Hillary Clinton's elitism problem

Of course Clinton is out of touch with the everywoman she desperately wants to be. She just needs to accept it.

Hillary Clinton, Ohio, 2008
(Image credit: (Eric Thayer/Getty Images))

Hillary Clinton was in full-throttle everywoman mode the night she won the 2008 Ohio primary. "For everyone here in Ohio and across America who's ever been counted out but refused to be knocked out, and for everyone who has stumbled but stood right back up, and for everyone who works hard and never gives up, this one is for you," she declared.

Indeed, in one of the more curious aspects of that unusual primary season, the New York senator and former First Lady had emerged as the great hope of the white working class, complete with a throwback Arkansas twang.

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Jill Lawrence is an an award-winning reporter and columnist who has covered every presidential campaign since 1988, as well as other historic events such as the Three Mile Island nuclear accident and the Clinton impeachment. Lawrence has written for the National JournalUSA Today, The Associated Press, Al Jazeera America, The Daily Beast, The Atlantic and The Washington Post, among other publications. Columbia Journalism Review named her one of the top 10 campaign reporters in the country in 2004, and Washingtonian magazine included her on its list of 50 "best and most influential journalists" in 2005.