Clinton on "Elites"

May 3, 2008

I understand why some people would vote for Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama. If I were voting solely on who I judged would deliver health care, I might well vote for Clinton. Ditto if I were choosing someone who would be a fighter against Republican attempts to reward the wealthy at home and make a sham of our historic values abroad. What I can't stand is the increasing tendency of both Hillary and Bill Clinton to use Republican culture-war tactics to smear the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.

Here is Bill Clinton talking about Obama and his "elite" supporters:

Former President Bill Clinton was in West Virginia on his wife's behalf. In Clarksburg, he called her a scrapper and contrasted her appeal among working-class voters with the elitists he said support Obama.

"The great divide in this country is not by race or even income, it's by those who think they are better than everyone else and think they should play by a different set of rules," he said. "In West Virginia and Arkansas, we know that when we see it."

I know exactly who Clinton is referencing in the second paragraph: people like me. Republicans have gotten a lot of mileage by proclaiming candidates like John Kerry elite and out of touch.. not the kind of person one wants to have a beer with. Their followers get easily lumped into the same "elite" category. Then laughably we get "average Joes" like Bush and McCain, both more wealthy and privileged than most Americans can imagine. The deliberate enflaming of suspicion toward a group of people who are educated and engaged is sickening.. and a tactic I had previously believed was the special territory of Republicans.

Even more worrisome than the attack itself is the apparent moral blindness of a couple that had the Rolling Stones play as part of Bill Clinton's 60th birthday party, and whose satisfaction with American celebrity culture is obvious, calling Barack Obama an elitist! Maybe the logic here is that if the people in question have made the cover of People magazine then they are not really elites? But I will take any day someone who has consistently chosen instead to engage with local organizations and community building efforts.. even when it brought him into contact with people who are not People celebrities and who don't show up well on Fox news.