- Top Features:
- War Room
- Glenn Greenwald
- Broadsheet
- Joan Walsh
- Camille Paglia
- Since You Asked
- Follow Salon:
Read other letters about this article
Which just goes to show how Clinton is attacking Obama using the standard GOP playbook.
The argument that these kind of attacks are tolerable because we can expect the exact same attacks from the GOP in the general misses a crucial point.
Certainly the role of the nomination contest in vetting candidates for their ability to withstand attacks should not be underestimated. Attacking fellow candidates on their positions, their personal scandals, their honesty and character, their legislative history - substantive questions - these are (for the most part) desirable and productive.
But attacks that rely upon and therefore reinforce pre-existing stereotypes propagated and used by the right-wing to demonize all liberals and progressives are a different matter. To take one in-artfully expressed remark and twist it to accuse Obama of being elitist and out-of-touch with "heartland" America does damage to the entire Democratic cause. (A remark made in the context of explaining why Democrats need to tackle economic issues to make headway in small-town America, no less!)
Those kind of attacks will be made by every right-winger against nearly every Democrat running for office. It is standard right-wing divisive demagoguery. It is to be expected from right-wingers, and its over-all effectiveness as a tactic depends upon the ability of the stereotype to divide us. For a prominent Democrat to employ this tactic (and one who claims to be a progressive candidate!) is inexcusable. Not only does it reinforce and strengthen the stereotype that a majority of Democrats are latte-drinking, coastal elites who look down on small town and middle America, it does so far more effectively than any right-winger could. When Obama is the eventual nominee, McCain and every other right-winger will be able to point to Clinton's description of Obama as an out-of-touch elitist intellectual as evidence that their own attacks are something other than the standard (but increasingly ineffective) right-wing smears.
It would have been one thing for Clinton to attack Obama for being impolitic and not being careful enough with his message. Such criticisms are legitimate issues to raise about any candidate. She could even argue that his comments show that she'd be the candidate least vulnerable to this standard right-wing smear (Ha!). But to actually argue that Obama, and by extension most of his supporters, are elitist and out of touch is something else entirely.
She is harming and dividing the Democratic Party, hurting the general election prospects of the likely Presidential nominee as well as those of every other Democrat running for office, and proving beyond a doubt that she will do anything in her own quest for power.
