Pounce all you want. Hyperventilating about Hillary Clinton's net worth has
as much traction as "you didn't build that" nonsense.
Politico,
being Politico:
Hillary Clinton is having a very hard time being rich.
After two weeks of verbal gaffes and unflattering headlines, Democratic operatives, political historians and counselors to the nation’s wealthy agree that Clinton’s current strategy — acting like she’s not incredibly rich and made her money the old-fashioned way — is not working and needs to change. Fast.
Reality, a day later, from an
NBC/WSJ poll today:
Fifty-five percent of Americans say that Hillary Clinton can relate to and understand the problems of average citizens as well as other presidential candidates can, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Annenberg poll.
By comparison, 37 percent of respondents disagreed, saying she can’t relate as well as other candidates can. These numbers come after Hillary Clinton declared that she and her husband were “dead broke” after leaving the White House in 2001.
So oops. I guess those Beltway reporters can't relate to actual people, can they, given that they're always so wrong about what people believe.
But the Beltway media has their narrative, and you'll have to pry it from their cold, dead fingers. For example, here is a wanker at the Washington Post's painful "The Fix":
But that doesn't mean Clinton has nothing to worry about. The "as well as" clause in the poll's question probably waters down negative reactions to the Clinton family's wealth and how she has talked about it in recent days. That's because (1) we really just don't know who those other candidates will be, and (2) when we do meet those candidates, people might not view them as very "in touch" (see: Mitt Romney, John Kerry, Al Gore, Michael Dukakis). If people were simply asked whether Clinton was relatable, full stop, the numbers might be a little lower.
Yup. "Unskewing" polls is no longer a Republican-only tactic. It's also helpful for Beltway reporters unreasonably clinging to a dying meme.