Karen Heller: The e-word infiltrates politicians' playbooks

Does this presidential race offer fun for the whole family, or what? Racial conflict? Check. Gender politics? Check. What could possibly be left? Let's introduce class and elitism concerns into the center ring, shall we? These are the very tools that vanquished past candidates, mostly Democrats, but also Poppy Bush when used artfully by Rhodes Scholar Bill Clinton.

Since acquiring testicular fortitude during the brew-and-bowl primaries, Hillary Clinton has refashioned herself as the champion of the working-class voter. Fine, all the candidates care about the working class voters, and the poor voters, and the voting voters. But Clinton's ads went further, painting Barack Obama as an out-of-touch (read  elitist ) coward because he won't join Hillary and John's National Lampoon Summer Gas-Tax Vacation, as abysmal an idea as any that have erupted in the interminable campaign. In Indiana, union supporters branded Obama as one of those "Gucci-wearing, latte-drinking, self-centered, egotistical ...