Defending HRC

I think the waves of outrage washing throughout the Obamasphere over this remark from Hillary Clinton reflect an echo chamber mentality more than anyone else. Here's what Clinton's quoted as saying:

"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

As quoted, that's a dumb thing to say which seems to imply that non-white voters or perhaps all Obama supporters are lazy. But add a pinch of charitable interpretation into the dynamic, and I think Clinton's meaning is perfectly clear -- she really does do better than Obama among white working class voters in Democratic primary elections. I don't buy the argument, often made by Clinton supporters, that this edge among white working class Democratic primary voters indicates a substantial Clinton electability edge in the general election (it's one part fallacy, two parts baseless speculation, and then a grain of truth) but it's a common argument and not an offensive one.

Meanwhile, just from a tactical posture the closer this thing gets to being over the less point there is in Obama supporters getting super snarky and indignant about everything the Clinton campaign does. At this point, Obama's job is to start making people who find this sort of argument plausible like him more, not to crush Hillary Clinton.