Why every 2016 candidate will go soft-focus in their quest for authenticity

Like the swallows returning to Capistrano, the campaign ads return to Manchester and Des Moines every four years. The airwaves become heavy with the weight of so many messages approved so sincerely, and the owners of local TV stations start wondering whether it's finally time to buy that yacht. And lo, with a mere six months before the New Hampshire and Iowa contests, Hillary Clinton is airing her first ads of the 2016 election. They're full of both warmth and grit, an appreciation for what came before even as her gaze sets upon the future, and all sorts of other inspiring stuff.

This is how ad campaigns usually begin, with spots meant to illuminate some parts of the candidate's biography. The ingredients are always similar, no matter the candidate or party: modest beginnings, important lessons from an elder (often a parent or grandparent who will impart the timeless wisdom that if the future candidate works hard enough, she can go as far as her ambitions and this great country will take her), a lifetime of accomplishment, and a firm connection to regular folks.

Clinton does not disappoint. Let's take a look at the first one:

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"My mom was terrific" is not exactly a controversial stance to take, but it shows that Clinton's campaign is not going to worry too much about making her look "tough" in the way her 2008 campaign did. Clinton needs to impart biographical information less than most candidates do, since she's been a national figure for more than two decades. But her campaign wants you to understand not just the what — that Clinton is an advocate for ordinary people — but the why, which is that it's because of her mother. It's never too early to start getting people feeling warm and fuzzy about you, to "humanize" you and make you "real" and "authentic."

I put all that in quotation marks because every good candidate knows that the press is positively obsessed with authenticity — who has it, who lacks it, how it's communicated, and how it might be faked more convincingly. They long ago decided that unlike her husband, Clinton lacks this most important of virtues, which is why she supposedly doesn't "connect" with your average Joes and Janes. It's worth noting that her old boss Barack Obama was also said to lack that connection, particularly with blue-collar whites, which for some reason didn't stop him from getting elected and re-elected.

But what happened to Clinton between being at her mother's knee and today? Funny you should ask:

"I believe that when families are strong, America is strong." Fair enough. I believe that, too! So does everyone, at least in some way, and that's part of the idea of an ad like this one. We're supposed to say, "Huh, I guess Hillary Clinton is a lot like me and people I know and care for." Much of every campaign is an attempt to convince us of this.

Or it might be more accurate to say that what we're supposed to be convinced of is that the candidate is just like us — only better. They understand us, they struggled the way we have, they think the same things we do and see the world the same way we do. But they're also smarter, more accomplished, more virtuous, and even more modest than we could hope to be. They're us, but versions of ourselves embodied more in aspiration than reality.

Authenticity is always an act; it's just that some politicians are better actors than others. No one is their real authentic self when the cameras are rolling, if there even is such a thing. At the same time, candidates for even the highest office are actual human beings — people who had moms, grew up, got some things right and some other things wrong, and somehow arrived at the point where they decided to run for president. It doesn't hurt to be reminded of that now and again, so long as we remember that it's true of all of them. So if you're trying to figure out which one to vote for, you'd do better by asking what they'd actually do, not whether their personal story is appealing.