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Hillary "Shot-and-a-Beer" Clinton has given us the perfect illustration of what's so insane about American politics: the philosophical dictum that could be summed up (with apologies to Descartes) as "I seem, therefore I am."
Clinton spent the weekend bashing Barack Obama for not seeming to be enough of a regular guy-not for any actual deficit of regular-guyness, mind you, but for giving the impression that such a deficit might exist.
The former first lady, whose family has made $109 million since her husband left the White House, then made a show of demonstrating that she's actually just a regular gal. The point wasn't really to convince anyone that she, Bill and Chelsea commute between their two lavish mansions in a five-year-old Ford F-150 pickup with a gun rack and a "Jesus Rocks!" bumper sticker. Her aim was to prove to the nation-or, at least, to Democratic primary voters in Pennsylvania and Indiana-that she's better at feigning regularness than Obama.
This is how we pick a president?
This whole sideshow began when Obama committed what she portrayed as the apparently unforgivable sin of trying to describe the resentment felt by some working-class Americans, venturing that "they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."
This seemed "elitist ... and, frankly, patronizing," Clinton charged. Never mind whether it actually was elitist, patronizing or, for that matter, inaccurate. No, the eagle-eyed Clinton took dead aim at a different target: the impression Obama might have given.
As if to show her opponent how it ought to be done, Clinton-a longtime advocate of gun-control laws-spoke of her lifelong reverence for the Second Amendment. "You know, my dad took me out behind the cottage my grandfather built on a little lake called Lake Winola outside of Scranton and taught me how to shoot when I was a little girl," she said. "Some people have continued to teach their children and their grandchildren. It's part of culture, it's part of a way of life."
Clinton also made a point of telling audiences about her deep religious faith. The topper-or the chaser-came at Bronko's Restaurant and Lounge in Crown Point, Ind., where Clinton threw back a shot of Crown Royal whiskey and followed it with a beer.
Clinton bristled, though, when a reporter had the temerity to ask her when she last attended church or fired a gun. "That is not a relevant question for this debate," she said. "We can answer that some other time. This is about what people feel is being said about them. I went to church on Easter. I mean, so?"
Um, so the issue isn't whether you regularly sit in a church pew or even occasionally go hunting, but whether you can manage to seem like the sort of person who does? I think I need a shot and a beer too. Just give me whatever the lady's drinking.
Obama has apologized for using the word bitter to describe some frustrated voters, but managed to have a bit of fun with Clinton's new persona. "She's talking like she's Annie Oakley," he said, adding that she gives the impression of spending every Sunday in a duck blind.
But I think Clinton is serious at some level. She argued Sunday night that Democratic candidates Al Gore and John Kerry lost because they seemed elitist-not because they actually were, but because they seemed to be. In reality, she said, they were "good men, and men of faith." So is Obama, she allowed. But they didn't measure up in the seeming department.
As you've guessed, I have a couple of problems with Clinton's seeming-is-being theory of campaigning for the nation's highest elective office. First, given the urgency and complexity of the problems the next president will face, who's going to think it's a good idea to elect Joe or Josephine Sixpack? I realize that Gore was deemed inferior to George W. Bush on the "Who would you rather have a near beer with?" question, but the 2000 election took place at a time of peace and prosperity. Oh, and Gore did win the popular vote.
Here's my other problem: Clinton's argument assumes that regular is a synonym for unsophisticated-that to communicate with voters who have not attained a certain income or educational level, a candidate has to put on an elaborate disguise and speak in words of one syllable.
So tell me: Who's being patronizing?
Eugene Robinson's e-mail address is eugenerobinson(at)washpost.com.
© 2008, Washington Post Writers Group
31 Comments so far
Show Alli`d like to see hillary and the other shot and a beer dude cheney, go out duck huntin together and see what manifests.
Why is it that people won't let Hillary be a politician or are offended at that prospect. How many times have we seen male politicians kiss babies, throw down a shot and beer or do whatever else they need to do to get elected. Have we been offended? Of course not. We understand that this is the way the political game is played. "It's called politics, not kindergarten".
I am stunned that the response to this question is usually that Obama represents a new kind of politics. Do some research, boys and girls. The Republicans sure are and should Obama be the nominee in Nov. a number of people are going to be sorely disappointed when he is finally vetted. He's human and an old time Chicago pol after all.
Thanks for the correction Siouxrose. I didn't realize Ron Paul wanted to enable AIDS, unwanted kids, overpopulation and male domination.
Goebbels, point well taken. And yet it seems to be changing. Something I hear on the streets, wage-earning conservatives becoming more and more enraged at having been taken for a ride for the last 7 years. There's lots of simmering anger out there, and it is on the Republican side. When I hear a Kansas ultra-conservative uber-bigot say with quiet thoughtfulness that he's going to vote for Obama because he thinks he can get things done, you know something is changing out there. None of this is reported in MSM.
mairs sez: "Some of my conservative friends from less than privileged backgrounds were a bit rankled at her fakery. They aren't stupid and they know when they're being played."
No, they don't.
They only "know" they're being played when they perceive the playing coming from a dem. They have been fiddles in the hands of Cheney, Rove, Limbaugh, et al, for years.
I really hope Obama just ignores her and gets his message out, he is not helping himself with the "Annie Oakley" comments, as fun and as right on as they are. I loved John Stewarts "royal crown" observation (and as Vinlander stated above)....if you see the tape she seems to be having a difficult time picking which one to go for and then as soon as the bartender says "royal crown" her eyes lit up like a kid in a candy shop. Yeah, royal crown is so part of the Pennylvanianian's regular life. She doesn't seem to be able to help herself, she keeps digging the hole deeper and deeper. Obama's no saint, he IS aloof (who the hell cares?) but he's SMART, is a constitutional lawyer and is the only one of the three that can right this ship of state that's going downhill rapidly. This election is the most important of my lifetime (56)because our constitution is being ripped to shreds and even Obama is not talking about that. I wish he would have not gone bowling and instead held a forum about returning habeas corpus to We, the People.
Someone above said Clinton looks like she's on a slide to a mental breakdown. I agree, and would not want to be alone with that person. (She just released the "plan" for her first 100 days as president - talk about delusional!)
I know that it is a source of rage to those regular visitors here that not one article in her favor (that I can recall) has been posted on CD. Since this site is billed as progressive, that should give some pause to those supporters.
So two out of the three remaining candidates seem to have serious mental issues, and the third is an unknown quantity. Man, you gotta love this country.
p.s. when HRC DOES lose the nomination she will not only be done forever as a presidential candidate, but also as any sort of electible candidate. This long primary season has given all of us a pretty good picture of who, and what, she really is. Was, always has been, and continues to be, a hard-core elitist. She had me fooled for awhile (hey, I'm slow, but eventually I catch on,) but no more.
p.p.s. I have never set foot in any WalMart. When they built the first one here in this highly unionized area the unions protested and tried to raise awareness of the true nature of WalMart (not the smiley-face.) Now, most union members shop there, along with everyone else struggling to get by.
When you vote Demok/Repuk, you vote Wall St. dictating your life. Many secretly want Wall St. dictating their lives cuz they're secretly addicted to Wall St's opiates. This makes them party to Wall St's crimes against humanity and the biosphere.
Kernel April 15th, 2008 11:56 pm
"or threaten to vote for Nader and try to throw another election to the Repugs"
nobody "threw" any so-called "election" to anybody. the repugs STOLE it TWICE!!!
think of this amazing dose of logic...
if Nader helped the Repugs to steal the election from the Dumbercraps in 2000 just by running, then why did they "win" in 2004? Nader wasn't even running!!!!
at some point, all you Nader bashers need to admit that the system is flawed, not because Nader took votes from whomever by running, but because you're too stupid to see TRUTH and REALITY.
quit bashing Nader!!!
I've got a revolutionary idea: Let's eliminate the "religious test" requirement for high public office in the USA. Oh wait...there isn't supposed to BE one. Silly me; I thought one's religion, or absence thereof, was a matter between one and the deity of one's choosing.
Richard Dreyfuss is right: unless we start teaching civics to schoolchildren in this country again, we will not long be fit to govern ourselves.
As a layabout from Australia I can't help but enjoy this Democratic race. It is not as good as the West Wing but still I am like a moth to the flame. Here the consensus is that Obama and Clinton will fight the good(?) fight but ultimately no one will vote for a black or a women even though they will endorse them and feel good about it.
Then vote for McCain. Damn shame
Come on, people!! Hillary is the one to sit down and have a beer with. Obama would probably have some Harvard mix most of us have never heard of and no doubt is too Christian to use any firewater anyway.
Don`t forget Hillary made a lot of money on cattle futures which demonstrates her ability to understand business practices. We have not had any of that for nearly eight years in the White House and see where it got us.
It is easy to see why the Repugs hate Hillary. The Clinton years were a steady improvement in our country`s economy and our national debt was even ready to be paid down with the budget surplus. Now our country is in the worst shape since the great depression thanks to the present administration.
Of course instead of looking at what has really happened, it is so much more fun to just sling mud around and pretend that is going to fix everything or threaten to vote for Nader and try to throw another election to the Repugs.
Great JFK story--
He is in West VA during the primary in '60 and doing a photo op with coal miners when one of the guys asks him if he, Kennedy, ever did a days work like him in his entire life, to which Kennedy answers (obviously) "no I haven't".
The miner then tells Kennedy to his face, "well, let me tell you something Senator, you haven't missed a GD thing" and everybody including Kennedy and the press covering the event just falls apart laughing.
I guess JFK with all his millions, his elite education, and that peculiar Irish, English, New England accent was the last non-regular guy we ever had running for President.
EZE: Women who prefer a right to govern their own bodies do NOT see Ron Paul as "dream team" material for Surgeon General!
Hillary and the media are amnestic on her serving on the union-busting, employee-impoverishing, competitor-crushing Wal-Mart board and working as a high-priced corporate lawyer. Her centrifuge campaign staff--all spin, all the time--brushes off her lies; she convinced Bill not to intervene in the former Yugoslavia and, once the peace deal was made, she went there on a PR tour and now pretends that she was a bullet-dodging heroine who saved thousands of lives. She boasts of her work on Watergate but doesn't mention that she was fired for unethical behavior. She boasts of her work on health care reform but forgets that her highhandedness caused failure; why should we think she is going to deliver as promised this time around? She accuses Obama, who worships at an inner city church with a large number of poor parishioners, of being elitist while she worships with a bunch of secretive, rich right-wing theocrats. Her populism is as phony as her hair color.
Obama/Gravel 2008,
Nader for Attorney General.
Bernie Sanders for Secretary of State.
Ron Paul for Surgeon General.
Clark for Sec'y of Defense.
Gore for Dept of Energy.
Soros for Sec'y of the Treasury.
Kucinich for Dept of Peace.
McKinney for EPA.
dream on...
"feigning regularness"
This is how we pick a president?
+++++
Sad to say, YES. Remember in 2000 the question the press put to us was "who do you want to have a beer with, Gore or Bush?"
Bush won on that question and "won" the presidency.
"Seeming is believing.... I seem, therefore I am....." Nice, timely theme, Mr. Eugene Robinson.
Grandiose hokum has always been a part of political campaigning, of course. But the contemporary phenomenon that Robinson's piece decries is very likely a permanent feature of the television age, starting perhaps with John Kennedy, and later embraced as an institutional norm during the realm of the nation's first movie actor president, Ronald Reagan. Image trumps substance every time, unless there's a really big substantive difference between the candidates (or the consumer products) that are having their marketing images compared.
If andersdl's numbers are close to reality, and the choice is between 110% servility to corporate power vs 95% servility to those corporate interests, then he or she with the best PR firm should prevail.
Personally however, I think there is an infinitely greater potential up side to a Barack Obama presidency than there is to Hillary Clinton or John McCain. My perceptions are a lot like those of Daniel David, if we treat it largely as a contest of likeability. But the whole recent flap over Barack's comments about those "bitter" rural Pennsylvanians suggests there's real substance behind his calls for a basic change in the direction of national policies.
Obama may not be able to reverse the economic downslide, nor actually do a whole lot to ease the pain of those clinging to whatever is left of the American social fabric, but at least he's not going to pander to their fears and prejudices.
Bill from Saginaw
I'm glad others on here are seeing Hillary for who she really is, a big phony.
As I have said so often in the last months, I may be a 50+ woman, a US history teacher and certainly a supporter of women's rights as well as the proud mother of an amazing strongly feminist grown daughter. So,am I ecstatic at the thought that in my lifetime I actually could see a woman in the White House as president? Not so much... I am a Woman For Obama (and so is my daughter)...I draw the line at supporting a woman candidate who is nothing but "a guy in a dress"
A little advice to Mrs. Clinton from one who used to drink at the Olympic level. When ordering a boilermaker don't use top shelf whiskey as regular guys can't afford it. Secondly, don't order Canadian whiskey in Pennsylvania. And Crown Royal (her shot) was top-shelf Canadian. There's nothing wrong with it, but you get more factory-floor credibility with Jack Daniels or Jim Beam and a Rolling Rock (or Iron City).
What it all boils down to is :
The voters of PA and IN need to decide if they want a good ol boy or a good ol gal who will give the corporate masters 110% of what they want, or if they want a candidate who will only give the corporate masters 95% of what they want, leaving a few crumbs for the masses.
McClone definitely won't be the 95% candidate. Clinton probably won't be the 95% candidiate. Obama may be the 95% candidate.
A few crumbs is about the best most of us can hope to gain from the 2008 elections.
If Obama's campaign had been getting short of money, he wouldn't have come anywhere close to having
5 million dollars of his own money to lend to it.
"Regular" is not something a human being is. It is an externalized object designation. False dominance is established by claiming the equally false position of ersatz 'response' by Clinton. The observation was not made about her nor is she experiencing economic disenfranchisement due to a job lost to corporate flight from domestic production economics. Her response is to go to a bar (?), claim knowledge and use of arms and claim an observation of disenfranchisement as elitist. Her chosen sphere of action precluded discussion of the conditions of life giving rise to the observation of disenfrancisement and in its place the 'seemingness'. An example of de-situating reality and then projecting it back rather than speaking to the condition of life that was originally addressed.
I don't think Hillary Clinton knows who she is. Maybe she should read the book Oprah is touting and take the classes that the philospher Tolle is giving on the internet.
It is alarming to me to think that after this disasterous 8 years of Bush we would have a woman on the brink of a nervous breakdown answering the phone in the Whitehouse at any hour.
It is rapidly becoming time to think about emulating those in Germany in the early 30's who saw that 'real' choice in leadership was gone and that the tenor of 'polite' society based on reason had changed.
It may be time to plan where to go and try to carry on as human beings.
And not have to be constantly looking over your shoulder for the 'impossible to avoid' invitation to a government financed Halliburton 'Rest' Camp.
Here's the best thing about deciding to vote Nader:
You no longer have to pay any attention to what either of these inadequate candidates do or say.
I like Barack Obama precisely because he IS NOT a "regular guy". He is scholarship-quality and Harvard-Law-Review-quality smart, he is liberal-rooted, he is in the tiny minority of being bi-racial, he has taught constitutional law to make ends meet while ascending in politics through a part-time job as a state legislator, he has "Hussein" as a middle name, he has lived among Muslims as a child, he has a tall, bright wife from the inner city, and he has 20 years in a church with a stand-up pastor whom he will not "abandon."
He's the one I'd want to have that beer (or coffee, or lunch, or anything else) with--not because he's "regular" but precisely because he isn't. As far as I'm concerned, that's also why he is plenty good enough to lead our country.
Here's one for Geraldine: Hillary is lucky to be where she is. If she weren't a woman and the wife of Bill, she'd probably be the CEO of, oh I don't know, Walmart. But she would not be runing against Obama. No one but her could have withstood for this long the volume of crazy shit her campaign has committeed and gotten away with it. It is truly astounding.
It is time we stopped demanding that our President masquerade as a regular guy or gal. George Bush was born into an elite family, went to New England prep schools, Yale and then Harvard. So then he goes out and clears brush. Big Whoop. But it worked. People all over the world think of him as a cowboy, with either the good or bad connotations of that word.
Regular people need someone of great intellect, vision and character as president. You don't elect a President based on hobbies or whether they pander to stereotypes of working class people. Drinking beer, going to church, hunting, or bowling - those things are neither here nor there. Some people do them, some don't.
I hate to sound like a Mom or your best friend in Jr. High School - but candidates, just be yourselves. McCain is military through and through, which is not what we need, but at least you know what you are dealing with.
I did feel that Hillary was being patronizing in her comments about shooting guns, being religious and showily drinking in a bar. Some of my conservative friends from less than privileged backgrounds were a bit rankled at her fakery. They aren't stupid and they know when they're being played. It is better to be the person you are at all times as people ultimately respect that more. I'm sure the temptation is great to be what she believes the people want to see, to be all things to all people, but I think calm consistency of message and purpose is more important. Dare to speak the truth that may hurt but brings better understanding. Stop the pandering.