'Hard-Working Americans, White Americans'

By Tommy Christopher
May 9th 2008 9:15AM

Filed Under:eHillary Clinton, Democrats, 2008 President, Gaffes

See, here's another good reason for Hillary Clinton to wrap things up sooner rather than later. She gave a rather ham-handed assessment of her electoral appeal that, I'm sure, will be made hay of. From NY Times:
"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," she said in the interview, citing an article by The Associated Press.

It "found how Senator Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

"There's a pattern emerging here," she said.
Does Hillary Clinton believe that white Americans are the hard working ones, and all of Barack Obama's supporters are lazy blacks and college kids? Of course not, but that's how it sounds to unfriendly ears.

Now, I know what she meant, but the longer this goes on, the more hits Hillary stands to take. Yesterday, Countdown reported that Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson is in talks for a book deal (Wolfson denies this), and Time had an embarrassing revelation about Mark Penn. I think Barack Obama should do whatever it takes to get Hillary on the ticket right now. Seat Michigan and Florida? Fine, seat the delegation from Brigadoon, for all I care. Let's just get on with it.

Ironically, I think she was actually trying to pitch herself as the best pick for VP, essentially telling Barack that she can deliver older white voters that have eluded him. As for the pattern? It is clear that the Clinton campaign has been campaigning heavily on Hillary's appeal to working class white folk, especially since just before Pennsylvania, but the campaign has had a "tin ear," as Geoff Garin puts it.

They haven't figured out a way to appeal to their base without trashing everyone else. First, it was the idea that small states don't matter, caucus states don't matter, now the liberal base doesn't matter, black people don't matter, those throngs of new, young voters don't matter. The significant numbers of working class whites who already support Obama don't matter.

Being able to deliver old-school white swing voters is important, and I hope that Obama is listening to the true message here, however clumsily delivered. It is the same one I delivered in March, and again yesterday: Obama might win without Hillary, but with her, he can't lose.

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