Did you even bother to read this thread? Yeah, candidates have “supportive friends”–they’re called campaign contributors, and they’re not exactly a new phenomenon.
Ronald Reagan grew up poor. Not ‘dirt-poor’, but definitely lower middle class. His father was an itinerant shoe salesman, and the family had to move repeatedly for Dad to find work. They were described as always having to work hard just to pay the bills, and eventually located in a small town.
Reagan didn’t begin to be comfortably well off until well into his adulthood - his 40’s, probably. Before then, he worked as a radio announcer at a small station and then as a contract actor in Hollywood, which didn’t pay all that well back then.
“Lower middle class” does not equal “poor.”
Well, it sounds like he was less well off than Clinton. Having to repeatedly move so your Dad can scrape together enough money to pay the bills would really suck.
And don’t forget - Reagan and Nixon grew up in the depression. I imagine their definition of ‘poor’ was slightly different than Baby Boomer Bill’s.