*The contrasts between the Hillary Clinton campaign and Donald Trump‘s couldn’t be clearer. While Trump’s has descended into total chaos, Hillary’s seems to be finding its groove and confidence and is taking the high road to make over her image and build trust in her. After all, that’s her Achilles heel as far as a lot of voters are concerned.
You could say it started back in April of this year when Hillary pivoted from the Democratic primaries to facing Trump in the general election when her campaign released a commercial titled “Love and Kindness.”
Against the soundtrack of a soulful ballad, the spot showed Mrs. Clinton in a series of warm embraces, including one with a grieving mother. The onscreen text included the phrase “do all the good we can, in all the ways we can, for all the people we can,” reports the NY Times.
Through secular eyes, the advertisement linked Mrs. Clinton to some resolutely uncontroversial concepts — hope, kindness, love, good. In doing so, it sought to soften the perception that she is untrustworthy and unlikable.
From a theological viewpoint, however, the commercial communicated in profound and coded ways. The music evoked a cappella gospel quartets. The text echoed an axiom of the Methodist Church, Mrs. Clinton’s lifelong denomination. The very title of the spot could well have been “Agape and Chesed.”
“Agape” is the Greek word for the Christian ideal of “the love of God operating in the human heart,” as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once put it. And “chesed” is the Hebrew term for goodness or mercy, which the first full English translation of the Bible, made by Myles Coverdale in 1535, rendered as “lovingkindness.”
It can be more obvious that Hillary Clinton’s outreach to voters and Donald Trump’s are light years apart. She’s essentially campaigning on “love and happiness” while Trump’s message is straight up hate and divisiveness. And he’s supposed to be the superior salesman. If so, it appears that the majority of voters are buying what he’s selling.
Get MORE of this NY Times story at MSN News.
