A few introductory comments. I know at this late date -- when a Hillary loss March 4 in EITHER Texas and/OR Ohio, which seems likely, will put to rest the notion that she has any serious chance at the nomination, and begin a whole new phase of 'wrapping up' her campaign -- it does seem gratuitous to focus on this critique of a spin Hillary Clinton and her campaign (and MANY supporters on DU) have tried to put forward. However, I want to critique it and how it has been embraced, including by DEMOCRATS, against Obama, as it is almost sure to pop up again in the general if Obama (or HRC) is the nominee, with McCain palmed off as the 'candidate of the common people against the Merlot-sipping ivory tower, ivy league establishment blah blah blah elite. We need to start addressing this canard NOW!!!!!
I would also say, as we go into Ohio and Texas, that the deployment of this canard is still a major factor in these major primaries, and needs to be challenged -- BUT MAINLY WITH THE GE IN MIND.....
Excellent article (like his belated debunking of the flipflop spin in Oct 04) by Jonathan Chait in
The New Republic:
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=6420bc21-0341-488f-89c8-088db4dc3f5f&p=1EXCERPTS:
The warm glow of moral self-satisfaction that white Barack Obama voters like me have been enjoying for months has slightly ebbed in recent weeks, as the press has informed us that we are not real Democrats at all, but a bunch of pampered elites.
The trend has been proclaimed for nearly a year--specifically, since last March, when Ron Brownstein of the Los Angeles Times wrote a highly influential column depicting Hillary Clinton as the "beer track" candidate and Obama as the "wine track" candidate. As the voting has proceeded, and Clinton has held the loyalties of the working class, this analysis has spread and taken on an accusatory tone. "If you have a social need, you're with Hillary," sneered one Clinton adviser. "If you want Obama to be your imaginary hip black friend and you're young and you have no social needs, then he's cool." A union president introducing Clinton at a recent speech asked the audience if it wanted an "editor of the Harvard Law Review or a fighter for working families." Thus the strange alchemy of the campaign has transformed Hillary Clinton into Jim Traficant.
Before the Clintonites get too smug about their working-class heroism, though, it's worth pointing out that their proletarian tilt seems to have come as a total accident. Indeed, the well-heeled liberals they now deride are exactly the voting base they coveted during the Clinton presidency.
<snip>
When Hillary Clinton began her presidential campaign, with Penn as her chief strategist, she displayed no particular animus toward the Starbucks set. Her favorite economic mantra was "fiscal responsibility." She even defended her ties with K Street by declaring that lobbyists "represent real Americans." As the campaign has proceeded, and Clinton's support has increasingly been concentrated among the white working class, she has taken an increasingly populist tone.
But there's no particular reason to think her working-class support has anything to do with policy. Clinton's economic positions are no more populist than Obama's. Her downscale support long preceded her populist rhetorical turn and seems to be an artifact of downscale voters spending less time consuming political news, and therefore gravitating toward the more familiar candidate. Obama has done better with working-class voters in states where he has had time to campaign extensively. His worst loss (aside from Arkansas) came in Florida, where no campaigning took place. In Iowa, where the candidates achieved total saturation, he defeated Clinton among low-income voters.
Clinton's embrace of working-class chic has been a way of making virtue out of necessity. Being the blue-collar candidate has enabled Clinton to portray herself as grittier and more real than Obama, and to suggest that her base is more authentically American than his. During the Bush era, conservatives endlessly gloated that their party consisted of salt-of-the-earth, beer- swilling, NASCAR-loving Real Americans while Democrats represented Starbucks- drinking cosmopolitan snobs. Clinton's campaign has inherited this cultural mythology.
When Hillary Clinton began her presidential campaign, with Penn as her chief strategist, she displayed no particular animus toward the Starbucks set. Her favorite economic mantra was "fiscal responsibility." She even defended her ties with K Street by declaring that lobbyists "represent real Americans." As the campaign has proceeded, and Clinton's support has increasingly been concentrated among the white working class, she has taken an increasingly populist tone.
But there's no particular reason to think her working-class support has anything to do with policy. Clinton's economic positions are no more populist than Obama's. Her downscale support...preceded her populist rhetorical turn and seems to be an artifact of downscale voters spending less time consuming political news, and therefore gravitating toward the more familiar candidate. Obama has done better with working-class voters in states where he has had time to campaign extensively. His worst loss (aside from Arkansas) came in Florida, where no campaigning took place. In Iowa, where the candidates achieved total saturation, he defeated Clinton among low-income voters.
Clinton's embrace of working-class chic has been a way of making virtue out of necessity. Being the blue-collar candidate has enabled Clinton to portray herself as grittier and more real than Obama, and to suggest that her base is more authentically American than his. During the Bush era, conservatives endlessly gloated that their party consisted of salt-of-the-earth, beer- swilling, NASCAR-loving Real Americans while Democrats represented Starbucks- drinking cosmopolitan snobs. Clinton's campaign has inherited this cultural mythology. {emphasis added -- Cloudy}
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