Out of touch with reality.
Posted on 05/28/2015 3:42:08 PM PDT by presidio9
After more than 200 years of contributing pretty much nothing to American democracy other than some inspired ice cream and a buffer against Canadian aggression, Vermont has apparently decided that once a decade it should send out some scrappy, leftist presidential candidate who will take it to the elitist Democratic establishment. This time it’s Bernie Sanders’s turn.
In an interview with CNBC’s John Harwood this week, Sanders assailed the party’s presumed nominee, Hillary Clinton, for having accumulated the kind of wealth that can “isolate you from the reality of the world.” He said she probably spent hundreds of dollars on dinner rather than eating “in restaurants like this.”
Senator Sanders made this comment while sitting in what CNBC described as a “bistro near the Capitol,” which doesn’t exactly sound like Applebee’s, but you get the point: Clinton is out of touch with regular Americans because she doesn’t buy used cars or stockpile CVS coupons or save up for Disneyland like the rest of us do.
To which I would only ask: why on God’s earth would we want a president like us?
I see why Sanders thinks he can get some traction with this. The “out of touch” mantra has been a perennial line of attack in our campaigns for several decades, at least. George H.W. Bush didn’t know the price of milk, John McCain had more houses to keep track of than the ancient tribes of Israel, and John Kerry got caught windsurfing off Nantucket when he should have been, you know, playing darts or something. Mitt Romney admitted to building a multilevel garage for his private car collection in La Jolla, Calif.
Hillary Clinton’s not like the rest of us? Good!
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks at the “hometown kickoff” event for his Democratic presidential campaign on Tuesday in Burlington, Vt. (Photo: Brian Snyder/Reuters)
The “out of touch” theme grows more pronounced every cycle, mainly because our politics looks more and more like a hobby for the superwealthy and superbored. This year’s Republican field includes another multimillionaire Bush scion, a multimillionaire heart surgeon, a multimillionaire business executive, and so on down the line.
You want to know who’s not an out-of-touch multimillionaire? Marco Rubio. Last year, apparently, Rubio, who makes more than $200,000 per year and sends four children to private school, cashed in more than $68,000 in retirement accounts because he needed to buy a $3,000 refrigerator and replace his air conditioning.
I get it. This is precisely the kind of thing the rest of us might do if we really, really wanted that sweet side-by-side with the crushed-ice dispenser. But if you think cashing in your IRAs to spruce up the kitchen is a sound financial decision, I’m not sure I want you tinkering around with the Social Security Administration, you know what I mean?
We have this obsession in our politics with what we’re always calling the Horatio Alger story, even though, truth be told, most Americans under 60 wouldn’t know Horatio Alger from Alger Hiss. Basically, it means we think our presidents should be self-made, “everyday Americans,” to use the language of the Clinton campaign. (Apparently, the more affluent among us are only American on certain days of the week, like Tuesday.)
This guy voted for Mitt Romney, right?
Matt Bai is a hebetudinous buffoon. Conspicuous by its absence is the inability to offer comments at the Yahoo! link - or at least none that I can find.
Hey Matt, save your stained blue dress! One day, you might need to prove the goo is Hillary’s.
Nothing but tumbleweeds and IOUs in that bank account Matt. What's to lose?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.