Daily Inspiration Quote by Jeff Greenfield

“Fancy footwork” is a wonderfully sly phrase for what political television always requires but rarely admits: stage management bordering on choreography. Jeff Greenfield isn’t talking about policy or even personalities so much as the production problem behind a supposedly organic democratic spectacle. The line assumes the real action isn’t on the convention floor but in the control room, where time slots, camera angles, and applause cues get assigned like scarce resources.

The intent is lightly needling but unmistakable: if Elizabeth and John Edwards are due a “prime-time shot,” it won’t happen because the moment demands it. It will happen because operatives and network schedulers engineer it. “Somebody is going to have to” points a finger at an unnamed class of fixers - party handlers, producers, strategists - whose job is to turn a messy coalition into a coherent storyline. The phrase also subtly demotes the Edwardses from protagonists to programming: they’re not making news, they’re being slotted.

Context matters. Greenfield came up in an era when conventions increasingly shifted from deliberative events to televised pageants, where the most valuable currency is not votes but minutes between 9 and 11 p.m. “Prime-time shot” frames political exposure as a kind of celebrity opportunity, implying that public service now rides on the same machinery that sells sitcoms and soft drinks.

The cynicism lands because it’s plausible and legible. Everyone knows the “authentic moment” is often a rehearsal with better lighting. Greenfield just says the quiet part with a smirk.