Hillary, beware the Ides of March!

Shakespeare did a very interesting thing in his play "Julius Caesar." He juxtaposed the conspirators after Caesar's bloody assasination in a scene which teaches a valuable life lesson: when it comes to politics, people may think with their brains, but they'll act in accordance with their emotion.

In this scene, after killing Caesar, Cassius and Brutus stand before the people and deliver well-reasoned speeches condoning the killing and effectively winning over the crowd. People stood around going, "Well, it sounds like they did the right thing." While they are shrugging their shoulders, Marc Anthony leaps upon the stage and begins his famous oratory, "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears." He rants, he pulls on the consciences of his listeners, he implores them to consider the heinous murder of a good man (arguably so). The listeners become whipped up into a mob that chases Cassius and Brutus out of town and a bloody battle begins.

And with this scene comes the explanation for the force that is Barack Obama. Obama isn't saying anything much different from Hillary, policy-wise, that is. The difference is that while Hillary does a stand-up job of explaining her well-reasoned policies and how she plans to implement them, Barack appeals directly to the places where people are hurting, where they have anxiety, where they fear things may go wrong. He also invokes historical references, inspiring a nostalgic sense of patriotism, whipping people up into a frenzy of emotion. I like what Barack says, but what scares me is that here's a guy with scant political experience on a national stage with a noticable lack of well-reasoned policies and explanations of how he intends to implement these policies.

However, what all of this bodes for Hillary is trouble. Barack is beating her up over her vote for the Iraqi invasion and her "ready to be President on day one" refrain is not hitting home, at least not at the polls. She's a smart woman, but she's facing a growing emotionally-charged movement, and if we learned anything from Shakespeare's infamous scene, it is that emotion wins over a crowd like no other. A review of the 2004 debate between Bush and Kerry is a prime example; Bush was impassioned and appealed to voter's emotions. Kerry was logical and appealed to voter's common sense. The outcome speaks for itself.

So, in politics as in life, emotion is much more motivating than logic, and that is a lesson Hillary needs to learn quickly if she wants to stay in this race.