Obama and (Bill) Clinton spark controversies

In yet another sign that there is very little left to discuss in the primaries, two more controversies were blown out of proportion today. As is the norm in such cases, the controversies were particularly quick to take hold because they conform to preconceptions people already have (fairly or unfairly) about the candidates.

First, Barack Obama and blue-collar voters. The issue was sparked by an article published this morning by Mayhill Fowler in the Huffington Post that included the transcript (and subsequently the audio) of comments made by Obama at a fundraiser in San Fransisco. Referring to people living in "small towns in Pennsylvania" where "the jobs have been gone for 25 years," Obama added: "It's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." (Do check the transcript for the full context).

The quote quickly made its way around the web and on cable news, with condemning statements from rival campaigns. Clinton charged that, "Pennsylvanians don’t need a president who looks down on them" and a McCain aide was even more brutal, "It shows an elitism and condescension towards hardworking Americans that is nothing short of breathtaking." By the end of the day, Obama was forced to address the controversy, explaining at a rally tonight that he meant that downscale voters vote on social issues rather than economic issues because politicians don't deliver on economic promises (a Thomas Frank-type argument).

The outrage feigned by McCain, Clinton and cable news is clearly being blown out of proportion; but it does reveal that the old debates over whether liberals are condescending towards working-class white continue. And the ease with which the controversy took hold confirms that the GOP will make the elitism charge a central part of its anti-Obama general election campaign. Obama is often criticized for relying too much on the votes of the upper-middle class, as downscale voters are among the most reliable constituencies of Hillary Clinton's; fairly or unfairly, Obama is described as having a "blue-collar problem" and that perception made it much easier for this story to spread today.

Two good news pieces for Obama, finally, out of this controversy: (1) The GOP's ad does not write itself: There is no video of Obama's comments, and the audio's quality is too poor to be used in an ad. (2) The Obama campaign responded very quickly, getting the candidate himself to address the issue a few hours after the story broke, as Marc Ambinder recaps. The campaign had been criticized for its slow response of the firestorm surrounding Michelle Obama's pride comment and the videos surfacing of Reverend Wright -- and this "toughness" component is definitely something superdelegates are watching for.

Also today, Bill Clinton got in trouble for comments he made surrounding his wife's now infamous 1996 plane landing in Bosnia. Campaigning in Indiana, the former President revisited that episode that Hillary's campaign has done its best to put behind her: "here was a lot of fulminating because Hillary, one time late at night when she was exhausted, misstated — and immediately apologized for it — what happened to her in Bosnia in 1995. Did y’all see all that? Oh, they blew it up." The problem, of course, is that very little in this statement is actually true. Clinton repeated her tale of landing under sniper fire more than once, there seems to be no instance of her telling it at night and she did not immediately apologize.

This prompted a whole new round of discussion about the Bosnia trip, how aware Hillary was that her story was false and how much of a liability Bill is for the campaign. Given how old the story now is and that Clinton's poll decline last week was partly attributed to this issue getting so much press, I'm not convinced Bill's words merited that much attention at this point. But here again, the controversy fits preexisting narratives as the media has been loving to portray Bill as trouble for the campaign and as Hillary faces accusations of being too cold and calculating -- criticism that the Bosnia story played right into.

There is no question that all these narratives have been hurting the Clinton campaign tremendously in these primaries, and the last thing Hillary needed right now was for her husband to make life more complicated for her with this clear unforced error. (The candidate reportedly called the former President to ask him to not talk about Bosnia anymore.)