Obama Aide: Dems Don't Win White Working Class Anyway

Barack Obama’s top strategist yesterday downplayed the demographic that sank his candidate in Pennsylvania on NPR, noting that the “white working class has gone to the Republican nominee for many elections, going back even to the Clinton years.” Added David Axelrod: "This is not new that Democratic candidates don't rely solely on those votes."

Bill Clinton leapt on the Axelrod comment, MSNBC reports, repeating a tweaked version for a crowd on a North Carolina baseball field: “Today her opponent's campaign strategist said, 'Well, we don’t really need these working-class people to win; half the time they vote for Republicans anyway.' " Standing on a flatbed truck, the former president said his wife’s campaign wouldn’t write off “people like you,” asserting, “America needs you to win.” (More Barack Obama stories.)