After accusing Senator Barack Obama of plagiarism during the last Democratic debate in Texas, Senator Hillary Clinton unleashed a canned line. “That isn’t change you can believe in,” she noted “but change you can xerox.” The line, hopefully formulated by a not-so-creative-staffer and not by an uninspired Clinton, was met with boos from the audience. It was at that moment when I realized, the Clinton campaign really has fallen off the rails but worse, is grossly out of touch with the voting public.

Consider the word Xerox. It is hard to imagine that your average American under the age of thirty could instantly recall what that word really means. Yes they would probably “get it”, but only after their brain had processed the word, related it to something, “oh, she means copy machine”, related the juxtaposition presented by Clinton “he is simply copying rather than creating” and then formulated a response “I don’t like her or I agree that is wrong”. You could almost hear the entire process occurring in the audience as it collectively paused for a moment before booing. They pondered “what is the meaning of this” before processing it and re-soundly rejecting what she had to say.

The joke sounds almost as old as the first patented Xeroxing machine. I an sure it was recorded, I just need to find a gramophone to hear it back.

As lame as the joke is, Clinton and her staff could have at least made the saying a little more relevant. “That is change you can TiVo” would probably have faired better or to be really hip “Change you can YouTube” or “Google” would have been better.

Canned lines rarely work. They sound rehearsed and rarely reach the audience on a level that makes them stand up and cheer. They have to be right for that time, in that space and that audience, they have to come out natural as if dreamt up in that moment. More importantly the warrant, the underlying and unifying substance of the argument, needs to be one the audience agrees with. Clinton was sitting in a room where at the very least fifty percent of the audience probably supports her opponent. Even worse for her, the majority probably at least likes him and wouldn’t mind if he were the president. Unlike attacking John McCain, she had to do better, go further in order to implant the idea in the audiences mind that his words are something they shouldn’t trust, then pounce.

She could have dropped the word Xerox, replaced it with TiVo and then followed up with real comedic effect. “I didn’t realize speechwriting was as simple as turning on C-SPAN. Right now my staff is googling inspiration, it seems to have worked well for the Senator.”

His audience probably would have reacted harsh, her audience may have actually found something worth clapping for, who knows. She probably shouldn’t have attempted anything at all, but she did and she fell flat and came off seeming out of touch. Too bad you can’t just upload relevance into a campaign.