Thinking About November
May 9th, 2008 at 6:39 pm by Susie
What about polls that still seem to give John McCain a good chance of winning? Pay no attention, say the experts: general election polls this early tell you almost nothing about what will happen in November. Remember 1992: as late as June, Gallup put Ross Perot in first place, Bill Clinton in third.
There’s just one thing that should give Democrats pause — but it’s a big one: the fight for the nomination has divided the party along class and race lines in a way that I believe is unprecedented, at least in modern times.
Ironically, much of Mr. Obama’s initial appeal was the hope that he could transcend these divisions. At first, voting patterns seemed consistent with this hope. In February, for example, he received the support of half of Virginia’s white voters as well as that of a huge majority of African-Americans.
But this week, Mr. Obama, while continuing to win huge African-American majorities, lost North Carolina whites by 23 points, Indiana whites by 22 points. Mr. Obama’s white support continues to be concentrated among the highly educated; there was little in Tuesday’s results to suggest that his problems with working-class whites have significantly diminished.
Discussions of how and why Mr. Obama’s support narrowed over time have a Rashomon-like quality: different observers see very different truths. But at this point it doesn’t matter whose fault it was. What does matter is that Mr. Obama appears to have won the nomination with a deep but narrow base consisting of African-Americans and highly educated whites. And now he needs to bring Democrats who opposed him back into the fold.
It’s possible that this will happen automatically — that bad feelings from the nomination fight will fade away of their own accord. In recent decades, Democrats have had little trouble unifying after hard-fought primary campaigns.
But this time the division seems to go deeper than ordinary political rivalry. The closest parallel I can think of is the bitter intraparty struggles of the 1920s, which pitted urban, often Catholic Democrats against Protestant farmers.
So what can be done to heal the party’s current divisions?
More tirades from Obama supporters against Mrs. Clinton are not the answer — they will only further alienate her grass-roots supporters, many of whom feel that she received a raw deal.
Nor is it helpful to insult the groups that supported Mrs. Clinton, either by suggesting that racism was their only motivation or by minimizing their importance.
After the Pennsylvania primary, David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s campaign manager, airily dismissed concerns about working-class whites, saying that they have “gone to the Republican nominee for many elections.” On Tuesday night, Donna Brazile, the Democratic strategist, declared that “we don’t have to just rely on white blue-collar voters and Hispanics.” That sort of thing has to stop.
One thing the Democrats definitely need to do is give delegates from Florida and Michigan — representatives of citizens who voted in good faith, and whose support the party may well need this November — seats at the convention.
And to the extent that campaigning matters, Mr. Obama should center his campaign on economic issues that matter to working-class families, whatever their race.
The point is that Mr. Obama has an extraordinary opportunity in this year’s election. He should do everything possible to avoid squandering it.
Krugman writes:
I think I saw a working class person in Whole Foods the other day.
Obama is the lefts George W. Bush…I saw it in the debates..he has a speech and a basic idea and after that nothing. We on the D side (I’m independent) deserve this kind of vacous and misogynistic candidate…I can’t believe I am going to vote for McCain…but I cannot in good heart allow the arrogant left choose my nominee in some phony stacked caucus.
“We have to destroy the village in order to save it….”..ugh, maybe true
I’m independent
And where do your candidates come from, do you pull them out of your ass?
can I play too???
my previous post commented on how the dem turnout is beyond record levels.
SCARY FACTS FOR REPUBLICANS: Per the DNC Memo, “In fact, in seven counties in Ohio—Putnam, Brown, Shelby, Belmont, Warren, Delaware, and Clarmont—the vote totals for our two Democratic candidates in the 2008 primary exceeded the votes for John Kerry in the general election in each of those counties.”
Sure, some were hrc supporters but are we to pretend they all won’t vote Dem in the GE? mending will take place over time - reality will take root and OB donors, volunteers, and money-generation machine will bring the dems together to trounce mccrazytime.
Some may chose to not play or direct their vote to someone else…I understand - I would not have voted for hrc if she won (past tense). altho you all would chime on about how could I want mccrazylegs to have a chance; come to the party; fight for progress…you know all the stuff a few have been pleading here the last three days…I have faith OB will attempt to reconcile when the time is right and it can be reciprocated…(there’s the key, my friends…it takes two to mend)…
I think the 50 state program the Obama’s campaign is rolling out this week will take a lot of local Republican organizations by surprise. Another thing they will not expect is how hard and fast Obama will hit back at swiftboating when it doesn’t come from within his own party.
Pity he’s rolling out a 50-state strategy for the general when he hasn’t dealt with the 48-state primary.
Herbert:
There is, indeed. There was a name for it when the Republicans were using that kind of lousy rhetoric to good effect: it was called the Southern strategy, although it was hardly limited to the South. Now the Clintons, in their desperation to find some way — any way — back to the White House, have leapt aboard that sorry train.
He can’t win! Don’t you understand? He’s black! He’s black!
Shame on you!
another factor that krugman has not taken into consideration is the amazingly short attention span of the american public. do you remember the stuff we were obsessing about in december? i barely do. a side effect of the 24 hour news cycle is that when a lot of stuff gets reported at once, we quickly put behind us things that didn’t happen all that long ago. that works to obama and the democrats’ advantage in terms of bringing the party together.
Obama picks up eight superdelegates; Clinton unveils PowerPoint presentation
good luck!
Meanwhile, Hanging With the Hard Working White Folk
“I think it’s just great that she’s staying in,” Frisby told me. He isn’t a big fan of Obama. He’s heard Obama won’t sing the national anthem, that he considers it a war song. “How good an American could he be if that’s his way of thinking?” Frisby asked. “His patriotism goes one way—that’s his way.”
How did Frisby hear about Obama’s dislike of the national anthem? You guess it: By email.
“I think I saw a working class person in Whole Foods the other day.”
Lambert! You shop at Whole Foods? ^_^ Meet’cha at the juice bar, we can converse in proletarian!
I do agree that Obama should focus his national campaign on Dem voters’ bread and butter issues … or guns and butter! Obama should go right out and embrace the NRA, even though he won’t get their endorsement and McCain will. Yes, I’m serious. And he should do this in the frame that he will PROTECT THE BILL OF RIGHTS AND THE CONSTITUTION against all assaults! That sounds damn American, and it is damn American. BushCo Inc. has been trying to rewrite and dismantle the Constitution, and I believe it’s a winning formula to stand up against that, and against McCain, who’s the BushCo successor. And incorporate the gun issue into that - this is not the time to push gun control, it’s an issue that could lose Obama the election. So let it go, there are bigger fish to fry, and … protect the bill of rights!
i think I saw a yuppie at the port richmond thriftway…
Lambert! You shop at Whole Foods? ^_^ Meet’cha at the juice bar, we can converse in proletarian!
No shit, I thought he’d be buying ham hocks, mustard greens and green tomato chow chow at the Piggly Wiggly.
A suggestion:
Let’s call off the democratic civil war. Stop posting anti Obama tirades, stop worrying if a black man can win the general election, stop pretending that the nominee will not be Obama.
If you don’t want to use your blog to support the democratic nominee, fine but stop attacking him. Is that too hard?
Yours In Christ Where There is No East or West
The Right Reverend Blind Arugala TurnipHead
Might be nice if the Obots turned off the misogyny.
Might be nice if Clinton supporters dropped the juvenile nicknames for Obama supporters. Unless doing Rush Limbaughs job is your goal.
Of course any one can find any excuse to not face reality. You can claim special math that comforts your bruised expectations. You can use people’s prejudice to excuse your own fears. You can claim offense when done have been given.
But these are all excuses. The primary is over, Senator Obama has won. He is not a misogynist, he is not the enemy.
The order is Rapidly fadin’
The Right Reverend Blind Arugala TurnipHead
It was Clinton who implied white working class, hard working white voters (you know) were voting according to racist tendencies, not Obama.
The primaries are *not* over.
In past years the backroom deals made most of the American votes in primaries superfluous. This year, they aren’t.
Cgeye @ 19: “The primaries are *not* over. In past years the backroom deals made most of the American votes in primaries superfluous. This year, they aren’t.”
Congratulations: that is the most perfectly, symmetrically incorrect statement I’ve yet read from any Clinton supporter. In years past votes in primaries ended the races before the backrooms of the convention could become a factor. This time around the only hope you and your fellow travelers have left to overturn the votes of the rabble is by having Super Delegates – being courted in back rooms – hand the election to Clinton.
Zuzu,
Rather than complaining about misogny, maybe Hillbots should stop hiding behind her gender and acknowledge her weaknesses as a candidate, starting with the way she’s mismanaged her campaign. She’s displayed the same problems-relying on an inexperienced inner circle-that helped her derail health care in the Nineties.
Also, in regard to what Krugman wrote, am I the only one who noticed that Senator Clinton did not have much to say about the exclusion of Michigan and Florida until it became clear she couldn’t win without them? Indeed, as was noted on today’s Face the Nation, Terry MacAuliffe, one of her supporters, threatened to strip Michigan of delegates for the same offense when he was DNC chairman.
I saw a werewolf in the WaWa last night.
His hair was perfect! Aooow, werewolves of WaWa.