One side effect of long campaign
Ideally the election process should help voters make an informed decision. The process should expose the different candidates, their experience, values and agenda. In reality the candidates try to disguise their real agenda, and to smooth problematic issues, in order to appeal to as many voters as possible.
I was, naively, hopping that the long primaries will force the candidates to get out of their armored campaign talking points and tackle real issues. The reality is, obviously, much different. As the campaign progress and the stakes are higher candidates tend to be more populist and say things there is no way they believe, or intend to follow if elected. And since Clinton is the trailing candidates she producing the most populist gems:
This morning, George Stephanopoulos began his televised interview with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton by asking if she could name a single economist who supported her plan for a gas-tax suspension.
Mrs. Clinton did not. “I’m not going to put in my lot with economists,” she said on the ABC program “This Week.” A few moments later, she added, “Elite opinion is always on the side of doing things that really disadvantages the vast majority of Americans.”
But I guess voters prefer to be lied and making their decision based on populist slogans, other wise this kind of statements wouldn’t work:
Tags: 2008 campaign, Clinton, PopulismHillary Clinton, speaking at the Indiana J-J dinner, may have taken this white, working-class populism thing to a Cross-of-Gold rhetorical extreme (the authentic WJ Bryan is above). Speaking of the mortgage crisis, Clinton asked the crowd: “Why don’t we hold these Wall St money grubbers responsible for their role in this recession?”
It should be noted that many (presumably non-grubbing) Wall Streeters are her biggest fund raisers and she’s a big investor in a pair of hedge funds.
Related posts
Rogel @ May 5, 2008