Politics Democrats distance themselves from Hillary Clinton’s ‘backward’ claim

Democratic senators facing tough reelection fights distanced themselves Tuesday from Hillary Clinton after she said President Trump’s voters came from less productive parts of the country and were attracted by a backward-looking message.

“Those are kind of fighting words for me, because I’m partial to Missouri voters,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), who is running in a state Trump won by 19 points. “I think they were expressing their frustration with the status quo. I may not have agreed with their choice, but I certainly respect them. And I don’t think that’s the way you should talk about any voter, especially ones in my state.”

Clinton made the comments Saturday at a conference in Mumbai in response to a question about how Trump won the 2016 election. She noted that the parts of the country she carried produced more economic activity than the “middle” of the country won by Trump.

“I won the places that are optimistic, diverse, dynamic, moving forward,” Clinton said. “And his whole campaign — ‘Make America Great Again’ — was looking backward. You know, you didn’t like black people getting rights, you don’t like women, you know, getting jobs, you don’t want, you know, to see that Indian American succeeding more than you are. Whatever your problem is, I’m going to solve it.”

 

At another point in the talk, Clinton, whose campaign slogan was “Stronger Together,” said that married white women voted for Trump because of “ongoing pressure to vote the way that your husband, your boss, your son, whoever, believes you should.”

 

Republican strategists have pounced on the comments in an effort to remind voters in key states of Clinton’s polarizing role in the cultural divide that helped lift the GOP to victory in 2016.

The Democratic path to regaining Senate control in 2018 depends on incumbents winning reelection this fall in 10 states where Trump beat Clinton. Democrats are also aiming to win open Republican seats in Tennessee and Arizona, two other states that voted for Trump, while also aiming to take out Republicans in several governors’ races.

“Joe Donnelly, Claire McCaskill and Jon Tester, all of these red-state Dems campaigned for Hillary and did everything they could to elect her over Trump,” said Katie Martin, a spokeswoman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “As she continues to give these paid speeches throughout the world, I mean, the campaign ads write themselves.”

 

At the U.S. Capitol, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who is running in a state Trump won by nearly nine points, also made clear that he was unhappy with the comments. “I don’t really care what she said,” he told a reporter for the HuffPost. “I just think that that’s not helpful.”

The Ohio Republican Party tweeted his quote later in the afternoon, falsely claiming that Clinton had called Ohioans “backward” and adding that Brown “says he doesn’t care.”

The Republican Governors Association also released statements that falsely claimed Clinton had called Wisconsin “backward,” before noting that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dana Wachs had served as a delegate for Clinton at the 2016 Democratic convention in Philadelphia.


Several Democratic strategists dismissed the potential impact of Clinton’s comments on the midterm races, noting that the senators now running for reelection in states such as Indiana, Montana, Missouri and West Virginia easily overperformed President Barack Obama’s own vote count in the 2012 election.

 

Jim McLaughlin, a Republican pollster who has advised Trump and is working on the Missouri Senate race, said Clinton’s comments could help increase Republican enthusiasm, much like her comment during the campaign that some Trump supporters were “deplorables.”

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/powe...3d931db7f68_story.html?utm_term=.f9c6fb578789

 

But she's no longer relevant.

 

You're deplorable.

 

I hope democrats keep using that word.

 

I keep posting that he should go play golf 365 days a year and take congress with him.

What does that say about what I think of him?

 

You're also deplorable!

 

I said the same thing about Obama.

FWIW

It'd be a lot cheaper than letting them all legislate new massive deficit spending.

 

She's just a grandmother in Chappaqua these days. Riiiiiiight.

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/378259-dems-are-angry-over-hillary-clintons-latest-comments

Dems are angry over Hillary Clinton’s latest comments

Democrats are angry that Hillary Clinton continues to discuss what went wrong during the 2016 presidential election against President Trump.

Even some of Clinton’s own former aides and surrogates say the former Democratic presidential nominee should back away from the discussion about her failed campaign because it’s harmful to the party.

During a conference in India this weekend, Clinton called states that supported her in the election more economically advanced than the states that backed Trump.
The remarks reminded many of the former secretary of State’s comments in 2016 that some of Trump’s supporters fit in a “basket of deplorables,” a line the Republican then used against her repeatedly during the final stretch of the campaign.

She also insinuated that women who voted for Trump were motivated by “ongoing pressure to vote the way that your husband, your boss, your son, whoever, believes you should.”

In interviews with The Hill on Tuesday, even the staunchest Clinton allies as well as longtime advisers say the comments were cringeworthy and ultimately detrimental to Democrats.

“She put herself in a position where [Democrats] from states that Trump won will have to distance themselves from her even more,” said one former senior Clinton aide. “That’s a lot of states.”

 

And people loyal to her still working in government.