Hillary looks ahead toward Pennsylvania primary
Give her credit for having that “vision thing.” In more ways than one.
Hillary Clinton recently made clear she was looking ahead to the Pennsylvania primary on April 26. That’s something, considering she has a long, and possibly rocky, road to travel before then.
Her opponent is not going to be put away quietly. Far from it. Bernie Sanders is riding a wave of anti-establishment anger that mirrors, in its fashion, the mad rise of the Trumpster among Republicans.
For the second time in as many tries, Hillary is butting up against some strong head winds in her bid to enter the White House on her own. Which proves two things: one, running for president is harder than being anointed for the job; and, two, Hillary may be her husband’s wife, but her political skills are dwarfed by Bill’s, the greatest natural-born politician of his generation.
(An aside: There are just three Clintons — Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea — but don’t there seem to be so many more? In truth, the Clinton political family is huge. TV’s chattering class seems especially ripe with old family retainers.)
One clue to Hillary’s belief — or nightmare -that the nomination race may go all the way to the Pennsylvania primary and beyond emerged in her answer to a question by Gwen Ifill of PBS during the Democrats’ Feb. 11 debate in Milwaukee.
Finishing up a back-and-forth on the deplorable condition that American blacks still find themselves in, Ifill said she wanted to turn the discussion on its head: What about whites? she asked.
Hillary dove in. “I’m deeply concerned about what’s happening in every community in America, and that includes white communities,” she said, citing the epidemic of suicides, drug addiction and heavy drinking among middle-aged white Americans.
She took note of “a remarkable and horrifying fact” that a great many white working-age Americans are not living as well as their parents a generation ago.
Even in relationship to black communities, white communities are failing, the candidate said.
“If you look at the numbers, there are actually more white communities” than black communities that are being “left behind,” Clinton said, adding “we have to focus where the hurt is.”
She highlighted the economic plight of coal miners “hard hit by the changing economy” and thrown to the wolves in recent years.
Her lament sounded heart-felt: “Coal miners and their families (who) helped turn on the lights and power our factories for generations are now wondering, has our country forgotten us? Don’t people care about all of our sacrifices?”
In a political context, those comments were meant for voters in three or four states with upcoming primaries, including West Virginia (May 10), Kentucky (May 17) and Pennsylvania.
Considering how so few Americans currently make a living deep underground, these are coal-mining states more in spirit than in reality.
In the 2008 Pennsylvania primary, Hillary crushed Barack Obama, winning by a nine-point margin. The figure is substantial but somewhat misleading as to how well she did across the state minus Philadelphia, which went big time for Obama.
Hillary won all but six of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties. In our region, she overwhelmed the future president. She captured Washington County 71-29, Greene County 73-24, Westmoreland 69-31 and Somerset 72-27.
She did best of all in Fayette County, 77-21.
Each of these counties is predominantly white. It might therefore be surmised that at least some voters were casting their lot with the white candidate in the race against the black guy.
Others, however, undoubtedly voted in reaction to the Clintons’ long association with blue collar workers, going back to their Arkansas days.
Hillary was clearly hoping, in her debate remarks, to cement — or re-cement — her ties to these voters, knowing that her opponent’s harping on the evils of Clinton-era free trade agreements (NAFTA) and Wall Street/Big Bank concessions (the repeal of Glass-Steagall) has the potential to eat away at her 2008 support.
From a policy angle, her assertion about the sad state of an increasing number of blue-collar whites was spot-on and long overdue, though it must be said that Sanders, too, was pretty good on the topic of white working-class despair.
Hillary mentioned, at the debate, that she was intrigued by a proposal by South Carolina congressman James Clyburn to funnel more federal dollars into communities where low incomes, joblessness and poverty have taken root over decades.
Clyburn’s 10-20-30 proposal requires some explaining. For the moment, it’s enough to say it would serve the interests of white communities, as well as black and native-American ones. The Clyburn plan might even garner bipartisan support
As the pragmatic, “can-do” candidate in the race, this just may be in Hillary’s wheelhouse.
Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown and is the author of two books — Grand Salute: Stories of the World War II Generation and Our People. He can be reached at grandsalutebook@gmail.com.