The biographical video is an essential cover letter in the elections in the United States. It is a country of 330 million inhabitants, where one can be the governor of a State and almost completely unknown in the rest of the country. Nobody wins for being modest in that audiovisual section. The epic style prevails with which if a politician was a soldier in his young years but did not fire a shot, he appears reflected as if he were a modern version of Alexander the Great.
The Popular Party has deemed it necessary to broadcast a video –of ten minutes in its long version– that serves to offer the profile of Alberto Núñez Feijóo. It’s not like he’s the new girl in the office. He has been in politics for 30 years. In the latest CIS survey, 94.8% of people say they know him, which is very close to the maximum limit. In these cases, it is about giving it a human face, a common idea in the propaganda of campaigning parties, lest voters think that it is a reptilian that feeds on rodents.
In the video, Feijóo introduces himself, which already indicates that they don’t want to risk too much. No one comes out talking about the leader of the Popular Party, an effective resource when many different people have known the biographer for years and can provide heartfelt phrases or attractive anecdotes. And that’s not how what happens in this audiovisual piece happens. As the main revelation, Feijóo repeats several times that it is very important to be serious, which is something his father recommended. It is always good for him to listen to his parents, although virtue is a bit basic and it is in which those who do not have much to tell hide. Those you run away from at a party.
The video highlights that Feijóo was born in a village in Ourense. There is a veiled attempt to present him as a product of rural Spain that has to make an effort to get studies and work, unlike the facilities offered by the cities. His parents sent him as a boarder to the Maristas school in León, because they had money to do it. That is not discussed. He wouldn’t quite fit the self-made man image.
The second idea behind the video is to highlight that he is a politician who did not want to be a politician with a label included. Once he obtained a position as a Xunta official through opposition, he enjoyed the support of a good godfather, José Manuel Romay Beccaría, one of the heavyweights of the Galician PP. In order not to want to be political, Feijóo hid it very well. He boasts that at the age of 21 he voted for Felipe González’s PSOE in 1982 (he has recounted this many times). At thirty, he already had a position of political confidence in the Ministry of Agriculture of the Xunta.
Later, he talks about those humble people who raise the country every day with effort. With a lot of presumption for having spent three decades in politics, most of the time with an official car, he maintains that he is up to him. For me, it is a pride to be one of them. But with a much higher net worth and salary, although he doesn’t want to talk about the latter in detail.
In his final stretch, Feijóo pronounces solemnly: Only knowing where we come from, we can know where we are going. You have to be realistic: it’s the kind of phrase you might find in a fortune cookie.
When it comes to getting people excited about the figure of Feijóo, the video is a failed attempt. Maybe that’s where the key is. He himself has defined himself on more than one occasion as a predictable politician. The adjective is the word that lazy profiles written with little desire usually ascribe to it.
It is about contrasting it with the gibberish, according to his own expression, of the Government of Pedro Sánchez. All that tension caused by the friction between the members of a coalition government seems to him something alien to politics, which he knows, but they are quite common in Europe. Somehow, the new governments of the PP and Vox in various regions since 28M are going to help Feijóo broaden his knowledge of politics.
One way to be predictable is not to allow the suspense to last for long time. Better to solve the enigma as soon as possible so that hopefully less is said about it. In the relaxed interview with Ana Rosa Quintana on Monday and earlier in El Mundo, he explained that he has already accepted Vox as part of a national government led by the PP if his party wins fewer seats than the PSOE and Sumar together and Vox gives him the absolute majority. Where we need the ‘yes’ from Vox, the logical thing is for Vox to be in the Government. If I don’t have to ask him for the ‘yes’, the logical thing is that he doesn’t take part, he said.
The political decision has been made. It only remains to check the numbers to finalize the offer.
Feijóo already handles himself as if he had won the elections and he only needs to know the magnitude of the victory. He does not believe that these agreements with Vox are going to raise conscience problems for his voters. He has not seemed so in the local and regional elections in May. Quintana had told him before, in the only sentence that he wanted to surprise him a bit, that he is going to have to somehow marry Vox. The governments already agreed in the Valencian Community and Extremadura would be the preliminary games before getting into work.
Just in case, he was quick to say afterwards that male violence is an unquestionable fact. The references to intra-family violence in the Valencian and Balearic pacts confirm that the government of these communities is not going to be very predictable, unless Vox chooses to remain silent on the subject, which is unlikely. The tension will be constant, although now we don’t know if it will reach the level of gibberish that worries Feijóo so much. With the presidents of the Valencian and Balearic autonomous assemblies, it can already be guaranteed that he has a difficult time.
We will see what happens when an attempt is made to sign an institutional declaration against sexist violence or a concentration is held for that reason. In the Madrid City Council, where there is no government agreement between both parties, the image of the previous mandate was repeated. Carla Toscano, a Vox councilor, stood a few meters away from the place where the mayor and several councilors were, so as not to be next to the banner that said no to gender violence.
A serious and boring in appearance is not what an American candidate expects from the video with which he presents himself to public opinion. With something like that, he doesn’t vote for him or his family. It is curious that the PP thinks that it can work with Feijóo. It is also possible that no more can be gotten out of their president. Don’t get picky. What you see is what you get.
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