Hillary Clinton has made it clear she would like to be treated as a presidential candidate, even though she has yet to announce and make it official. This has obvious advantages: it signals to those Democrats who might otherwise want to run that the Clintons, famous for their grudge-holding, will be scanning the field for those who would stand between the Clintons and the seat of power. They will be making a list and checking it twice.
But it also has its downsides. For example, Clinton is attracting a presidential candidate’s level of press attention. But there isn’t much of interest out of Clintonland just yet. Hillary will wait to express opinions on the issues of the day until she knows who her sacrificial opponents will be and can run all the polling and focus groups she needs to so she can memorize what she’s supposed to pretend to think. Additionally, the Clinton Global Initiative has taken to keeping reporters in the basement and preventing them from going to the bathroom unattended to make sure they don’t accidentally produce any interesting journalism from the organization’s events.
So what does a 24/7 political press have to write about, then? When it comes to Hillary Clinton, the answer is articles like this, from the Washington Post, on the going rate to get Clinton to speak at your college:
So you want to book Hillarypalooza? For starters, you’re going to need some serious wampum — like $300,000 worth, if you’re getting the “special university rate.” From there, things get somewhat easier, assuming you and your team have easy access to lemon wedges, quadrilateral pillows and hummus.
According to internal communications obtained and published by This Very Publication, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s notable requirements include:
- A case of room-temperature water (still only — no bubbles)
- A “computer, mouse and printer, as well as a scanner”
- A lavaliere microphone
- Chairs with two long rectangular pillows
- “A carafe of warm/hot water, coffee cup and saucer, pitcher of room temperature water, water glass, and lemon wedges,” onstage as well as in a VIP meet-and-greet room.
- And diet ginger ale and a platter of crudité and hummus in the green room.
The Post story then goes on to ask the question on everyone’s mind: how do Clinton’s demands stack up next to those of 50 Cent, Meat Loaf, the Rolling Stones, and, of course, Van Halen? The story answers that question, comparing contract riders between Hillary and those acts as procured by the website TheSmokingGun.com.
Of course, the famous Van Halen demand for a bowl of M&Ms with “ABSOLUTELY NO BROWN ONES” was to make sure the hosts actually read the whole document. Presumably Hillary actually wants those lemon wedges, bubbleless water, and chairs with two rectangular pillows.
The inevitable question: who cares?
Well, on the merits, hopefully the answer is: absolutely nobody (aside from those contractually obligated to care about Hillary’s lemon wedges). But it’s news anyway, for two reasons. First, Clinton wanted to be treated as a presidential candidate, and presidential candidates’ current professional contracts are of some interest, especially to reporters with deadlines. Second, it feeds an existing narrative about Clinton.
And that’s where this gets dicey for Hillary. Not dicey in the sense that it would actually swing a single vote. Indeed, it’s dreadfully boring, entirely legal, and perfectly appropriate behavior. But as well all know, the mainstream media does not do complexity very well. They need a narrative, and a simple one at that, if they are to be able to process lots of information.
The current narrative about Hillary is one she intentionally created: that the race for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination should be a coronation, a crowning of the next member of the Democrats’ post-Kennedy royal family. The details likely to be picked up from such stories will conform to that narrative.
To wit: when Clinton gave a speech at UNLV and was paid $225,000 for it, students, “citing the rising cost of tuition,” protested and asked for the money to be returned to the school. But the school didn’t pay for the speech; a nonprofit foundation associated with the school did. And her appearance took in more in donations than the cost of the speech anyway.
At UCLA, her speech was paid for by a private donor. There is literally nothing objectionable about Hillary’s speaking fees. But far juicier to national newspapers than who paid for the speech are details like this: “Top university officials discussed at length the style and color of the executive armchairs Clinton and moderator Lynn Vavreck would sit in,” as well as this: “When university officials decided to award Clinton the UCLA Medal, Clinton’s team asked that it be presented to her in a box rather than draped around her neck.”
Clinton is fair game, and neither her speaking fees nor the stories written about them are out of line. To some extent, she’s walking a mile in Mitt Romney’s shoes. She’s rich and famous and awkward. But unlike Romney, she wants everyone to know at all times how important she is, and that she is to be treated as such. And so the royalty narrative, which she actively feeds, will persist, and it won’t always be flattering. And even when the stories are impossibly dumb and pointless, there won’t exactly be a reservoir of sympathy for the wealthy false populist who wants to be treated like a queen.
