Hard-Working White People, Part III

One of the major problems with almost all of the commentary on the 2008 presidential election is that writers only pose the advantages or problems of one side as determining the winner. In fact, however, Barack Obama and John McCain are going to be running against each other and have to be continually measured against each other.

Today, the focus on some of the liberal blogs is on the problems of Obama with white, working class voters. Princeton University historian Sean Wilentz writes in Huffington Post that Democrats are courting disaster in November because of Barack Obama's unpopularity among working-class whites.

A recent Gallup poll report has argued that claims about Obama's weaknesses among white voters and blue collar voters have been exaggerated - yet its indisputable figures showed Obama running four percentage points below Kerry's anemic support among whites four years ago.

Given that Obama's vote in the primaries, apart from African-Americans, has generally come from affluent white suburbs and university towns, the Gallup figures presage a Democratic disaster among working-class white voters in November should Obama be the nominee.

Much as I support Hillary, I don't view the nomination of Barack Obama as courting disaster at all. To paraphrase Bill Parcells, Barack Obama "is what he is." He's an African-American politician who exudes smarts and charisma and he's going to appeal primarily to African-Americans, suburban whites, liberals, gays, and women. He's aiming for the many of the same targets as George McGovern and Michael Dukakis, but Obama is a much more savvy politician than either of those two. He's also emerging as the winner of an extremely tough nomination battle with Hillary Clinton. Obama has a much better chance of hitting his targets and putting together a winning coalition of voters outside the white, working-class orbit.

In my opinion, the main questions for Obama is whether he can nail down enough of the suburban vote to take Virginia, build up enough of a majority among the Hispanic vote to take New Mexico and Colorado, and appeal enough to white working-class voters to win Ohio and hang onto Pennsylvania and Michigan.

Given that McCain is likely to run a weak and disorganized campaign, I believe that Obama can accomplish those goals and win handily. But Obama's campaign has to make it happen.