Ladies and gentlemen, Bill Clinton:

“I think there is a big reason there’s an age difference in a lot of these polls,” said Bill. “Because once you’ve reached a certain age, you won’t sit there and listen to somebody tell you there’s really no difference between what happened in the Bush years and the Clinton years; that there’s not much difference in how small-town Pennsylvania fared when I was president, and in this decade.”

While nobody has suggested that there was “no difference” between his Presidency and George W’s, and while, in fact, on trade and economic issues Bill was perfectly happy to GATT it up with NAFTA, China Free Trade, etc, that’s not even the point here. In an increasingly disturbing campaign season, there have been few more obnoxious assertions than those, from the Buffenbargers of the world, for example, claiming that Obama’s supporters are just a bunch of wide-eyed college students, as if his ability to energize young voters (of both genders, in addition to a coalition broad enough to have him winning the popular vote and the delegate count thus far) means that he is somehow insubstantial or even dangerous.

The idea that young voters are somehow scary or threatening is boomer dog-whistle politics, conjuring memories of counter-culture turmoil despite the reality of Gen Y/Q’s commitment to service and change, and relative lack of interest in 20th century-style revolution. It’s another pile of political doody from the mouth of eminence-turned-hack Bill. And it’s part of a strategy that will end up leaving the Democrats looking like Carthage in the wake of the general.

More toolery, from the Boston Herald:

Despite press coverage about how historic a campaign this is, Clinton said, “the history doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. All that matters is the future. Who will make the best future for you?”

And later, after he had run through, in great detail, the ins and outs of America’s foreign and domestic policy challenges, Clinton returned to the theme of substance versus abstraction. Hillary Clinton, he said, would be a “servant leader,” and voters had to decide whether that was more important than electing a “symbolic leader.” “You gotta decide,” he said, as if he had laid out even arguments for each.

“Servant leader” my fanny. What Bill is doing here is kindo like the “fancy words and speeches” 2.0 attack. Its an attempt to undercut Obama’s message of change. First it was: “change comes from fighting, not from talking.” Now it’s “Obama only represents symbolic change, not anything real.”

Policy differences (and similarities, by and large) aside, Obama is light years from Clinton on actually putting his money where his mouth is: speaking honestly, running a clean campaign and not taking money from Corporate PACS and lobbyists. It’s the message he has used effectively through the whol campaign: changing our policies necessarily means changing our political culture.

It is there that Obama contrasts starkly, and particularly favorably, with Clinton, and even more so with McCain. And that’s exactly where the Dems NEED to be. This is a change election. A broad swath of the country wants a new direction, and theyt want a new leader to take us there.

Undercutting change is basically the stupidest thing the democrats could possibly do.

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