Thrown to the Owls

Watching The Daily Show last night it hit me who Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe reminds me of: Leland Palmer, from Twin Peaks. Now, I’m not comfortable making any wild thematic comparisons between a fictional character created by David Lynch and real life person with a career in politics, mostly because I’m a Clinton supporter. Moreover, because finding similarities between Palmer (a man who is simultaneously wild with grief over the death of his daughter and is embodied with a murderous incarnation of evil in its truest form), and McAuliffe (a man who has been placed as the face of a campaign that --even I, a Clinton girl will admit-- is all but lost and is representing that campaign with a kind of delusional zeal and political posturing that played a part in bringing our girl down) doesn’t take that much real effort. However, I’m going to throw comfort aside in this instance. As we move into the general election, I know my candidate won’t be at the top of the Democratic ticket, but I find solace in that the death of the campaign for The First Woman President was perhaps heralded by the same sinister, invisible forces at work in everyday American society that murdered Laura Palmer. McAuliffe’s performance on The Daily Show-- and a performance of epic proportions it was-- echoed the maniacal delusion of possessed Leland Palmer. McAuliffe’s stubborn refusal to reckon with the realities of the all but lost Clinton campaign, and insistence on repeating well-vetted political rhetoric that has become an ineffective trope from most of Clinton’s aides (aside from those who choose to speak more from the hip and are thrown to the owls, just to keep my metaphors within the theme) left me feeling like he was moments away from bursting into Mairzy Doats within sight of Jon Stewart.