Democrats Stoop to Rove's Politics of Nothing

Commentary by Margaret Carlson

April 18 (Bloomberg) -- No matter how thin you slice the U.S. electorate -- soccer Moms, Nascar Dads, dotcommers, office parkers -- there is a surefire way to unite them. From GenX to Reagan Democrats, we can all agree: Nobody likes a snob, otherwise known in politics as ``elitists.''

During the April 16 debate at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, the two Democratic presidential candidates were at pains to be Everyman and Everywoman. It's a game the Republicans play so much better.

Barack Obama had the most work to do since he'd made a boneheaded comment about people in small towns being bitter after the steel mills closed and the jobs disappeared. ``They cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them, or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations,'' he had said at an April 6 fundraiser in San Francisco.

Religion. Guns. Bitter. Cling. Manna from heaven for the opposition. It was enough to wipe Hillary Clinton's fabricated story about scampering head-down from sniper fire in Bosnia off the radar, even though her husband had doubled down on the story when he asked people to give her a break for making a mistake after a long day (in fact, she told the story several times in the bright light of day.)

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