JOAN: What is this thing of Obama being perceived as an elitist? Is it important? Is it going to harm him? What do you think?
LIZ: I think it does harm him. And the National Review story on Michelle Obama complaining to ladies in Ohio about how could the two of them live on $500,000 a year, and how they couldn’t pay for their children’s tennis and dancing lessons, or piano lessons, or something. But, honestly, you have to admire the Obamas. They’re an upscale, young American couple. They’re a model for every downtrodden person in America. So, I think a little elitism goes a long way. I think it both helps and hurts. It’s like people having money or being rich. Well everybody wants that. The public wants the same thing. So I think it’s sort of a two-edged sword. But do I think the Obamas are intellectual elitists, probably. They’re smarter than the rest of us.
LESLEY: You come at this issue the way we come at the whole campaign now – now that we’re this deep in. And that is with certain preconceived opinions. If you like Obama, I don’t think it bothers you at all. If you don’t like Obama, it’s a huge thing. And this is why, to me – and I’ve always said this to some criticism – when it comes to the president, the most important thing the people vote on is likability. That you get down to hearing these discussions about the issues and they get so confusing. Sometimes the difference between the candidates – and this is true between Obama and Hillary Clinton – the differences on issues is so small that it’s very difficult to listen, where you can’t go back and re-read and figure out exactly who said what. And then, if they disagree, the argument goes back and forth and back and forth and you agree when this one says it and then you agree when the other one says it. You get lost. So you end up making your decision on whether you trust them, whether you’re comfortable with them, whether they convey a sense of confidence, comfortableness in their skin. And I think that Hillary Clinton runs the risk, in this particular question of whether he’s elitist, of being too heavy-handed. And I noticed the other day there was a new poll. It said that her negatives on this likability factor have gone way up as she keeps pounding away at this. It could end up where, yes, he’s painted as an elitist. But she gets hurt more than he does by it.
JOAN: Whoopi?
WHOOPI: I just think it’s the most ridiculous thing in the world. You know, it’s a phenomenon which, had both candidates been white, wouldn’t be as big an issue as it’s become, because they painted John Kennedy the same way, that he was an elitist. So now they’re saying Obama’s an elitist because he pretty much said that when this is happening and this is happening and this is happening, people cling to those things that they know best, that they’re most comfortable with. He didn’t say, "Only people in Pennsylvania." He said, "Folks who have gone through this kind of experience." He didn’t say, "Only white people." He didn’t say, "Only poor people." And it’s the same with rich white folks. They cling to what they know. All of us do it.
LESLEY: Whoopi, I think the fear the Democrats have with this issue is not because he’s a person of color. It’s because the Republicans latch onto this exact kind of argument time and again and make it work for them. As with Adlai Stevenson, with Dukakis, with Kerry, with Gore …
WHOOPI: Well, what’s the matter is the Democrats are an elitist group. That’s the truth.
LIZ: Let’s don’t any of us forget, when this is all over, the immortal words of Joan Ganz Cooney – she told me six months ago, the Democrats always like to commit suicide and they will shoot themselves in the foot again.
LESLEY: I’m not sure that it has to be that way for the Democrats.
WHOOPI: No, but that’s the way it is with us. And I’ll tell you something, this thing that happened at that dopey John Kerry fundraiser …
JOAN: What thing?
WHOOPI: I was accused of doing something that I didn’t do on stage. And not one Democrat stood up and said, "I was there, that’s not what happened." Nobody said …
LESLEY: But Whoopi, we don’t know what you’re talking about. What happened at the fundraiser?
LIZ: You were accused of making a nasty remark about George Bush. Is that right?
WHOOPI: I was accused of making disgusting, rude, ugly, crappy remarks about the president. And that’s not what happened. And before I got off the stage it was already on the AP wires. And there were people making ugly, crude, nasty remarks about the president that night. But I wasn’t one of them.
JOAN: But it stuck to you and nobody stood up for you?
WHOOPI: None of them. None of them stood up and said, "Wait a minute. That’s not what happened! This is not what went down." You know, so this idea that he’s an elitist – so she’s an elitist, we are elitists. We are. We feel like we know what’s best for the country – just like the Republicans. We’re all elitists, because the people we’re listening to, those are not the real people of the world.
LESLEY: What the Republicans do is say these people – Adlai Stevenson, Michael Dukakis, John Kerry and now they’re trying to put Obama in this category – are out of the mainstream. They’re not like you and me. They’re odd. They’re effete.
JOAN: Well, this is part of the anti-intellectual stance of the United States of America where anyone who’s an intellectual is a wimp, a loser, and therefore an idiot.
LIZ: Well, you know, there are a few elitist touches. I mean, Mrs. Kerry – formerly Mrs. Heinz – did go someplace, to one of those fast food restaurants. And when they offered her chili she said, "What’s chili?" That’s pretty high up there for being elitist.
WHOOPI: But you know, I’m sure that these guys, these nice Republican boys, if they came down and we said, "Do you want some neck bones?" They wouldn’t know what the hell we were talking about. The people who are out of touch are the people who are doing most of the talking. Because a lot of people who are doing most of the talking are not affected by the issues that people are talking about.
JOAN: Do you mean the press?
WHOOPI: Obama may not be affected by a lot of the issues, but his wife knows what they are.
JOAN: Isn’t there also the fact that, in a country as large and as diverse as ours, it is impossible to appeal to both the guy in the backwoods with his hunting rifle and his dog, and the Hispanics in the southwest and those weird people in Maine eating very little and praying a lot.
LESLEY: No, Joan, it’s not impossible if –
WHOOPI: If they tell the truth.
LESLEY: It’s not impossible because it’s been done. And that’s what the vetting and the running for president is all about. I think that anybody really skilled needs to find a message that can bridge all of the differences. Obama started out with his message of hope, with the intention of doing that. And this new line of attack on him is meant, obviously, to portray him as somebody who doesn’t have the strength, the manliness, whatever it is – you know, he’s too "limp wrested" – to be able to lead us all. But I do think that a skillful politician can speak to everybody in the country, if they find the right message.
WHOOPI: Well only if you’re not listening to people like Rush Limbaugh. This is a guy who’s saying, "Let’s go vote for this woman so we can beat her." I mean, come on, this is a very specific kind of attack, by people who have fucked it up to start with, and won’t admit it.
LESLEY: No, but this attack isn’t coming from them. This attack is coming from inside the Democratic party.
WHOOPI: No it … it’s coming from everybody. It’s coming from everybody.
LESLEY: Well, at the moment, we’re talking about the primaries and what’s going on within the circle of the Democrats.
LIZ: You know, Lesley, it’s like two people get up and they start slugging it out. And they’ve been slugging it out now for so long that they’ve kind of turned into skeletons. And they’re still slugging it out. I mean, we have these two sort of fleshless creatures who are Democratic choices, and we’re so fed up with both of them and so fed up with the process, I think, that we’ll listen to anything. There are elitists in America, but there was a very famous one named Franklin Roosevelt, and he managed to get elected four times.
LESLEY: I know, but Obama – he wasn’t like Franklin Roosevelt, raised with a silver spoon. He had a single mother. They lived on food stamps for a while. So this is a guy who …
WHOOPI: Everybody knows that and yet this is still happening.
LESLEY: I know.
WHOOPI: Everybody knows it. And it’s because they can’t say: "Listen, we’re nervous about this guy because he’s black and we don’t know if this is going to work." They can’t say that. So they think, "Oh, well here’s what we can say …" It’s kind of like patting somebody on the head and saying, "You’re so articulate."
LIZ: Exactly. Go on, Whoopi.
LESLEY: But I don’t know if that’s what it is. I don’t. You’re saying that it’s all a substitute for racism?
WHOOPI: I think it is, a bit. And particularly, and this is going to sound crazy for angry women, angry black people, it’s all the same thing. We’ve never, ever dealt with this, so we don’t actually know what it is. We’ve never been able to have this discussion. If it was three white men, we’d know how to deal with it. But we don’t.
LESLEY: My problem with that, Whoopi, is that it’s the same attack that they made on the white guys.
WHOOPI: Yeah, but we accepted that. We accepted it. Listen, nobody said “boo” when they went after John Kerry and swift boated him. Nobody said “boo.”
LESLEY: No, I’m not talking about swift boating. I’m talking about the ridicule when he did the windsurfing. That’s what we’re talking about that’s synonymous. You know, that’s elitist.
WHOOPI: What’s insane about it, again, is no one knows what windsurfing is, so people allow themselves to be swayed. Nobody knows the reason we windsurfed all the time was actually because it was the cheapest way to be on the water.
LIZ: Well, one man’s elitist is another man’s role model and idol.
JOAN: On which beach, Whoopi?
WHOOPI: In San Diego. When I lived in San Diego. You could go to the beach in San Diego and pay, 5000 years ago, 10 bucks and get a surfboard with the little sail on it.
LESLEY: So it’s poor man’s sailing?
LIZ: But Whoopi, at least you knew what chili was, honey.
WHOOPI: Only because I knew some white people from Texas.
JOAN: But, Whoopi, what you’re actually saying is that there’s never been a black candidate before about whom anything could be said, elitist or whatever, right?
WHOOPI: Well, nobody that anybody thought could actually win. So they never thought Shirley Chisholm could win. They never thought Jesse Jackson could win. They never thought that the Rev. Al Sharpton could win. So that never happened. The same with the women. I mean, with Hillary, you know, I remember … or maybe I’m misremembering this, but I seem to remember that that was what they also used about them. That they had their elite little circle and that they were very hip and they always hung with a certain kind of person. I mean, it’s the same old shit.
LIZ: Well, you’re really right. I mean, President Clinton was made fun of because he got up and played the saxophone. There’s always something somebody doesn’t like about everyone.
LESLEY: Do any of you think that Obama could have done a more skillful job of getting out from under this attack and that he’s not very good when he’s thrown on the offensive?
WHOOPI: Yeah. Well here’s the thing: whenever she has said, "Listen that’s what he did. I’m doing this." No one ever listened.
LIZ: Well, you’re right. But I mean, that’s one of the drawbacks. This whole thing is vastly unfair. Unfair to her. Unfair to Obama.
LESLEY: But that’s the game. And I think you have to play it well.
LIZ: The way we’re electing presidents is very weird these days.
JOAN: How come there’s only one Republican candidate and there are two Democratic ones? Did I miss something?
LIZ: Well, Lesley, didn’t the Democrats just set themselves up in a different way? You can explain that.
LESLEY: Well you could, if you were a Democrat. And, of course, I don’t have opinions whatsoever. But if you were a Democrat you could argue that they had two really excellent candidates.
LIZ: Well they do.
LESLEY: And that they’ve lasted because they’re good. You could say that, if you were a Democrat.
JOAN: And if you were a Republican …
LIZ: OK, I’ll say that. I’m a Democrat.
JOAN: I’m a Democrat.