I checked Hillary's *old* speeches - she consistently uses "hard working" to mean "working class"

[highplainsdem]

Oh, God, what a mess...

But it looks to me now as though the words she uses to avoid saying "working class" created much of the misunderstanding that has people so upset with her.

I'd been wondering how she could have said anything like that bizarre comment that's gotten so much attention. She isn't racist, and I don't believe she's trying to appeal to racists, and I didn't believe for one instant that she was really trying to suggest whites work harder than anyone else.

So I checked old speeches of hers, after looking at a transcript with the "uh" and "um" stuttering added...and noticing someone in the topic where I found that transcript

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x5894397

asking if she had at least referred to "working class" rather than "hard working" (which would have changed the meaning) and being upset that she hadn't.

But she HAD referred to the working class, but not in those exact words. She thought she'd said "working class" because she'd used the words "hard working" which she uses again and again to mean "working class" in her speeches, while she completely avoids using the words "working class."

At least that's the pattern in the old speeches I checked. I'd never noticed it before, but it IS an odd use of language, and IF people had been aware she does that, there wouldn't have been quite as much of an uproar over what she said.

A Google search showed she refers to "hard working Americans" a lot in her speeches. But I didn't find the words "working class" in a direct quote from her on any of the pages I checked that way.

So I went to her website and started going through her speeches doing keyword searches.

http://www.hillaryclinton.com/news/speech/

And I haven't seen her use the term "working class" in any of the ones I've checked so far. I haven't checked all of them -- it's late, and I'm tired -- but I checked the economic speeches, a speech to the AFL-CIO, and several of the others, searching for the word "working" to see if I could find ANY use of the term "working class."

And I couldn't. She seems to go out of her way to avoid it. Possibly she thinks it sounds worse than some alternatives.

When she wants to refer to working class families, she'll say "working families" or "hard working families."

In her speeches, that is. I wouldn't be surprised if she'll refer to "working class voters" when discussing voting blocs with her advisers. ESPECIALLY if she's talking about some news story or poll results where the term "working class" was used. But she seems to try to avoid using it when speaking in public.

So I think what happened, in that diastrous, stammered remark, was that she started to say "working class" as she talked about that AP story and what it said about working class voters. And then she caught herself and switched to "hard working." I think she made that "hard working Americans" just because she's used those words together so often in her speeches (the words "hard working Americans" and "hard working American families" turned up again and again in the Google results). And then, realizing she'd forgotten to include the detail that the AP story had been about white working-class voters, she added, "White Americans."

With absolutely no idea how terrible that sounded because she THOUGHT she'd just said "working class Americans, white Americans."

Now, look at this quote -- from that DU topic I posted the link for above -- and remember Hillary uses "working" and "hard working" to mean "working class":

"Well Kathy you know there was just an AP article posted uh that found how Senator Obama's uh support among um working, uh hard working Americans, uh White Americans, is um weakening again, uh and how, uh the you know Whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me, and in, in Independents um I was running even with him, and and doing even better with Democratic-leaning Independents. I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on."

And realize that with her pattern of speech, that odd substitution of "hardworking" for "working class," she really was saying, "Well, Kathy, you know, there was just an AP article posted, uh, that found how Senator Obama's, uh, support among, um, working, uh, working class Americans, uh white Americans, is, um, weakening again."

Now, some examples from her old speeches of how she uses both "hardworking" and "working" where she means "working class" (emphasis added):

This is from her January 11 speech on her economic stimulus plan:

"Now I have laid out a long term strategy about how we’re going to stabilize and grow the economy. I want to get back to where we see millions of new, good jobs created in America. I know we can do that. But I don’t think we can wait until January 20th of next year. Too many people will be hurt. Too many jobs will be lost. Too many homes will be foreclosed on. Too many more people will go without health care. We cannot wait. That is why I am calling on the president and the congress to work together to come up with some quick action to be able to present the slide toward recession. Unlike President Bush’s 2001 plan which focused on tax cuts in the wealthiest of Americans, my plan focus on middle class and hardworking families who deserve the relief and need the help right now."


From her January 24 speech on the economy:

"But now, finally, the President may acknowledge what the American people have known for years: that the economy is not working for middle class and working families."

"I also would include direct tax rebates to working and middle class families."

"But it isn't right that the wealthy and the well-connected have gotten so many more benefits than the middle class and working people have."


Unless you think she's suggesting that middle class people and families don't work, it should be very clear that she simply uses "working" and "hard working" to mean "working class."

And this tripped her up, with horrendous results, the other day. And led to people wondering why she'd suggest white Americans were hard working, implying others aren't. When all she'd been doing was referring, in her own rather peculiar way, to white working-class voters, citing an AP story referring to that group of voters.

Now. IF this makes sense to you -- if you can see that this was just her standard speech pattern and the words she uses for "working class" -- how do we go about getting this information out and at least starting to correct a horrible misunderstanding?