Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton officially announced her candidacy for president on Sunday in a well-assembled video designed to establish The Folks as the centerpiece of her 2016 campaign.
Matt Yglesias broke down the video by the numbers:
Number of people in Hillary Clinton's announcement video besides Hillary Clinton: 38.
Number of women: 20.
Number of people of color: 13.
Number of women of color: 7.
Number of non-Hillary Clinton speaking roles: 13.
Number of speaking roles for non-Hillary Clinton women: 8.
Number of speaking roles for people of color: 7.
Number of speaking roles for women of color: 5.
Number of same-sex couples: 2.
Number of seconds until Hillary Clinton first appears: 91.
Number of seconds with Clinton talking or onscreen: 37.
Number of references to career readiness: 2.
Number of references to motherhood: 3.
Number of references to school or college: 2.
Number of references to inequality: 1.
Number of concrete policies mentioned: 0.
Number of times the name "Hillary Clinton" is spoken: 0.
Bottom line: this is not a video that Clinton would've released eight years ago. Why? Clearly because it's been eight years since 2007, when the political climate, the Democratic field, the Republican field and the roster of top-shelf issues were completely and totally different.
Think about where the country was in 2007. We were still ensconced in the Iraq surge, same-sex marriage was largely illegal across the country, we were experiencing the initial warning signs of the economic collapse, the GOP was getting ready to nominate a Vietnam War veteran, Clinton herself had not yet served four years as Secretary of State, and a soon-to-be Democratic rock star named Barack Obama had just entered the race with a state-of-the-art new media machine backing him. And that's right off the top of my head. Consequently, Clinton's priorities and tactics will be different. They have to be.
One thing that hasn't changed, however, is... CONTINUE READING