Hillary Clinton often touts her experience in and around Washington for the last thirty-five years. Unfortunately when you go down that road of using "experience" the downside is that there is a "past" associated with it. That past came back to haunt Senator Clinton on the eve of tonight's Pennsylvania primary debate especially in conjunction with calling Senator Obama an elitist for saying that (gasp) people are bitter across America for politicians not keeping their promises. It turns out that she should have been saying that to the mirror instead.
From The Huffington Post:
In January 1995, as the Clintons were licking their wounds from the 1994 congressional elections, a debate emerged at a retreat at Camp David. Should the administration make overtures to working class white southerners who had all but forsaken the Democratic Party? The then-first lady took a less than inclusive approach.
"Screw 'em," she told her husband. "You don't owe them a thing, Bill. They're doing nothing for you; you don't have to do anything for them."
The statement -- which author Benjamin Barber witnessed and wrote about in his book, "The Truth of Power: Intellectual Affairs in the Clinton White House" -- was prompted by another speaker raising the difficulties of reaching "Reagan Democrats." It stands in stark contrast to the attitude the New York Democrat has recently taken on the campaign trail, in which she has presented herself as the one candidate who understands the working-class needs.
That statement doesn't even rank at the level of compassionate conservatism in my book. Although she said it while being First Lady in the 90s, there is nothing to indicate that she has been anywhere near average Americans since, because having power within the Beltway gives you quite the insular bubble from the rest of the country...and when you are the First Lady turned Senator with a contingent of Secret Service, well you get the point.
This will almost certainly be brought up at the debate tonight. If Senator Clinton has any decency left in her, she'll apologize to Senator Obama for incorrectly labeling him instead of her as the elitist. More importantly though, she'll apologize to all of those hard working Americans that just didn't see the returns they had hoped for from the Clinton Administration back in the 1990s. The truth of the matter is, that prosperity that her husband promised and helped foster during the tech boom did by and large pass over those who have and remain bitter to this very day.
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