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Nice Timing, Don't You Think?
Emily, Hillary can be called a lot of things, but dumb is not one of them. So I don't buy for a second that she thinks that her comments about white working-class voters was the "dumbest thing she ever said." (Especially considering the other worthy candidates for that honor, like the Bosnia sniper-fire kerfuffle.)
Let's look at how this played out. Hillary claimed that "Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again," hinting that he appealed only to highfalutin liberals in blue states. She was going to win blue-collar West Virginia anyhow, but did anyone expect that she'd win by 40 points? And just how did she win by that much? I can't put it any better than Jon Stewart and his bottle of Jack Daniels:
Now that she can take those results to neighboring Kentucky, what with its similar demographics, it's easy to cop that her original comments were in poor taste. They've served their purpose.
About Rachael Larimore
- Rachael Larimore is Slate's copy chief.
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