Bill Clinton’s Message Of Divide And Rule In Rural America

ABC’s Jake Trapper, in a post on his blog almost written in dismay, notes how former President Bill Clinton is on now the hustings in rural West Virginia delivering a tough message that’s essentially divide-and-rule politics — the same he has delivered throughout much of the political season.

Trapper’s intro to the quotes nails the situation that is making the Clintons a political team that seemingly has decided to continue unabated to work to polarize their own party in order to generate poll turnout and then (presumably) plans to get in power and try to govern a unified country. Bill Clinton’s present campaigning and comments will likely seized upon as “proof” those who insist the Clintons (without proof) that the Clintons are really trying to lay the groundwork for a 2012 run, after a bruised Obama (largely bruised by the Clintons) flops at the polls.

Bill Clinton has the right to say whatever he wants, of course. But he’s a smart man. Brilliant, even.

He can do the math. He must know that it’s quite improbable that his wife, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., will be the Democratic presidential nominee.

So what purpose does it serve for him to barnstorm a state like West Virginia and tell rural voters that Obama and his elitist political/media cabal allies are mocking Appalachia?

He’s using the kind of language Democrats typically use against Republicans — as in, stuff you say when you don’t want voters to vote for the other guy under any circumstance.

This is tough stuff to walk back from.

Here’s one of Clinton’s quotes:

“Hillary is in this race because of people like you and places like this and no matter what they say,” Clinton said. “And no matter how much fun they make of your support of her and the fact that working people all over America have stuck with her, she thinks you’re as smart as they are. She thinks you’ve got as much right to have your say as anybody else. And, you know, they make a lot of fun of me because I like to campaign in places like this, they say I have been exiled to rural America, as if that was a problem. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather be here than listening to that stuff I have to hear on television, I’d rather be with you. There is a simple reason: You need a president a lot more than those people telling you not to vote for her.”

Trapper writes:

And on and on… Ginning up the resentments and the class divide (and maybe other divisions). … His message to these voters: Obama and the media are laughing at you and think you’re stupid!!!

Obama has a clear problem with white working class voters. This kind of rhetoric exacerbates it. Clinton knows that — he’s trying to drive up turnout to maximize his wife’s popular vote argument to superdelegates. He has every right to do so — the race is not over, no nominee exists yet.

But this is what keeps Howard Dean and Nancy Pelosi up at night.

I’ve gotten lots of emails when I say it, but I’ll say it again — knowing that it will be confirmed as time goes on and when the increasingly self-tarnished legacy of Bill Clinton is detailed by historians.

Bill Clinton is one of the few former Presidents in American history who has left office and shrunk in stature during his post-Presidential years. He has squandered that special historical majesty that virtually all former Presidents develop once they exit the Oval Office. It’s an aura that grows as partisans start to gradually forgive a former foe and view him as the embodiment of a respected institution. Even Richard Nixon enjoyed a “comeback” in terms of media respectability towards the end of his life.

Bill Clinton has morphed into just one more spinning partisan ward heeler — demonizing opponents (except this time of his own party), making broad-brush statements that journalists and the other side could challenge and poke holes into, and exaggerating what the candidate who opposes the candidate he’s trying to elect (his wife) says.

Even worse for Senator Clinton. Even though he still remains beloved by many partisan Democrats, particularly by those who support Mrs. Clinton, some other less- partisan Americans will balk at voting for her because of him — particularly those Americans who are fed up with Rovian-Begala style campaigns where hatreds of this segment or that segment of society must to be stirred up to get angry or fearful voters flocking to the polls.

See our earlier post about growing media reaction to the Clintons.