Clinton Confidant: She's "Elitist" Too!

**If elitism is acknowledging that cultural wedge issues have been used to turn rural voters against Democrats, then the Clintons are elitist too.**

An email from Theda Skocpol is on Talking Points Memo now:

I have been in meetings with the Clintons and their advisors where very cynical things were said in a very-detached tone about unwillingness of working class voters to trust government -- and Bill Clinton -- and about their unfortunate (from a Clinton perspective) proclivity to vote on life-style rather than economic issues. To see Hillary going absolutely over the top to smash Obama for making clearly more humanly sympathetic observations in this vein, is just amazing. Even more so to see her pretending to be a gun-toting non-elite. Give us a break!

There's More...

I wonder if she realizes that gaining a few days of lurid publicity that might reach a slice of voters is going to cost her a great deal in the regard of many Democrats, whose strong support she will need if she somehow claws her way to the nomination -- and even more so if she does not clinch the nomination. The distribution of "we're not bitter" stickers to her campaign rallies is the height of over-the-top crudity, and the reports are that very few audience members seem to have much enthusiasm for this nonsense. Not surprisingly, people cannot see the reasons for so much fuss.

Yes, she wants a big break, she desperately wants the nomination she and Bill believe is hers by right. We all know that. But where is her authenticity and her dignity and her sense of any proportion?

This has to be one of the few times in U.S. political history when a multi-millionaire has accused a much less wealthy fellow public servant, a person of the same party and views who made much less lucrative career choices, of "elitism"! (I won't say the only time, because U.S. political history is full of absurdities of this sort.) In a way, it is funny -- and it may not be long before the jokes start.

Tom Daschle just made this excellent point--the Clinton's, who have earned millions of dollars, have no leg to stand on when it comes to charging that Senator Obama is an "elitist".  Let's not forget that Senator Obama forsook a lucrative career for public service while Senator Clinton worked for the Rose Law Firm and served on the board of Wal-Mart.  I'm sure this will be teased out more in the comings days.

Also, the idea that rural voters have voted on cultural "wedge issues" against their economic interests is nothing novel for a Democrat.  To see Senator Clinton pander to stupidity by pouncing on Obama for this really boggles the mind.

•  Tips go here....

  by foxsucks81 on Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 10:26:38 PM PDT

  •  Remember This Crap?!

    

    At the 2004 Republican convention, some "purple-heart" band aids were handed out to make fun of Senator Kerry.

    Now Hillary is handing out "we're not bitter" stickers.

    Yeah.

    Tell me again why any well-informed voter would choose to vote for Clinton over Obama?!?!?

    by Fawkes on Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 11:14:25 PM PDT

    •  I was just thinking the very same thing.

      The crassness of rethug tactics is even more stunning when practiced by a Democrat(?).

      I'm going to start using a ? after the word in regards to Clinton because, well, I think she has gone over to the dark side of the Rove.

      by mentaldebris on Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 11:58:52 PM PDT

      •  Clintons/Democrats??

        We expect low-down mud-slinging from the Republicans.

        They have no issues to talk about so they have to resort to personal attacks.

        But it's sad & pathetic to see the way the Clintons are behaving.

        by Fawkes on Sun Apr 13, 2008 at 12:04:22 AM PDT

    •  The problem

      isn't the well informed voters, it's the low info ones... the very ones the Clinton's are trying to peel away from Obama by using the same tactics the Repugs used to peel them away from the Dems in the first place.

      What I wonder is if we can get this person to speak up on a larger stage about what the Clinton's have said about these voters... that would be great.

      Or perhaps Obama segregates can start blasting her for her comments about the states that don't matter...after all, those states are full of folks just like those in small town rural Penn. If her comments about the "small" states not mattering isn't classic Eastern Elite Liberal elitism I don't know what is!

      by PLS on Sun Apr 13, 2008 at 05:21:10 AM PDT

•  I don't think we should let her...

  play with guns.  Someone just might get hurt.

  by David Kroning on Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 10:27:19 PM PDT

  •  No gun gets into Hillary's hands, per Nutter.

    "Almost 232 years ago, a group of concerned Americans took matters in their own hands and did what they needed to do by declaring that the time had come for a change," Nutter said as he signed the bills in front of a table of confiscated weapons outside the police evidence room in City Hall. One of them will "allow removal of firearms from "persons posing a risk of imminent personal injury" to themselves or others." - Philadelphia Inquirer on bill signed by HillyPhilly mayor Mike Nutter.

    by kravitz on Sun Apr 13, 2008 at 12:27:48 AM PDT

•  Unlike BO, she's truly dissed rural voters

  Check this out:

  http://apnews.myway.com/...

  Clinton tries to revise Mississippi comments

  Mar 8, 7:31 AM (ET)

  By SARA KUGLER

  HATTIESBURG, Miss. (AP) - Democratic presidential contender Hillary Rodham Clinton tried to backpedal Friday from comments she made in October suggesting Mississippi was a backward place for women's progress.

  Speaking to radio station WJZD-FM in Gulfport, Miss., the former first lady said the comments she made about the state in the run up to the Iowa caucuses "were not exactly what I said," even though they came directly from an interview she gave to the Des Moines Register in October.

  http://www.politico.com/...

  Hillary's Mississippi comments

  By Jonathan Martin, Politico

  October 25, 2007

  I've been a little surpised that more GOP presidential candidates haven't jumped on the comments Hillary made to David Yepsen the other day in discussing her candidacy in Iowa.

  In case you missed it, the third graf is key:
  "I was shocked when I learned Iowa and Mississippi have never elected a woman governor, senator or member of Congress. There has got to be something at work here," she said, theorizing it may be the risk-averse nature of a state built around agriculture.

  "I think not only do I have to bring people to me, I have to maybe reassure people here maybe more than I do in New Hampshire, which has had a woman governor," she said.

  "I think Iowa poses a special burden, or a special obstacle to me because when you look at the numbers, how can Iowa be ranked with Mississippi? That's not what I see. That's not the quality. That's not the communitarianism, that's not the openness I see in Iowa."

  by Phoenix Woman on Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 10:27:40 PM PDT

•  It should not boggle

  your mind.  Hillary Clinton is a desparate, power-hungry hack, who will do, say, or pay anything to steal power for herself.

  She is the epitome of an oppurtunist.

  by dlh77489 on Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 10:28:24 PM PDT

•  but if she worked for Walmart

  wasn't she trying to help out those poor things that live in rural America?

  What do you expect her to do?  Sleep under a bridge at night?  That will never happen...she would never stay at a Holiday Inn even.  No offense to Holiday Inn.

  by jalapeno on Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 10:29:29 PM PDT

  •  I think Holiday Inn should take that as a

    compliment.

    by dlh77489 on Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 10:30:33 PM PDT

    •  I'd prefer she sleep in the Republican party

      Sick of it.  And she's not just risking alienating young voters and African-American voters--she's risking alienating the netroots....

      by foxsucks81 on Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 10:32:36 PM PDT

      •  Risking Alienation?

        It is already here. At this juncture I cannot imagine myself supporting her in ANY way for the general. As insane as that is, and for as much as I still begudge the Naderites, I do see where heartfelt disgust can outweigh other factors. Hillary is so fucking revolting. I am beyond alienated at this point. I am pretty sure I am not alone.

        Weeks back I felt like I understood the rationale that said if somehow Hillary pulls this out, we must rally round the party and beat the Repubs... but too much BS has happened. I am past the point of holding my nose... Hillary sucks. Plain and simple. And it will take an awful lot of time to pass for me to forgive and forget. Almost certainly past November - and possibly never. I am pretty sure I am not alone.

        by johnj on Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 10:43:10 PM PDT

        •  I feel the same way

          it's getting harder and harder and damn near impossible to imagine voting for her. I think the best I can do is support Ds down the ticket as much as possible in an effort to neutralize McCain. It's a worse case scenario that I hope doesn't come to be, but I want to stop rewarding bad behavior.

          by dissertator on Sun Apr 13, 2008 at 12:41:23 AM PDT

          •  Really,

            Howard Dean has been talking about how much work it took to get his supporters to support Kerry, which I remember well as a Deaniac. Kerry however, never stooped this low...We must have change in this country and if the only way to wake everyone up is for things to get even worse, then so be it. Besides, Hillary won't be that much better anyway.

            by PLS on Sun Apr 13, 2008 at 05:26:33 AM PDT

      •  I think I'm gonna move to New York

        so I can run against her in the next senatorial race. Either that, or SOMEONE needs to do it... David Paterson maybe?

        by ratmach on Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 10:44:34 PM PDT

•  Yes....

  This has to be one of the few times in U.S. political history when a multi-millionaire has accused a much less wealthy fellow public servant, a person of the same party and views who made much less lucrative career choices, of "elitism"! (I won't say the only time, because U.S. political history is full of absurdities of this sort.) In a way, it is funny -- and it may not be long before the jokes start.

  I am so happy to see someone actually articulate this. I was starting to think I was going crazy or gone to a world where up is down and down is up.

  by jenontheshore on Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 10:35:37 PM PDT

•  Theda Skocpol is a prominent academic

  http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/...

  http://en.wikipedia.org/...

  by MAORCA on Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 10:38:15 PM PDT

  •  Her book Boomerang is pretty good

    I remember reading it for a Poli Sci class.

    by barath on Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 10:56:05 PM PDT

•  Theda Skocpol Is An Extremely Well-Known

  sociologist at Harvard.  A brilliant woman who is well known for her historical political analysis of state governments.

  by sarakandel on Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 10:38:29 PM PDT

  •  Theda Skocpol is just another damn elitist!!

    ...And from HARVARD again!  

    Note that she's not from that bastion of duck-hunting rural America, YALE --alma mater of the Clintons.

    by chumley on Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 11:12:13 PM PDT

•  Am I wrong, but isn't being First Lady

  about as elite as you can get?

  by palantir on Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 10:39:34 PM PDT

  •  Yes, if it means travelling to over 80 countries

    and eating 5 course meals with royalty, and world leaders, I guess you would call that elitest.

    Anyone remember all that kerfluffle that happened when the Clintons left the White House and how she tried to keep all the gifts?  She was treated by some sort of elitist by the media when Bill was in the White House.  I remember the talk from the media about how Hillary had to decorate the rooms up to her standards.  They treated her like she was an elitist snob.

    by kanuk on Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 10:44:06 PM PDT

  •  Yeah, but if Hillary was so elite...

    ... do you really think they'd be sending her into a combat zone where she'd have to run and dive from sniper fire?

    by ratmach on Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 10:46:50 PM PDT

    •  As good as she is with guns they knew she

      could provide cover for everyone on the plane as well as protect herself and the little girl there to greet her.
      She would have explained that but she is too modest.

      by joynow on Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 11:35:33 PM PDT

•  Clinton-McCain allaince overplayed its hand.

  Think about it for a second.

  All the damamge Obama was gonna take from it, is already done. And he handled it quickly and well. Less than 24 hours.

  From here on out, it'll only get worse for Clinton & McCain because there is little further spin, and a lot more further sinking-in of the point Obama made.

  by MAORCA on Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 10:41:09 PM PDT

  •  And, in the end

    they look like disengeneous

    hypocrites.

    by not a cent on Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 11:12:05 PM PDT

•  Good catch.

  Hillary and her media lackeys may play this successfully for a few days, but as your diary suggests, this could well explode in her face.  

  Which seems to have a way of happening to people who deliberately and knowingly take other people's words out of context and twist them around disingenuously, all the while ignoring inconvenient facts and assuming their audience is too stupid to know the difference...

  Assuming one's audience is stupid--how elitist!

  The words of the Clinton confidant are interesting, but they also confirm what we should already know.  Since Hillary has decided to make an issue out of elitism, it's now our job to help people see hers.  Shouldn't be hard...the evidence is there in full public view.

  by beabea on Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 10:42:18 PM PDT

  •  You know what it reminds me of?

    Those asshole Bushies showing up with flip flop sandals in 04.  It just gives her most assholish supporters something to grasp.  But she's doing it for Demcoratic votes and it's a Republican attack.  Democrats know what she's doing because we've been on the receiving end of this so many times, often as we defended her and Bill!  

    They really seem to have gotten brain damage from being at war with the righties so long.  They've become soooo much like the people they've fought against.  Hillary started out volunteering against Nixon and now she does politics like him.  It's all such a trip.

    by Sun dog on Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 10:47:55 PM PDT

    •  Yes. I hope the superdelegates

      look at her ridiculous "I'm not bitter" stickers and immediately think of those flip-flops you mentioned, and the purple-heart bandaids...

      Isn't there some kind of mental illness when one becomes like one's tormentors?  Stockholm Syndrome, is that it?  They both seem to be afflicted, much to all of our detriment.

      by beabea on Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 10:57:17 PM PDT

      •  They should do with those stickers what I

        did with stickers my boss gave me on National Smoke-out Day when I did smoke. He dared me to wear them. I readily agreed.

        "Thank you for not smoking" became "Thank you for not smoking" with a doodled flower over the not.

        "I'm not bitter" would make a lovely "I'm not bitter" sticker.

        I hope the sticker maker got cash up front.

        by joynow on Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 11:40:31 PM PDT

        •  Clinton camp using stickers to "prove"

          "grassroots outrage".  Except, it's not so grassroots:

          In Goldsboro [NC], close observers noticed a (light) smattering of stickers being worn by attendees. "I'm not bitter!" read the simple rectangular label on the lapels of a couple dozen in the crowd. The campaign says that the stickers are evidence of outrage at the grassroots level.

          Yet it's unclear how spontaneous the sentiment was. A boxful of the stickers was spotted at Clinton's first event of the day -- being whisked backstage.

          As far as the sticker maker getting paid, I wouldn't bet on it.  Hillary, that non-elitist champion of the little people, does have that backlog of little people to whom her campaign owes money.

          by beabea on Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 11:53:25 PM PDT

    •  Stockholm syndrome, imo. nt

      by not a cent on Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 11:12:47 PM PDT

  •  Yes

    "Hillary and her media lackeys may play this successfully for a few days, but as your diary suggests, this could well explode in her face.  "

    I think it will explode in her face.  She is treating the so-called "Joe Six-Pack" voter like he's an idiot.

    by MrPlow on Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 10:52:33 PM PDT

  •  It has gotten comical -- now she is trying to

    throw back drinks at a bar (oh, by the way, she did a bad job of doing it too, took a couple of "sips" before finally deciding to throw one back) and talk about her love of the Second Amendment.  The contradictions that come to mind are alomst instanteous.  She has been so pro-gun control advocate so years wonder when she got her come to the Second Amendment moment.  The NRA gave her an F in '06 not to mention all the gun control measures from the '90s.  This is about as fake as the sniper fire from the hills over Tuzla, Bosnia.

    by True Independent on Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 10:54:24 PM PDT

    •  and

      it was Canadian Whisky, which sucks.

      by MrPlow on Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 10:56:22 PM PDT

    •  OMG, the self-parody

      is underway!  That didn't take long!

      What's worse?  An elitist who isn't really once you actually think about it, or a multi-multi-millionaire Washington insider engaged in a transparently phony attempt to be "like the little people".  Patronizing, pathetic, and hillary-ous, all at once!  And the guy in the Dad shirt is not buying it.

      

      by beabea on Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 11:26:38 PM PDT

    •  Contradictions?

      You mean like this one?

      Hillary Clinton Appeals For Gun Control Lobbying

      This was when she was First Lady, so you would imagine that landing in sniper fire, would make one favor gun control.

      by beabea on Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 11:33:32 PM PDT

      •  guess that was something else she REALLY opposed

        while at the White House like NAFTA, etc.

        by brueso on Sun Apr 13, 2008 at 01:14:37 AM PDT

•  My gift to Obama supporters

  

  by Trix on Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 10:53:56 PM PDT

  •  Great pic.

    I have to ask... what does the L337 stand for?

    by tecampbell on Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 11:17:23 PM PDT

    •  It's hacker speak for "elite" :) n/t

      by Trix on Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 11:18:08 PM PDT

      •  See the...

        Urban Dictionary

        :-)

        by Trix on Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 11:18:58 PM PDT

        •  Thanks. :-)

          I was lost in another thread talking about Carter.

          by tecampbell on Sun Apr 13, 2008 at 12:51:39 AM PDT

•  Let's not forget about the real elitist

  John McCain

  by SensibleDemocrat on Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 11:01:22 PM PDT

•  Clip of Gov. Schweitzer talking about guns

  It's a must watch clip, especially in context of Hillary and her talk of guns and hunting (start at the 7:00 mark):

  by barath on Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 11:09:14 PM PDT

•  Elitism comes from a sense of false pride

  And what says false pride better than labeling a faithful long-time friend and ally, who has served for many years, a "Judas" just because he decides to support someone else in the race? What says false pride better than refusing to admit having erred in voting for the war, effectively affirming all of the actions this administration has done in the name of that war merely to cover for a lapse in judgment? What says false pride better than embellishing and/or inventing stories to promote one's own sense of self importance? What says false pride better than dismissing some states as too small and backward to be of any importance to one's campaign? What says false pride better than suggesting that one might consider the front-runner in this race as her VP candidate? What says false pride better than claiming one's experience is superior or equal to that of two people who have both served in public office longer? I think we all know who the real elitist is.  

  by MagisterLudi on Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 11:25:06 PM PDT