My Progressive Values Video the Clinton Campaign Wants Removed

Written by: Edwin Rutsch on Feb 21, 2008 2:19 PM EST

A while back, I attended a house party in Richmond, California attended by Terry McAuliffe, former Chair of the Democratic National Committee and present chair of the Chairman of the Hillary Clinton for President committee. Terry gave a talk about Hilary's campaign and then took questions.

After getting permission to video tape, I asked Terry, "What Are Progressive Values and how did you develop your values?"   He didn't answer the question very well and instead of talking about values, he started giving his talking points about issues and policies.

I asked attendees after the event what they thought of his response, and they said things like, "He didn't answer your question", "he's just a marketing guy", etc. Most of the people I asked, could see that he didn't really answer the question but gave the standard campaign line. People are not stupid, they see what is going on. I put together a video of the question, answer and responses and placed it on Youtube.

See my questions and Terry's response and attendees feedback here:
Progressive Values? Terry McAuliffe - On Values
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Zz6JQcdO_SE

See the full event video here:
 Terry McAuliffe at Contra Costa Democratic Group (25 min)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4487111966680040063

A week or so after placing the clip online,  I got an email from Terry's  personal assistant with a Hilary Clinton campaign email address, asking for the video to be removed.  

I replied that I realized that Terry  didn't reply to the question about progressive values very well and if he redid the interview I would replace the clip with a new one.  For me it's best for all progressives to put their best foot forward in expressing progressive values.  I want Hilary Clinton and all progressive candidates to express their Progressive Values to the best of their abilities and then some. It helps all progressives everywhere when that happens. When progressive candidates clearly articulate and  talk about progressive values, all progressives win. 

However, the response I got was, 'just remove the video'. 

(and there's more)

The Clinton Campaign

I see this as a problem with the Clinton campaign. Instead of being able to clearly talk about progressive values, that is being able to speak from the heart, the response is to suppress negative information and stick with the plan and the talking points. The present situation of  Hilary Clinton loosing Wisconsin, shows to me, that talking about the progressive values of: hope, inspiration, caring, community, equality, opportunity,  openness, transparency is important to connect with voters. 

Her campaign is actually deriding Barack Obama for talking about those values. She should be doing the same. Hilary Clinton got a bump in New Hampshire when she talked about and expressed her feelings of caring.  I felt it, I was touched, but that was the last I saw of it. She said she found her voice, but she lost it again. It she would have started talking about the importance of caring, of building a caring society, and continued speaking from the heart. I think  we would be seeing a different sort of an outcome of this campaign.

George Lakoff

This approach illustrates what George Lakoff wrote about in 
What Counts as an "Issue" In the Clinton-Obama Race?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/george-lakoff/what-counts-as-an-issue_b_84177.html
George points out that the Clinton Campaign is issues (health care, occupation of Iraq, etc.) oriented and the Obama campaign is values (empathy, trust, honesty, inspiration, judgment) oriented.

 Terry On the Kudlow & Company Show

 I found a video clip with Terry on the conservative show: Kudlow & Company. 
In the clip, Kudlow asks Terry, "what has changed with Values and and Principles on the democratic side?" 

He poses the question at 1 min 25 sec on this clip. see
Human Events on Kudlow & Company
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VWhPXS2uJo

Terry replies with something about Bush, 9/11, terrorism and the war in Iraq that has nothing to do with addressing the question about values. Jed Babbin, the other conservative guest,  then calls Terry on his non answer about values. He says,  "The answer or rather the non answer that Terry gave is entirely illuminating. You asked him what has changed in the democratic party... nothing has changed." 

A better answer for Terry would have been to say, "Democrats haven't done a good job in talking about values in the past, but they are starting to do so now. We are going to let voters know about our progressive values of, caring, inspiration, community, equality, openness, hope and justice. We're also going to  pull back the  conservative values mask of; Family Values, Traditional Values, individual freedom, individual responsibility, individual liberty, compassionate conservatism and point out how the Failed Conservative Values of; fear, authoritarianism, secrecy, indifference, self righteousness, hypocrisy  and selfish greed have failed the country. "

Progressive Values

Values and principles are one of the central pillars of the conservative movement. They've been continually repeated by the conservative candidates after each primary election speech.  Each progressive needs to master the values debate. There is a growing amount of information for how progressives can articulate their values of ; empathy, caring,  community, common good, justice, equality, hope,  etc.  It's not a mater of just ticking off a list of progressive values but of having a deep personal understanding and appreciation of each of them and of being able to give voice to them.  For this, there are the books and website from George Lakoff and the Rockridge institute.  More writers are talking about them in their articles.   Wellstone and DFA trainings are bring up the topic.  And our website, ProgressiveSpirit.com has over 100 interviews with over 300 video clips of progressives talking about their values.  There's no more excuses.

So again, when progressive officials and progressive candidates clearly articulate and talk about progressive values, all progressives win. 

Progressive Values at Take Back America 2008

We will be at the  Take Back America Progressive Conference, March 15-19 and will hold a Workshop Session on March 17, 12-1pm, room 2, titled:
What are Progressive Values? Tell Your Personal Story.
This will be a preparation for you to tell your story of what you feel progressive values are. We hope you'll come by and be interviewed for our documentary on the topic.

This Will be Remembered
Another thing with the Clinton campaign, I got the feeling that, "You didn't remove this clip and this will be Remembered?"  I can't point to what makes me feel that but that's the feeling I got. That doesn't go over very well.

What do you think,  should I remove the video clip?
What would you do?


Edwin Rutsch
What are Progressive Values? Documentary Project.
http://ProgressiveSpirit.com

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