Clinton: 'Gilded class' in 'Rust Belt'

by Glenn Thrush

On the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, Hillary Rodham Clinton flew to Memphis, Tenn., where she called for the appointment of a Cabinet-level "poverty czar" to cope with the economic downturn.

Shortly thereafter - at the bury-the-news hour of 4:05 p.m. on a Friday - staffers released Bill and Hillary Clinton's 2000-2006 tax returns showing that the couple earned a not very working-class $109 million.

Clinton, a member of the gilded class clinging to a Rust Belt base, had long delayed disclosing details of her fortune, for fear of driving blue-collar and low-income voters to Barack Obama. The Illinois senator and his wife have earned about 4 percent of the Clintons' income during the past seven years.

But some political observers now say Clinton's procrastination was self-defeating because the release of the returns comes so close to the make-or-break April 22 Pennsylvania primary - and within days of the dreaded April 15 Internal Revenue Service filing deadline.

"The timing of this was just silly," said Chris Borick, director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion in Nazareth, Pa. "They were sandbagging. ... They would have been much better off getting rid of it earlier in the cycle."

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University of Pennsylvania professor Marie Gottschalk, who studies presidential politics, said, "I know she wanted to minimize the impact, but it may have more resonance now because it's tax time and people are a lot more agitated and focused."

Clinton leads Obama by about 7 points in Pennsylvania polls, about half her margin a month ago, according to the poll-tracking Web site Realclearpolitics.com. Clinton does best among white working-class voters in the western and central parts of the states; Obama is strongest in Philadelphia and the east.

"The returns will have zero impact on Pennsylvania," said Clinton communications chief Howard Wolfson. "There's a long history of successful politicians in this country who achieved financial success and still cared enormously about the issues of working people and implemented policies to assist them. Neither Bill nor Hillary were born with wealth."

The former first lady, who earned about $11 million in the past seven years largely from book royalties, seems to have history on her side. Many progressive Democrats have been rich, including Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, John Kerry and John Edwards.

The magnitude of Clinton's wealth has been widely known since the couple released Senate disclosure forms last year revealing Bill Clinton's staggering income from speeches and book advances, which catapulted them from near-insolvency to a $50-million net worth.

Still, the returns raise questions about the former president's business connections with two high-profile businessmen, Ron Burkle, a billionaire investor with longstanding connection to the rulers of Dubai, and Vinod Gupta, founder of database vendor InfoUSA.

Since 2003, Clinton has been paid about $15 million by the Yucaipa Cos. investment firm run by Burkle for providing "his best advice on potential investments" and for advocating "generally on behalf of the funds," according to a spokesman for the Clintons.

The records also show he's been paid $800,000 by Gupta's firm, which has been accused of selling call lists to predatory telemarketers. Lawyers for some InfoUSA investors last year claimed Bill Clinton had been guaranteed $3.3 million.

A spokesman for the Clintons didn't reply to requests for an explanation of the discrepancy.

The campaign did clear up one mystery from the returns: the purchase and quick sale of a $500,000 condo in 2004 near the Clintons' Chappaqua home.

The Clintons bought the unit for the senator's mother, Dorothy Rodham, before she decided to move to the family's Washington, D.C., residence according to a spokesman.