Bush, Clinton, and the Experts

Posted by Andrew Tobolowsky on 05.06.2008

Hillary takes a page, not from Rove, but the man himself.

A commentator in this space recently referred to H. Clinton as a Rovian republican. While it's tempting to compare her to Karl Rove, I have a better analog to her recent performance: George W. Bush himself.

I think, fundamentally, Bush's appeal in 2000 and 2004 can be summed up in two words: Commonality, and stupidity. The kind of "aw shucks, I don't know what the so-called experts in Washington have to say, but I'm just like you," rhetoric that people, increasingly frustrated with their government, eat up, and the complete lack of any GOOD ideas, whatsoever, in terms of what's good for the country.

That first one is a tree that Hillary's been barking up ever since she started getting results with her "elitist" attacks, on Obama. The second one? Her recent gas tax idea certainly fits that bill.

It's not even the idea itself, it's how she presents and manages it. I won't say any more about the actual bill other than what you'd expect me to say, as an Obama supporter, which is that I think it's a terrible idea in and of itself. Other than political positioning it achieves nothing, considering the savings will be entirely negligible—approximately $300 bucks over the course of an entire summer--and that it's unfeasible. For example, she proposes that oil companies be paid back out of "windfall profits." What windfall profits you might ask? Well, no one actually has any idea. Perhaps it's the windfall profits from the extra gas people will be buying since it will be approximately 30 cents cheaper, per fill up.

It's funny, a couple days ago I saw a poor Englishman commenting on some column that Americans need to stop whining about gas. It's something like 11 bucks a gallon, in England. This is not because gas is more expensive in England, it's because of taxes. They have a massive gas tax. We don't. We have barely any, on gas. Know how fast you'll make up the difference between what you're spending now and what you're spending without tax, if you gas up even ONE extra time, leading to some "windfall profits"? Pretty damn quick, that's how.

That's not the issue though. The issue is worse. The analogy with George W. Bush is, unfortunately, extremely apt. The "elitist" smear campaign is pretty much indistinguishable from 2004's "flip-flopper" campaign.

What's so disturbing about this is the idea that it's working again. Not that it will work, it's too late for that, but it is demonstrably WORKING, and there's at least a reasonable chance it would have worked had she given it enough lead-time. And that is gross. I mean, foul. Have we Democrats learned nothing?

The Republicans learned. They nominated McCain, the closest thing they could find to an Anti-Bush. And at least the Bush camp had a culture of fear, and a time of war, on the side of its manipulation. This time the democrats uncanny ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory has only one culprit, and its anyone who falls for this horse crap.

Look. Forget the validity of the idea itself. Hillary has been going everywhere and anywhere since Pennsylvania, saying that Obama is an elitist, that he's out of touch with the common people, because that swung her Pennsylvania. As opposed to her. Now, again the analogy with G.W. is apt because, of course, the common people aren't capable of, for example, donating 10 million dollars to their presidential campaigns any more than they are capable of landing the job of General Manager of the Texas Rangers (not that I'm fond of the current occupant, either). But the mindless, the silly repetition of it is what's giving me the bad kind of nostalgia.

Hillary's recent ad campaign about the gas tax—which, happily, has the advantage of being proposed BEFORE she could become president, and so no likelihood of being passed—says this "He (Obama) is attacking Hillary's plan to give you a break on gas prices because he doesn't have one," the ad's announcer also says.

Now let's just start by being logical here, first. How likely do you think it is that Barack Obama REALLY doesn't have an opinion on how to fix the economy? Hey, you're just a random guy (or gal) sitting at a computer on a weekday, and you have an opinion on this column, written by the least important columnist on the world wide web. Barack Obama's the only person on Earth who doesn't have any opinions?

But okay. I'm not here today to talk about Obama. Let's accept that you think Obama has no substance whatsoever. Here's my favorite part:

Recently, Hillary went on a talk show, George Stephanopolous' show on ABC's "This Week." On that talk show she was asked to name even ONE economist who thought her plan made any kind of sense.
Clinton responded that she refused to be governed by the "elite opinion" of economists.

You know, the people who understand the economy and how it works. Just because she can't even find one who agrees with her doesn't mean she, with no economic experience, is wrong, right?

She's not going to be dissuaded...by the "elite opinion"…on the economy…of economists.

One assumes that George W. Bush had a similarly low threshold for the "elite opinion" of Islamic experts who might have suggested that Sunni and Shi'a Muslims were unlikely to cooperate even for glorious, glorious freedom. One assumes that he had a low threshold for the "elite opinion" of intelligence experts who warned him that the intel he was getting was not necessarily the best. Some times a president just knows, right?
One assumes these opinions are "elite" because they are educated.

What's so sad about all this is the coverage of the divide between the electorate's supporting the respective democratic candidates has focused so much on how Obama is the candidate of poor African-Americans and Clinton of middle-class white people. Because everyone likes a good race war. What it has failed to point out is that Obama is far and away the candidate of the highly educated. I mean, by an enormous margin. There's a reason for that, and it really shows in moments like this.

Just like I'll never understand the idea that a woman or a black man wouldn't be as good a president as a white man, I'll never understand the distaste those without higher education have for those who possess it. The "experts" so to speak, the disdain for which carried the last election for George W. Bush.

But, of course, Hillary is aware of these things, and that a significant portion of her base lies in that demographic. In fact, she knows it's her last hope. She's banking on it. And it's working, again.

How could it POSSIBLY be working again?

"I'm not going to put my lot in with economists ," Clinton continued, sneeringly. No indeed. What do they know? You know, about the economy.

Goddamn flip-floppers.

"Only in Washington can you get away with calling someone out of touch when you're the one who thinks that 30 cents a day is enough to help people who are struggling in this economy," Obama said in a speech in Indiana yesterday. It's a good point, but perhaps a more important one is how disappointing it is that still, after all the horrible debacles of George W. Bush's presidency, Americans are still so ready to fall for the stupid word repeated loudly.

If any people on Earth should have learned that those who fail to learn from their mistakes are doomed to repeat them, it should be us. If we haven't, we're going to get an endless repetition of those mistakes.

Delicious.

"I guess I'm just feeling more of the concerns that people have, and they want relief," Clinton said on CNN's
"American Morning" a few days ago. Boy, isn't that sweet. And who cares what the so-called "experts" believe, with their PhDs, and decades of experience analyzing trends, and good backgrounds in research, and an understanding of the development of the economy.

Assuming the opinion of people with qualifications should count more than the opinion of people with no qualifications, on the subjects in which they have their qualifications, is downright elitist. And that kind of attitude has worked so well for us for the last eight years.Obama's decision to listen to the experts on this subject, and seek an actual lasting solution to the problem that will save more than just enough for a gumball every day for three months, is just another example of his lack of qualifications.

I fully expect Indiana to go to Hillary by a bit, and South Carolina to be closer than it was a couple of weeks ago.

Which leaves me with just one additional question:

For the love of God, America…seriously?

Again?