smallchou.com/blog

i’m currently sitting downstairs in our building at work, watching a live feed of senator hillary clinton chatting with our ceo in another building. there are some really interesting insights when you watch someone in a live, off-the-cuff setting (and truth be told, it’s very possible she’s been fed these questions ahead of time, but still).

first impression is how clear she actually is. by clear i mean in the way that she speaks. and clearly she’s a politician so she’s very polished, but i find it amazing how perfectly structured and correct her sentences are. it sounds like a really small thing, but try talking non-stop for ten minutes and never uttering a grammatically-incorrect sentence. is that something to be impressed by? i don’t know, but i find myself impressed by it.

the other thing that strikes me is how high-level she speaks. i remember once in 2002 john kerry came to speak at stanford. they billed it as “come listen to john kerry talk about technology and science!” but it turned out to be an extremely boring stump speech. this was even before he became the democrats’ candidate for president. as i listen to hillary, i kinda get the same feeling, albeit without quite the same level of canned-ness. she speaks in big waves of “national vision” and “making americans’ lives better.” i almost wish she would just have a real conversation, plainly and honestly.

on the whole though, i find her to be much more impressive than kerry was. there’s something actually commanding about her presence, which unfortunately was never something you saw in senator kerry. she’s actually funny when she lets herself be, and she doesn’t seem oblivious of the person she’s talking to.

it’s not something you elect a president on, but it’s something at least.