TPM: Comments from Theda Skocpol on the Clintons and bitterness

[Coexist]

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.

Well put.

Link to TPM

[tularetom]

1. If you've lived in the US the past 7 years and you aren't bitter

you haven't been paying attention.

And one of the things I'm the most bitter about is that I spent hours defending that piece of crap bill clinton to my republcikan relatives during the 90's, only to watch him slowly meld into one of them. And guess what - they still think he's a piece of crap only now we all agree.

[Coexist]

2. when I think of our abused Constitution, I am bitter

much less everything else.

[Cha]

5. Yeah, bil clinton thinks it's all worth it..

IF he gets back into the white house over Obama's dead career.

[Cha]

3. A hilary operative misrepresented herself and

brought a tape player into an Obama fete and secretly taped him and let it out to the media and hilary's gone purple bandaid apeshit.

Once again Obama will get out his Obamarang and bust her chops.

"These are the definitions of Elitisim.".

"You want elitism? Try being married to an heiress to a beer distribution fortune and being stuck in the most exclusive club on earth inside the beltway for the past twenty years. THAT'S elitism.

You want elitism? Try making $109 million over the past six years and running for President by virtue of the fact that your husband has already been President. THAT'S elitism.

You want elitism? Try being a pundit that been ensconsed inside the ultimate insider world of Washington politics, and then poo-pooing telling the truth about the mood in the countryside as being "condescending." THAT'S elitism."

<"Stick Your Elitism Where the Sun Doesn't Shine">...
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/12/111833/793/...

[Coexist]

4. man, that was rough!!

[bleever]

6. Theda Skocpol!

Last night I had a dream I drove up to DU (!) and announced through my car window that I was going to be thinking and posting like a sociologist, and here's this blast from my educational past. Too funny!

Theda Skocpol (born May 4, 1947) is an American sociologist and political scientist at Harvard University. She served from 2005 to 2007 as Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Influential in sociology as an advocate of the historical-institutional and comparative approaches, and in political science for her "state autonomy theory", Skocpol has written widely for both popular and academic audiences.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theda_Skocpol

"States and Social Revolutions" was a very important book in the field. I read it thirty five years ago, and I still remember the argument I had with my professor over the question of whether or not revolutions were "purposive".