Three top strategists for Al Gore and John Kerry are questioning Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) assertion that recent Democratic presidential nominees were viewed as too “elitist and out of touch” for American voters. Two of the strategists even suggested that it was Bill Clinton who did more to hurt the party while he was in the White House.

Donna Brazile, campaign manager for the Gore-Lieberman campaign; Mark Fabiani, deputy campaign manager for Gore-Lieberman; and Bob Shrum, a senior adviser to the Gore-Lieberman and Kerry-Edwards campaigns, all cited the fact that Gore won the popular vote in 2000 and Kerry nearly won it four years later.

All three strategists are neutral in the race, having yet to endorse or sign on to work for either Clinton or Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

“First of all, Gore won, but secondly, the greatest burden we had was the disillusion people had — not with the record of the Clinton administration, but with their personal feelings toward the president,” said Shrum. “And the unspoken assumption here seems to be that she’s the answer to this supposed problem, but neither she nor the president have lived in the real world for 25 years. They’re surrounded by aides and staff, and they’ve moved from one mansion to another.”

Speaking at a press conference Sunday in Scranton, Pa., Clinton was referring to recent comments made by Obama, which she said were “elitist and divisive.”

“The Democratic Party has been unfortunately viewed by many people over the last decades as being elitist and out of touch … You don’t have to think back too far to remember that good men running for president were viewed as being elitist and out of touch.”

Neither Gore nor Kerry themselves would comment.

Gore spokeswoman Kalee D. Kreider said the vice president’s office received dozens of media calls Monday about Clinton’s comment but that Gore does not wish to respond.

Kerry, at the Capitol Tuesday, also declined to comment on the matter: “I just don’t have anything to say about it.”

But that didn’t stop their surrogates from weighing in. Fabiani, who served as special counsel during Bill Clinton’s presidency and is now a communications consultant in La Jolla, Calif., said the statement was “astonishing to hear coming from a member of the Clinton family.”

“By any fair analysis, Gore did win in 2000 and the only reason he didn’t win more handily was because of the Monica Lewinsky scandal,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. The election wouldn’t have even been close. The biggest argument that George Bush made was, ‘We need to restore honor to the White House.’ There were a variety of codewords and catchphrases for it, but what he was really saying was, ‘We need to move these guys out of the Oval Office.’ ”

Brazile, currently an unpledged superdelegate whose experience on the party’s presidential campaigns dates back to 1976, said Clinton’s criticism was “too simplistic.” She said Clinton’s real point — that the Democratic Party needs to broaden its reach — is already occurring.

“Part of the problem the party has faced over the past few cycles is that our coalition has been narrowly tailored [to] voters in certain states,” Brazile said. “Every election cycle, we were giving Republicans upwards of 25 states by focusing on the East and West coasts and some places in Middle America. That’s not being out of touch; it’s just that there was a significant but limited set of states we were competing in. That’s changed now. There is a 50-state strategy.”

Like Fabiani and Shrum, Brazile also said Clinton’s statement “doesn’t particularly help.”

“The Republicans painted a caricature of both Kerry and Gore as being elitist and out of touch, and they will make that argument until the cows come home,” Brazile said. “It doesn’t particularly help to make that claim now, but it comes up every political season, being out of touch. Are we going back to the ‘have-a-beer-with-the-guy’ kind of campaign?”

Clinton spokesman Mo Elleithee said the senator wasn’t referring to her own views about Gore and Kerry, but to how the Republican Party was able to sell that critical view to voters.

“She was talking about what ended up happening,” Elleithee said. “It’s no secret that the Republican Party pulls no punches and is willing to tear good men apart by questioning their patriotism, character and faith.”

Fabiani and Shrum acknowledged that Gore and Kerry struggled with the media’s portrayal of them as aloof and distant from real voters, but said it played no real significant role in the fate of the campaigns.

“There is almost no statistical support for the idea that that determines people’s votes,” Shrum said. “People in the end want to know where you stand, what you believe, what kind of character you have. And I find it ironic that Obama was raised by a single mother and has paid off his student loans and now faces this. This is the elite commenting on what it means to be elite.”