The Hill: Gore, Kerry strategists take strong exception to Clinton’s ‘elitist’ remark

[beachmom]

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/gore-kerry-strategists-take-strong-exception-to-clintons-elitist-remark-2008-04-15.html

Three top strategists for Al Gore and John Kerry are questioning Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) assertion that recent Democratic presidential nominees were viewed as too “elitist and out of touch” for American voters. Two of the strategists even suggested that it was Bill Clinton who did more to hurt the party while he was in the White House.

Donna Brazile, campaign manager for the Gore-Lieberman campaign; Mark Fabiani, deputy campaign manager for Gore-Lieberman; and Bob Shrum, a senior adviser to the Gore-Lieberman and Kerry-Edwards campaigns, all cited the fact that Gore won the popular vote in 2000 and Kerry nearly won it four years later.

Those simple facts prove the inaccuracy of Clinton’s assertion, all three said, with Shrum and Fabiani also suggesting that Clinton’s remarks were hypocritical since many people believe her husband’s presidential scandals were the real reason the party lost the White House in 2000.

...

“First of all, Gore won, but secondly, the greatest burden we had was the disillusion people had — not with the record of the Clinton administration, but with their personal feelings toward the president,” said Shrum. “And the unspoken assumption here seems to be that she’s the answer to this supposed problem, but neither she nor the president have lived in the real world for 25 years. They’re surrounded by aides and staff, and they’ve moved from one mansion to another.”

...

Neither Gore nor Kerry themselves would comment.

Gore spokeswoman Kalee D. Kreider said the vice president’s office received dozens of media calls Monday about Clinton’s comment but that Gore does not wish to respond.

Kerry, at the Capitol Tuesday, also declined to comment on the matter: “I just don’t have anything to say about it.”

...

Clinton spokesman Mo Elleithee said the senator wasn’t referring to her own views about Gore and Kerry, but to how the Republican Party was able to sell that critical view to voters.

“She was talking about what ended up happening,” Elleithee said. “It’s no secret that the Republican Party pulls no punches and is willing to tear good men apart by questioning their patriotism, character and faith.”

Fabiani and Shrum acknowledged that Gore and Kerry struggled with the media’s portrayal of them as aloof and distant from real voters, but said it played no real significant role in the fate of the campaigns.

“There is almost no statistical support for the idea that that determines people’s votes,” Shrum said. “People in the end want to know where you stand, what you believe, what kind of character you have. And I find it ironic that Obama was raised by a single mother and has paid off his student loans and now faces this. This is the elite commenting on what it means to be elite.”

Not my favorite people quoted here, but their defense seems sound in this case.

[ladym55]

1. It's really frustrating at this point

Hillary is doing such a fine job of helping the Republicans and John McCain. I can't figure out what she hopes to gain by burning all these bridges within the party and leaving it open to attack.

Elitist has become a code word for intelligent. A candidate with a brain who is articulate is obviously out of touch with America. JK is articulate and thinks well on his feet and so was belittled at every turn by the MSM, who really come across as the spinmasters for the Republican Party agenda.

[JI7]

2. it is Bill Clinton's fault and he has never took responsibility for

how much he hurt other Democrats and the image of the Party.

remember what they always said about Bush ? he is a good family man. and it only mattered because of what Clinton did and it's association with the party.

the Clinton people always accuse us of being like Republicans if we bring it up. but in that case Clinton actually DID DO IT. in Gore, Kerry, Obama's cases they were lies. but the Clintons repeat those lies and trash our candidates.

[karynnj]

4. Excellent point

I wonder if Bill Clinton has really ever accepted the blame internally. Publicly, he always seemed in the 1990s to push the blame for things like that on to others with excuses like blaming the women and blaming those who investigated. His own contrition seems to be mostly that he was sad he was in trouble, but he always came back with his perception that he was a good person.

I just used google to get something to back that up and found many articles that spoke of half remembered things. His first admission in August 1998 of the Monica affair to the nation was angry and defiant, followed by a September speech with old and new testament overtones and even a group of three ministers set up by WJC as an "accountability" group. (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_41_14/ai_55710686) Yet in 2004, he was back to defiant and of course gave that cavalier "because I could" comment as the reason. (Even if true, that reason sounds about as amoral and careless as you can be.)

I had used the words, "Clinton contrition good person" and also got a huge number of June/July 2004 links from his book tour - though there is nothing in what I googled to get there. This shows how prominent that episode was in that very high profile book tour at a point where the Democrats should have been speaking of KERRY and Edwards, not Bill Clinton and especially not Bill and Monica. An interesting link is from the BBC containing the reviews of various newspapers to a BBC interviewer who really did push too hard on the story. The interesting aspects were their characterization of the American press and one little snip of the interview. The view was that the MSM treated WJC as an old friend questioning little in his behavior. Then put it in context that about a month or so later, this same Clinton loving media couldn't be bothered to call the SBVT what they were or to decry purple heart bandaids.

The interesting excerpt:
"For some minutes, Clinton loses his customary cool when he's pressed, too persistently for his taste, on whether he is "penitent" about the affair with the aide. At a calmer point, though, a softish question about his wife and his party's presidential candidate produces at least as curious a response.

Dimbleby asks: "Do you now look to a Kerry victory to restore the domestic policies that you introduced or will we have to wait for a second Clinton presidency, in the form of President Hillary Clinton?"

The Clintonian reply contains a strange modifier. "Well, first of all I support John Kerry. He's a good man, he's a good senator and I believe he'd be quite a good president."

"Quite?" echoes the questioner, prompting a clawback from the former Oxford Rhodes scholar. "Very, very good president. Quite a good president, you don't say that? I think he will, I think he'd be an excellent president."

Hillary gets quite a lot of praise too . . ." (From the Financial Times)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/panorama/3829101.stm

Now, I didn't have a problem with the "quite", I did think that immediately following the comment to move to the Hillary comment weird. I then thought of how Kerry has recently addressed similar questions on Obama. In that context, a month before the convention - this is not a good passing of the baton at all. Now I would not post this in GD-P because the subtlety would be lost and they would point to Very very good and excellent, but the point is the FT person heard and saw the interview and thought it off key enough to write these words. Note that WJC does NOT answer the question or speak of anything Kerry would do.

[MBS]

5. WOW

Those quotes in the second half of your post are, as one of my heroes would say :), "stunning". And, sadly,by this time, no longer surprising.

[beachmom]

6. Actually, I liked his answer "because I could". I think that is the most honest

thing he has ever said in public life. It describes his thinking. It is a good answer to everything going on now and what Hillary is doing. "Why did you say that McCain is qualified to be CIC but Obama isn't?" Hillary: "Because I could".

The Clintons CAN do almost anything they want. The question they never ask themselves is SHOULD they.

[karynnj]

7. interesting - should vs could

You are entirely right - his answer was honest. That is interesting - "could" has no right or wrong to it.

[JI7]

8. people pointed out this stuff to me in 2004

and take into account, i was a HUGE Kerry fan at that time also. but i defended Clinton then also. i was trying to get unity and positivity for and from ALL democrats.

all of this stuff that i know now and has been exposed, people told me about back then and i continued to defend the Clintons.

watching their behavior with the current primary campaign, i just get disgusted when i think of how much i defended them.

[MBS]

3. Great quotes from Shrum!

I still haven't forgiven him for his blunders in 2004, but he sure nailed this one.
And I agree with Ladym that "elite" is code word for "intelligent" -- perhaps , even more, code word for speaking intelligently to voters, for treating voters like adults that they should be.
Please, PA voters, step up to the plate and show the world you don't fall for this crap.