The Bitter Truth: Wrap Up

Harvard University Political Scientist Theda Skocpol had this to say to Talking Points Memo about Hillary Clinton's attacks against Barack Obama this weekend:

"I have been in meetings with the Clintons and their advisors where very clinical 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!

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."

If this is the kind of sentiment that continues to be echoed throughout the coming weeks regarding this bitterness brouhaha, then warnings of "treading carefully" with this kind of attack may be too little too late.
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UPDATE: As I've been predicting Virginia Senator Jim Webb to be Obama's vice presidential running mate for some months now, I find this excerpt from a 2006 op-ed written by Senator Webb to be most enlightening...

"The politics of the Karl Rove era were designed to distract and divide the very people who would ordinarily be rebelling against the deterioration of their way of life. Working Americans have been repeatedly seduced at the polls by emotional issues such as the predictable mantra of "God, guns, gays, abortion and the flag" while their way of life shifted ineluctably beneath their feet."