The New York Times reported last weekend that one line of attack American Crossroads and other Republican-leaning groups are likely to use against Hillary Clinton is that she’s far too wealthy to relate to average Americans. Regarding such criticism, Steve Benen says, in effect: Bring it on.
Benen, a producer for MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show and the primary writer for the TRMS blog, argued in a Monday post that the rich-and-out-of-touch charge won’t stick to Hillary the way it did to Mitt Romney because “Romney was extremely wealthy while pushing a policy agenda that would benefit people like him,” whereas Hillary’s economic program would help those nowhere near as well-off as she is.
“There’s a lengthy history of low-income voters in America voting for very wealthy candidates who are committed to fighting for those voters’ interests,” wrote Benen, citing politicians named “Roosevelt, Kennedy, and Rockefeller…who’ve championed the needs of families far from their income bracket…Republicans are convinced what really matters isn’t the scope [of] Clinton’s policies, but rather, the size of her bank account. That’s ridiculous.”
From Benen’s post (bolding added):
A few months ago, Politico published a piece about the Republican message machine settling on its preferred 2016 narrative. The headline said the GOP plan is to “turn Hillary into Mitt Romney”…
Three months later, the New York Times reports that Republicans are spending “heavily” on focus groups, testing this message…
…[T]he party broadly seems to have embraced this message.
And if Clinton is really lucky, they won’t change their minds.
…In 2012, when Democrats rolled out the “out-of-touch plutocrat” message against Romney, Republicans spent months in fainting-couch apoplexy. Democrats are engaging in “class warfare,” they said...
In 2015, those same Republicans have suddenly discovered they’re not so offended after all…
…The real issue is the degree to which Republicans are confused about why the line of criticism against Romney was effective…
…[T]he problem was not that Romney was extremely wealthy; the problem was that Romney was extremely wealthy while pushing a policy agenda that would benefit people like him…
…Romney breathed life into the caricature – vowing to give tax breaks to the wealthy, promising to take health care and education benefits away from working families, and expressing contempt for the “47 percent” of Americans Romney saw as parasites.
When Democrats effectively told the American mainstream, “Romney isn’t on your side,” the GOP nominee made it easy for voters to believe it. The car elevators were simply gravy on top of an already effective narrative.
…There’s a lengthy history of low-income voters in America voting for very wealthy candidates who are committed to fighting for those voters’ interests. Names like Roosevelt, Kennedy, and Rockefeller are familiar additions to the roster of politicians who’ve championed the needs of families far from their income bracket…
Republicans are convinced what really matters isn’t the scope Clinton’s policies, but rather, the size of her bank account. That’s ridiculous…
It’s baffling that the GOP doesn’t understand this obvious and basic dynamic.
