Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Speech: A Study in Whiplash-Inducing Contrasts

She took a page from Franklin Delano Roosevelt in her first major campaign speech, but Hillary Clinton is still Wall Street’s woman, a point that wasn’t lost on everyone who took in her surreal show at Roosevelt Island’s Four Freedoms Park on Saturday.

Among those who noted this contrast included The Daily Beast’s Olivia Nuzzi, who described a recurring sense of dissonance between the candidate and the message in her report from Clinton’s New York City campaign stop:

Saturday’s event was designed to highlight her champion-ness by contrasting her with the New Deal Democrat, whose Four Freedoms she has attempted to mimic with her own “Four Fights,” the economy, families, campaign finance and national security.

[... ] The park feels divorced from Manhattan, whose skyscrapers loom from across the water, not just geographically, but spiritually. With the bomb-sniffing dogs, security guards, metal detectors, police officers, Men In Black-looking security guards and campaign staff speeding around on golf-carts, Hillary Island felt like its own world with its own rule. It’s a serene summertime police state—wherein campaign staffers told reporters to stay in their designated area, away from attendees—pleasant and creepy at the same time.

Which might be the best way to describe Clinton herself during Saturday’s launch.

In a royal blue blazer and glowing blonde hair, Clinton took to the stage to deliver her Four Fights speech. At times she sounded robotic, like the pol who won’t take a position without poll testing it as she has been accused at others some humanity crept through. All the while, though, it was hard to shake the feeling that she was already president—of this island.

Voters have until Nov. 8, 2016 to see if they’re able to buy what Clinton was selling on Saturday, giving Clinton’s team plenty of time to work on the packaging part.

—Posted by Kasia Anderson

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