Obama's "bitter" comments presented the Clinton campaign with a great opportunity. But, if they overplay it, it can turn on them.
And that is one of the risks of having Bill Clinton on the stump. You don't want to turn an Obama gaffe story into a Clinton credibility story. But, according to this account from ABC, in an appearance in Indiana the ex-president was making up false anecdotes about the impact of Obama's comments in North Carolina:
"Over seven stops in North Carolina, Clinton said, 'Everywhere I go there are all these people with signs, saying I'm not bitter - I'm not bitter.' ...The strong sentiments were appreciated by the crowd, but were not entirely accurate.
"During Clinton's seven stops in North Carolina on Saturday there were no 'I'm not bitter' signs. There was a small assortment of people at his later events wearing stickers with the slogan, but many of those sporting the stickers weren't even sure what they meant."
Comments (2)
Bill sees what Bill wants to see. He wants to see "Bitter" signs he sees "Bitter" signs it is that simple.
As the rumination continues over Barack Obama's comments about economically-depressed small town voters, statements made by Bill Clinton on the same topic -- uttered while he was running for president in 1991 -- have now surfaced.
"The reason (George H. W. Bush's tactic) works so well now is that you have all these economically insecure white people who are scared to death," Clinton was quoted saying by the Los Angeles Times in September 1991.
A couple months later, Joe Klein, writing for the Sunday Times, reported that Clinton made the following remarks:
"...When their economic policies fail, when the country's coming apart rather than coming together, what do they do? They find the most economically insecure white men and scare the living daylights out of them. They know if they can keep us looking at each other across a racial divide, if I can look at Bobby Rush and think, Bobby wants my job, my promotion, then neither of us can look at George Bush and say, 'What happened to everybody's job? What happened to everybody's income? What ... have ... you ... done ... to ... our ... country?'