Of all the people in America––I mean all of the people––who would be the last person you’d expect to see downing a shot of whiskey and talking about her last trip to the shooting range? If you’re thinking Hillary Clinton, you thought right.
Surprisingly, she’s shifted her focus of experience from politics to shooting. The Senator took it to the bar in Pennsylvania and remembered those good old days when her father taught her how to shoot a gun.
And she’s using this fact to take a stab at Barack Obama after he made a controversial, but honest assertion that working-class people are “bitter” because of unfair government policies and “cling to guns and religion” as a result.
Now, critics are postulating that Obama is an “elitist” because of his misunderstanding of American workers. So, Clinton took this new opportunity to pounce on Obama with her claim that she is in touch with Americans, while he is not.
But if we look past her long record of expert shooting and her brave swig of whiskey, we find that nothing of substance lies behind it. Senator Clinton is a typical Washington politician who has been essentially out of touch with the “average” American for over 30 years.
Obama spent part of his childhood in a third world country and has only been placed on the political pedestal for a few years. Wouldn’t that make him exponentially more in touch with actual Americans and disqualify him as an elitist?
Furthermore, Clinton takes donations from the lobbyists, while Obama draws all of his donations in from the people.
To call Obama an Elitist is a false label and a sign of Clinton’s desperation as her campaign begins to tear at the seams. So Senator Clinton, if you would like to make up for 30 years of separation, you better start gulping down more shots of alcohol and getting an upgrade on that gun of yours.
manda • Mar 19, 2009 at 10:38 am
Wow.
Elizabeth Tiffany • Apr 25, 2008 at 5:45 pm
Evan, would you please stop attacking Hillary? Andy’s right. BOTH politicians are elitists… And Hillary––though granted she had it a bit easier than Obama did––was raised in a middle class family in Illinois. She wasn’t born into wealth; her father trained navy men in WWII and then sold draperies to make a living! I’m sorry, but that just doesn’t seem like an occupation that’s “raking in the dough” so to speak…
I agree with Amelia that the democrats in this race should stop attacking eachother. It’s not doing the party any good… Ugh, so frustrating…
Anna Wyatt • Apr 23, 2008 at 8:53 pm
By the way, Hillary Clinton was raised in a suburb of Chicago, not upstate New York. She also wasn’t born into old money. Her father happened to own his own business that was consequentially successful.
Ian Deneen • Apr 21, 2008 at 11:20 pm
Barack Obama “made a controversial, but honest assertion that working-class people are “bitter” because of unfair government policies and “cling to guns and religion” as a result.” First of all, the comment he made was specifically about Americans living in rural towns, and second of all, Andy is totally right, all the candidates are elitists. It was horribly inappropriate to generalize rural Americans like that. And since neither you, nor he, are working-class Americans living in rural towns, forgive me for not believing this. I’m not sure if you knew, but there are plenty of gun-loving, religious zealots in the cities too. It was not fair to take a bitter shot like that, and rural Americans ought to be disgusted.
Evan Bakker • Apr 21, 2008 at 10:58 pm
Ok, the third world country was indeed relevent. Don’t think of it as an experience in one country can’t translate into another. The way to interpret that fact is that Obama wasn’t born into a rich, upper class family in upstate New York or something. Rather, he was born with almost nothing and saw the hardships of his family, etc. I know, there have been elitists who have grown up in humble beginnings, but Obama took the right messages and life lessons away from his upbringing and used those lessons to be honest with the American people.
Andy Lesser • Apr 18, 2008 at 10:41 pm
Come on Anna, what Obama said was incredibly honest; it’s a shame that whenever we get an honest politician like Obama he gets ridiculed. I agree that the point about Indonesia may be a bit irrelevant, but Evan has the right idea here –– Obama was raised in a small home in Kansas by a single mother, and he didn’t exactly have things handed to him as a child. I think it’s pretty impressive for Obama to be where he is today.
Side note: Aren’t all the candidates by definition elitist? All three of them believe that out of 300 million people in this nation, they would be the best person to run the country. Just a thought.
Anna Wyatt • Apr 18, 2008 at 8:28 pm
It can’t be said that Obama’s spending four years of his life in Indonesia makes him more in touch with working class Americans. As you have written, Indonesia is a third world county, however, America is not. So this short time in his childhood — 4 years — cannot make him more in touch with working class Americans.
Also, Obama, too, has spent the last 29 years of his life out of touch with the working class, since he went to college at Occidental in the fall of 1979, and then transferring to Colombia University. Occidental is a small private school, and I would hardly call Columbia a place to get in touch with the working class. Or University of Chicago Law School for that matter.
The fact of the matter is, a lot of working class voters were hurt by Obama’s words, and while they might not make him an elitist, it shows that he has misinterpreted their motives, and may have caused some damage to his campaign.
Amelia Raether • Apr 17, 2008 at 8:10 pm
Agreed, Clinton should stop attacking Obama for things like being elitist, but Obama should also stop attacking Clinton. The dirty politics surrounding this nomination is in no way helping either candidate or the democratic party as a whole at all.