The American Debate: 'Elitist' is as 'elitist' does

Excerpts from Dick Polman's blog, "Dick Polman's American Debate."

If you want to enjoy a belly laugh, here are three reliable suggestions: (1) rent an old Woody Allen movie, especially

Bananas,

(2) rent

Borat

, or (3) listen to Hillary Clinton, of all people, attack Barack Obama as "elitist."

This is the same woman who during the last seven years, as evidenced by her tax returns with Bill, has become a millionaire 109 times over; whose husband has long supported the Colombian free-trade deal (deemed hurtful to American workers); who long defended his signing of NAFTA; . . . who, during her Senate career, voted in favor of confiscating guns during a national emergency (one of only 16 senators to do so; Obama voted against confiscation); and who, during the Democratic debates, has refused to shed any light on why the Clintons are safeguarding the identities of the global heavy hitters who are bankrolling the Clinton Library.

. . . The Republicans are also trying to paint Obama as elitist, but that's the standard GOP template (twice used successfully by George W. Bush - a graduate of Phillips Academy Andover, Yale University, and Harvard Business School, son of a former president and grandson of a former U.S. senator). It's particularly amusing to hear that

elitist

label being thrown around by John McCain, given the fact that McCain is married to a multimillionaire heiress, and that McCain wants to extend the Bush tax cuts that help the rich.

. . . But I digress. Hillary was more fun to watch this weekend, as she went into blue-collar overdrive - waxing nostalgic about how as a youngster she was taught to shoot a gun; walking into a bar and drinking from a shot glass; telling a faith forum how she always feels "the enveloping support and love of God" . . . I half expect to see her marching in the Lehigh Valley, clad in a bowling shirt, with a 12-gauge in one hand and the New Testament in the other.

But that's politics. If she can successfully brand as elitist a guy who was raised by a single mother far from the comfortable suburban trappings that she enjoyed as a child . . . well, to the victor go the spoils.

. . . Hillary will take it to him during the debate [tonight], probably in the first 10 minutes (unless they reprise the traditional opening spat over who has the better health insurance plan). . . . He has to turn this flap to his advantage, reframe the issue in a broader context, make the case for an economic populism that connects with Pennsylvania's working-class voters - and force Hillary to explain why those same voters, long ignored and taken for granted, received so little help from the Bill Clinton administration.

Obama screwed up badly during that fund-raiser in San Francisco. But it's the successful politician who bounces back from adversity . . . We'll soon see whether Obama has the gift that saved Bill Clinton from Bimbo-gate in 1992.