William Katz: Alfred Hitchcock and the 2008 election

Bill Katz has set up shop by himself over at Urgent Agenda but continues to save some of his best stuff for us. Today he writes:

I’d been thinking of writing about Alfred Hitchcock, a great film director, and a man who understood more about people than any director I know, indeed any person I know. I kept putting it off but, today, remarkably, I got an e-mail from a reader who has a name close to that of a Hitchcock character — Thornhill. (Name the film.) That was the omen I needed. So Hitch is on the menu. So is the 2008 election. There is a merger there.
Alfred Hitchcock, known as the master of suspense, was born in England in 1899 and died in California in 1980. Since you are worldly Power Line readers, you probably know most of his great films – “Rear Window,” “North by Northwest,” “Strangers on a Train,” “Vertigo,” “The Man Who Knew too Much,” “Psycho,” “Dial M for Murder,” “The Birds,” and others. If you are young, and sinking in the muck of today’s Hollywood, you can be spiritually saved by renting the DVDs.
Hitchcock’s films were known for many things, including a glossy, elegant style. But it was his ability to play our feelings, to sense how the audience would react, that was the spearhead of his success. And it struck me that Hitchcock had quite a bit to teach political candidates, even 28 years after his death. Some political players know these things instinctively. Most do not. Consider what Hitchcock knew, and showed in his work.
LESSON ONE

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