ELECTION 2008: Pennsylvania questions
By Mary Anna Towler on Apr. 23rd, 2008 at 7:19am 4 Comments
Everybody will be drawing lessons from Hillary Clinton's win in Pennsylvania. For me, the result - particularly the 10 point spread - raises two important questions:
1) Why hasn't Barack Obama been able to win the support of white, middle-class voters?
Obama had plenty of time to do it 
in Pennsylvania. And he spent plenty of money trying. It's demeaning of those voters to say they voted for Clinton because they like a candidate who can throw back a shot of whiskey. There's something much deeper at play, and the Obama campaign hasn't figured out what it is and how to deal with it. It's very late in the game to be finding out.
During the Bush-Kerry campaign, my husband and I happened to spend a week vacationing in Montana. The Bush campaign's efforts to paint Kerry as elitist was at its highest, and one night we ended up at a bar packed with rural Montanans. Both of us were struck by the thought that Kerry would really seem out of place there. He might dress like the men in the bar, but they'd know the difference.
All of us are most comfortable with people who seem like us. Middle-class, working-class Americans seem to think that Clinton is simply like them - more like them than Barack Obama is.
We've had presidents who were clearly "elitist" personality types before - Franklin Roosevelt for instance. His personality, his accent, his whole persona didn't seem to hurt his popularity. And you'd think that after seven years of George Bush, people wouldn't think that a good-old-boy personality was a qualification for serving.
But Obama, for all of his fund-raising and large crowds and eloquent speeches, hasn't convinced a key segment of the Democratic voters that he'd make a better president than Hillary Clinton. For Obama supporters, yesterday was decidedly not a good day.
2) Can Hillary Clinton win the support of young, disaffected voters? I'd bet that older Obama supporters will quickly line up behind Clinton if she's the nominee. We might not be happy about it, but we know the difference between John McCain and Clinton. Younger voters I'm not so sure about. And to lose them would be a tragedy.
User Comments
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Ken Preston on April 23rd, 2008
I believe it's fear of the unknown. Hillary is vetted. Barack is new on the scene, a unknown to most. In the end most folks will go with the devil they know. I hope I am wrong on this. We need Barack.
jack kashinsky on April 24th, 2008
The only Battleground State that Obama has won is IL. This may be more of a function of the Daley Political machine than Obama's ability to draw the votes. Other than this, Hillary has clearly demonstrated that she, as Bill, can win in these states. This occures because these States have large numbers of Blue Collar Voters(Regan Democrats) and even larger numbers of Swing Voters. Hillary, like Bill, is a Liberal-Centrist. The Swing voters are located slightly right ov center. This makes Hillary more appealing that Obama who runs with the radical Dem. Lefties. This is the reason why Hillary is much better positioned to win the Presidential Election than Obama.
Emmanuel Winner on April 24th, 2008
Jack, you are so not with it, you have your buzzwords confused. "The only Battleground State that Obama has won is IL"
What kind of nonsense is that? - you wanted to say "the only Blue state -" but the confusion is because he has won almost all "Battleground states," and since most of the "Blue states" are going Democratic no matter what, then Obama has demonstrated his national electability. However, the whole Clinton spiel is based on the principle "say anything, believe nothing;" so you couldn't allow yourself to believe the obvious, and you couldn't care enough to form a reasonable argument. Hence the confusion, born of carelessness.
I beg you to reconsider before it's too late for all who reject the Bush Cheney ethos - (I assume that you do, even though I know Hillary does not).
Marie Gibson on April 25th, 2008
Frankly my dear, the men have had 232 years to rule over this country and in the last 8 years we've been buried into the ground both financially, and emotionally. I believe it's time for a woman to do some cleaning up and community building, because it's what we do so very well. I'm tired the of mud-slinging and rhetoric and the throwing campaign dollars to the wind. Granny D walked across America at age 89 for campaign reform. Look at us today.