All You Need to Do to Understand Dianne Feinstein Is Watch This 30-Second Video
It's all there.
Dianne Feinstein, who has died at the age of 90, was a prominent figure in politics—first in San Francisco, then in California, then in the United States—for over six decades, so it’s not surprising that her obituaries are very long and very detailed.
But if you want a quick way to understand who Feinstein was and what kind of politics she practiced, you could do worse than watch this 30-second video. It’s an ad from her unsuccessful 1990 campaign for California governor, and it crams just about every part of her political identity into its short running time.
A warning: the ad opens with the harrowing footage of Feinstein, then the president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, announcing that Supervisor Harvey Milk and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone had been murdered by former Supervisor Dan White—a shocking tragedy that directly propelled Feinstein into the mayoralty of the city and set her on the path that would take her to the Senate.
Yes, I’ll say that again: Feinstein took one of the most traumatic pieces of footage in the history of San Francisco and put it in a commercial for herself. A revealing choice in and of itself, wouldn’t you say?
OK, here’s the ad.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Discourse Blog to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.