It has not been a good month for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.
It all started when the former first lady said in an interview with ABC’s Diane Sawyer that she and Bill Clinton were "dead broke" when they left the White House in January 2001: a statement that clearly disagreed with the facts, and certainly came off just a tiny bit insensitive at a time when the bulk of the nation can far more accurately be described as "dead broke" (even when accounting for the harsh winter weather). She followed it up by telling Britain’s Guardian newspaper that the couple isn’t "truly well off."
So now it is damage control. As Bloomberg reports [6], "Hillary Clinton will test today whether she can still drive home a populist message, even after handing critics in both parties an argument that she’s lost touch with the public. She’ll speak in Denver at a Clinton Global Initiative forum on “economic justice,” just as she tries to rebound from a round of comments in which she suggested that she and former President Bill Clinton aren’t really rich."
At least hypocrisy knows some bonds and the forum isn't called "economic injustice."
But what likely hurt her attempt to appear as "one of us" namely the peasant proletariat (despite her bank account), are comments by her daughter Chelsea, who as a reminder is married to a hedge funder, whose turn it is now to insist she isn’t “well-off” according to a recent interview, in which she claims she couldn't care less about money.
"I was curious if I could care about (money) on some fundamental level, and I couldn’t,” she told Fast Company in an interview [7]that ran in the magazine's May edition, explaining why she gave up lucrative gigs to join her family’s philanthropic foundation.
Perhaps the reason why Chelsea can't care about money (at some fundamental level) is because she has more of it than she can spend in one lifetime? But we digress.
As Daily News recounts [8], Chelsea compared her experience to the average millennial, and defended jumping around to different careers — from consulting to a hedge fund to academia to journalism — before finding her true calling working with her parents.
For those curious what the average millenial's life is like please read "Millennials Devastated As American Dream Becomes Nightmare For Most [9]." As for Chelsea's fable, read on:
“It is frustrating, because who wants to grow up and follow their parents? I’ve tried really hard to care about things that were very different from my parents … it’s a funny thing to realize I feel called to this work, both as a daughter and also as someone who believes I have contributions to make,” she continued about her reluctant status as a boomerang kid.
Trust us Chelsea: it is even more frustrating when one does not not have option of jumping from job to job, taking advantage of relentless nepotism where employers merely hire you for political kickbacks from your parents and not for your contributions, and not having to worry about money, especially when one can bury their sorrows in a 10 million Gramercy Park apartment.
“I will just always work harder (than anybody else) and hopefully perform better,” said Clinton, who along with former banker husband Marc Mezvinsky, purchased a $10.5-million Gramercy Park apartment in 2013. “And hopefully, over time, I preempt and erase whatever expectations people have of me not having a good work ethic, or not being smart, or not being motivated.”
Daily News sardonically observes that "the Clinton name likely opened doors for the political heiress, including an eye-popping $600,000 annual salary for an irregular stint as an NBC special correspondent."
Indeed, as we reported previously when observing the life of this "average millennial", "NBC Paid Chelsea Clinton $600,000 Annual Salary For Occasional Work [10]"
Chelsea insists her work speaks for itself.
And just to complete the circle, here is Bill himself, attesting that neither his wife (nor daughter by implication) are "out of touch."
Former President Bill Clinton on Tuesday defended his wife Hillary Clinton's recent comments on wealth, saying she is “not out of touch.” [11]
In a discussion with NBC's David Gregory as part of the Clinton Global Initiative, the former president backed up his wife's remarks about being “dead broke” when the couple left the White House.
“It is factually true that we were several million dollars in debt,” Clinton said, as Hillary Clinton and his daughter Chelsea looked on. The former president argued that the reporters asking his wife the questions “should put this in some sort of context.”
...
Asked if Americans resented politicians of means in general, Bill Clinton replied, “I don't think most Americans resent somebody else doing well. They resent that they're not getting a fair deal. They want the bottom to grow. They want the middle to grow.
“You just have to be transparent and tell people the truth,” he said.
Gregory asked Clinton if the general debate on the Clintons' wealth was unfair.
“No,” the former president replied, adding, “I might understand it differently than you do.
“Someone is always trying to change the subject,” he said.
It is unclear if Bill handed out cakes to all present after the taping ended.
