

And she was right. This year’s primary season has been very interesting. But at least in Clinton’s case, the “conversations” in which Iowa voters talk to her and she responds have been few and far between. As I have previously argued, this is Clinton’s main vulnerability going into the Iowa Caucuses in January, and her opponents are going to start to use it.

Today, Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign announced a new Social Security-themed TV ad, entitled “Wind,” in which he says, “If we have failed to have a real, honest conversation about Social Security, it will not get fixed. This is a program that millions of people depend on.” The ad, like his other recent ads, shows Obama in a small, retail politics setting surrounded on all sides by a group of average-looking voters. And, while Obama does not name any names, it’s clear whom he’s talking about when he says, “I don’t want to just put my finger out to the wind and see what the polls say. I want to bring the country together to solve a problem.”

As the campaign’s press release notes,

The ad comes one day after Obama noted in a Des Moines townhall that Senator Clinton has repeatedly dodged opportunities to reveal her thinking about the best way to strengthen Social Security. Obama was introduced at the event by Tod Bowman, a previously undecided Iowa caucusgoer and Maquoketa high school teacher, who asked Senator Clinton for more details about her position on Social Security at a campaign event. In the public forum, she declined to directly answer Bowman’s question, but later offered him a response when she thought no reporters were present.

View the ad here.