HRC’s “screw them” (where “them” = working class Democrats) comment is getting all the attention, but I was struck by this contemporaneous statement by Bill:
I know how you feel. … It makes me mad too. Sure, we lost our base in the South; our boys voted for Gingrich. But let me tell you something. I know these boys. I grew up with them. Hardworking, poor, white boys, who feel left out, feel that our reforms always come at their expense. Think about it, every progressive advance our country has made since the Civil War has been on their backs. They’re the ones asked to pay the price of progress. Now, we are the party of progress, but let me tell you, until we find a way to include these boys in our programs, until we stop making them pay the whole price of liberty for others, we are never going to unite our party, never really going to have change that sticks.
Can you imagine Bill saying that today? The “boys” is kind of jarring, but isn’t it pretty much exactly what Obama was saying in San Francisco? Just more, uhm, eloquent?
To get back to my first rhetorical question: I think Bill could have said that a week ago. Kinda hard to imagine him saying it today.
UPDATE: Stuart makes a good point:
“Them” = Southern whites, not “working class Democrats”…nice conflation…the HuffPo piece tries to make it sound as if “Reagan Democrats” in OH and PA are the same people as the ex-Dixiecrats to which she was referring in their opening quote.
What a crappy piece of crap.
I played right into HuffPo’s hands! It’s a good distinction, though I think there’s still an interesting apple-to-apple comparison to be made between the two statements. Maybe a Gala (sweet, mushy) versus a Granny Smith (tart, crisp), but still the products of similar thought processes…