Potemkin Town Hallmark Moments

Frank Rich deconstructs Hillary Clinton's Lifetime network town hall event that aired before Super Tuesday.

"Like the scripted “Ask President Bush” sessions during the 2004 campaign, this town hall seemed to unfold in Stepford. The anodyne questions (“What else would you do to help take care of our veterans?”) merely cued up laundry lists of talking points. Some in attendance appeared to trance out."

And this,

However boring, this show was a dramatic encapsulation of how a once-invincible candidate ended up in a dead heat, crippled by poll-tested corporate packaging that markets her as a synthetic product leeched of most human qualities. What’s more, it offered a naked preview of how nastily the Clintons will fight, whatever the collateral damage to the Democratic Party, in the endgame to come.

Rich goes on to criticize the Clintons for their attempts to drive a wedge between Latinos and Blacks. He is capturing the sense I have that Hillary is running a 90's style spin doctor campaign, even a Rove style divide and conquer type campaign. It's out of tune and off key.