Stagecrafting is important part of politics
The rallies for presidential candidates are crafted affairs. Or they should be.
The Hillary Clinton rally staged at the convention center in Pittsburgh a week ago Saturday is a good example — the one at which the very rich Mark Cuban of Scott Township and the Dallas Mavericks and the Shark Tank TV show called the very rich Donald Trump of New York City and Mar-a-Lago estate a “jag-off.
For his efforts, he got a great big Hillary hug, the kind that says “Thanks,” and “I agree.”
Whether Cuban’s declaration and the Hillary wrap-around were unprompted we will probably never know.
Let me point out what wasn’t entirely spontaneous: the arrangement of faces in back of Hillary as she spoke; that is, the folks facing the television audience as the candidate and her running mate Tim Kaine lit into Trump from the stage.
If you’re like me, you make a point of noticing the people sitting directly in back of political types as they address the camera.
When President Obama spoke at the recent memorial service for the slain Dallas police officers, the background tableau included members of the Dallas police chorus.
One member of the choral group was especially interesting. He sat just behind the president’s left shoulder and was on camera throughout the presidential oration.
He either clapped or sat stone faced as others clapped, suggesting agreement or disagreement with what the president had to say.
It was pretty edifying. I wonder how many people tuning in picked up on the officer’s cues, his approval and disapproval moments.
Earlier this year, during the primaries, a provocateur funnyman, accustomed to the camera, invaded a wild west Trump rally, scoring a seat in back of the Donald. He made faces. He led mock cheers. It was pretty juvenile. He blended in beautifully.
The hilarity (depending on your point of view) earned the prankster several minutes on the Jimmy Kimmel late night show.
Had the Trump campaign employed the same attention to detail as the Clinton campaign did in Pittsburgh, this fella would not have been seated where he sat: in the camera’s eye.
Here’s the lowdown on the Pittsburgh rally.
A dozen or more individuals, responding to the call of a certain non-profit, were asked to show up early on the day of the rally. A little after noon. Soon they were told they would be seated on the risers to the side and rear of the stage.
Then the shuffling began. Clinton aides or maybe even the Secret Service moving these and other fans of Hillary around, from the side risers to behind the stage and vice versa. Short people were switched for tall people. Black faces with whites. Whites with African-Americans. Straights with gays. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
I was told that in addition to the stagecrafting, a lot of natural jockeying for position took place. The person who clued me in got a chuckle out of an episode involving a preliminary speaker (who was not Mark Cuban). The speaker was booed; the boo-er was tossed from his prime location.
Now don’t get your hackles up over these stabs at choreography. The arranging and rearranging of faces behind a political speaker is nothing new. I recall being told by a local party official that the White House insisted on a sufficient number of “persons of color” be situated behind President Bill Clinton when he visited Greensburg for a health care rally in 1994.
As I later wrote, “All of this was for television, the nightly news shows beaming across the country.”
A note on Bill: he remains an affable glad-hander. He was the last of the candidate’s entourage to leave the convention center rope line, lingering many minutes longer than Hillary and Tim Kaine.
Things haven’t changed. Candidate Bill Clinton visited Pittsburgh in the spring of 1992 for the Pennsylvania primary. Campaign aides arranged for him to greet voters on a sidewalk crowded with produce stands. It was a sunny, warm day, perfect for campaigning and baseball.
(The candidate took in a few innings of a Pirates game at Three Rivers Stadium later in the day. Asked by a smart-aleck reporter to name his favorite team, the Bucs or Phillies, Clinton sensibly replied, “I’m not that stupid!”)
Close to the end of his sidewalk stroll, Bill Clinton was hailed by a youngster 9, 10 or 11 years old who asked what the candidate had in mind for the environment.
For the next five to 10 minutes, Bill Clinton looked that kid straight in the eye and gave him the most detailed response imaginable. Clinton was heedless of time or his schedule. He conveyed a definite attitude: nothing is more important in the world than this young man standing in front of me.
Bill Clinton is a wonder, as he proved with his convention speech about romancing Hillary at Yale in the early ’70s. If his wife had his chops, the contest versus Donald Trump would be a slam dunk. But that’s unfair. Genius is singular.
Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown and is the author of two books: “Grand Salute: Stories of the World War II Generation” and “Our People.” He can be reached at grandsalutebook@gmail.com.