If the recent firestorm over Hillary Clinton’s claims of poverty upon leaving the White House with huge debt was meant to send the former First lady a message, clearly she didn’t get it.
Seemingly unwilling to let go of the ‘I’m one of the little people’ meme for what would be a populist positioning as a White House candidate in 2016, today in The Guardian, she’s all but crying poor, again.
America’s glaring income inequality is certain to be a central bone of contention in the 2016 presidential election. But with her huge personal wealth, how could Clinton possibly hope to be credible on this issue when people see her as part of the problem, not its solution?
“But they don’t see me as part of the problem,” she protests, “because we pay ordinary income tax, unlike a lot of people who are truly well off, not to name names; and we’ve done it through dint of hard work,” she says, letting off another burst of laughter. If past form is any guide, she must be finding my question painful.
On the other side of America’s great partisan divide, Clinton’s enemies are all the more vocal. Like vultures, her detractors on the right are already starting to circle before she has even declared her intentions. “Yeah. They’re waking up,” she says with a smile.
Despite decades spent living in what most would view as wealthy environs and being driven here and there by chauffeurs, when not screaming at her Secret Service contingent, it would appear that Hillary Clinton still wants us to feel her pain.
I’m not sure that’s a proposition even her far slicker husband Bill could sell.
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