Karl Rove’s Strategy for Attacking Obama -How Democrats Can Respond

This piece by Democratic communications analyst James Vega was originally published on August 8, 2008 in "The democratic strategist," and is of the greatest interest today, on the eve of Republican Convention's opening in St.Paul (MN).

______

With the recent appointment of Steven Schmidt and several other staffers to the highest levels of the McCain campaign, the political protégés of Karl Rove have now taken almost complete control. As a result Rove’s basic political strategy has been elevated to the core approach of the campaign.

At its heart, Karl Rove’s approach for the last 20 years has been an essentially class-based attack on Democrats – one that portrays them as representing an out-of-touch, educated elite who have little in common with average Americans. In this strategy, individual Democrats are not simply wrong about specific issues; their errors all arise from deep, pathological defects in their basic values and character.

This general strategy can be traced back to the campaigns of Richard Nixon and George Wallace in 1968 and 1972. But one of Rove’s distinct additions was to recognize that attacks on a candidates’ character must be psychologically plausible – they must be fine-tuned to exploit weaknesses the opposing candidate actually appears to reflect in his behavior.

In this regard, Rove has always had an exceptionally sinister aptitude (one that is reminiscent of Hannibal Lector’s perverse but penetrating form of psychological insight) for being able to recognize subtle human weaknesses and frailties. For example, although Al Gore and John Kerry were both products of relatively advantaged, prep school environments and were clearly not working class “ordinary guys”, they were nonetheless quite distinct. On the one hand Gore was vulnerable to being portrayed as somewhat pompous, self-important and egotistic. Kerry, in contrast, invited the caricature of being a long-winded, detached, emotionally remote New England Yankee. The overall class-based frame worked for both men, but the political hit-man’s art lay in recognizing and exploiting the subtle variations between them.

Obama presents an even more complex challenge. Although meditative, professorial, articulate and elegant, he nonetheless does not fit the image of a typical left-wing college professor (or, for that matter, of a Black militant, a well-to-do New York limousine liberal or corrupt Chicago pol).

The solution the Rove team developed, only days after taking control of the McCain campaign, was to portray Obama as a resident of the rarified world of the “Hollywood movie star liberals” – a pampered universe of exclusive health and exercise clubs, expensive hotel suites and fancy bottled water. The implication was that, like other Hollywood stars, Obama must be “self-infatuated and effete” or “vain and out of touch” or “effete, elite and equivocal” – in short, a weak and vain man without real character; a male fashion model living a movie stars’ life and not the real life of ordinary Americans.

This class-based caricature of Obama is important for the McCain campaign because it provides a critical psychological, character-based foundation to support a very disparate set of accusations – that he does not really care about America’s solders, that he lacks real patriotism, that he “plays the race card” and so on. Using this “typical Hollywood liberal” stereotype, it is not even necessary to explicitly contrast Obama with the “heartland virtues” of John McCain who the Rove team directly links with such traditional movie-hero figures as John Wayne.

How can Obama best respond to this line of attack? The kernel of truth which the attack exploits is the fact that Obama is most obviously not an “ordinary” or “average” guy in any meaningful way and any attempt on his part to present himself as such necessarily appears completely unconvincing and condescending.

But it is a profound misunderstanding of “ordinary people” to think that they require a candidate to exactly resemble them in order for him or her to win their respect and support. On the contrary, individuals who excel and achieve success through hard work, perseverance and dedication are greatly admired by most Americans, so long as they continue to genuinely respect and care about ordinary voters if they enter political life. Average voters genuinely admire upward mobility and success if it is honestly and honorably achieved.

And in fact, Obama’s life story provides a powerful core narrative that supports precisely this alternative way of understanding him. It is composed of three elements:

1. A far from easy or pampered early life and a youth marked by confusion, mistakes, bad choices and lack of direction.

2. A remarkable personal turn-around, build on the foundation of the incredibly hard work, perseverance and dedication that is required to get a law degree at a top university.

3. A decision to turn his back on the “easy life” of a professor or private attorney and to try instead to find a role of service to the community.

This is simply not the life story of a typical pampered Hollywood star or vacuous celebrity. On the contrary, it is a quintessentially American success story of youthful error followed by redemption and success through hard work and an ultimate decision to seek a way to contribute to society.

The McCain campaign’s attempt to fit Obama into the “vacuous Hollywood star” framework simply will not stick if Obama’s unique biography can be correctly presented. Between now and the convention, Democrats must make a coordinated and concerted effort to define a simple core narrative along these lines – one that can be driven home every single time the McCain campaign attempts to stigmatize Obama with their utterly fraudulent depiction of his character.

____

Will Obama Say Something About Wages?

Among political scientists, it is a truism that many working-class white men left the Democratic Party in 1968, voted largely Republican in 1972, came back home for a moment in 1976, and switched to Ronald Reagan in 1980. Many pundits think that Bill Clinton "won many of them back to the Democratic Party in 1992," but data do not support this opinion. Exit polls actually show that in 1992 Bill Clinton won about the same share of white men as Michael Dukakis in 1988. It was Ross Perot who moved many of them away from the Republican candidate and undid George H.W. Bush.
Now it appears that, with Barack Obama heading the Democratic ticket, the party's trouble with working-class whites remains. Stan Greenberg (Bill Clinton's pollster) returned to working-class Macomb County, Detroit's suburb, a month ago for a new round of polling and focus groups.
According to Harold Meyerson's report in today's Washington Post the economic anxiety has skyrocketed -- understandably enough, with the auto industry in shambles and not much coming along to take its place. Their No. 1 concern is the off shoring of jobs, with rising gas, food and health-care costs running a close second. Their ideal presidential candidate, Greenberg says, would be an "outsider, middle-class" senator who expresses their anger at their betrayal by America's economic and political elites. And race is still a key hurdle for many residents.
In Greenberg's survey of Macomb, Obama is trailing John McCain by 7 percentage points, which in fact means that he's doing better at this point of the campaign than John Kerry and Al Gore were doing four and eight years ago. But that may not be enough to win in key States like Michigan, Ohio and Indiana. According to Princeton's Larry Bartels, outside the territory of the 11 Confederate States, "the Democratic share of the two-party presidential vote among white men was 40% in 1952 and 39% in 2004."
One must realize that Democrats have been the party of minorities since 1972, and they did not really compete for white men since the Ford-Carter race in 1976. In 2008, with the Republican Party and its standard bearer remarkably unpopular, a war led by Republicans that has lasted longer than Second World War, during a struggling economy, and at the 40-year mark of the Republican majority (no presidential coalition has ever lasted more than four decades: the New Deal one survived only 36), Democrats have their best opportunity in a generation.
This year, white men initially backed Hillary Clinton: their first instinct was to be with the front runner. But unlike white women, as Obama became more widely known, white men had no stake in the symbolism of her candidacy. Therefore, they were more willing to swing to the senator of Illinois.
Many of these men casting Democratic ballots today are of the 37 percent of white males who voted for John Kerry in 2004, a share of the vote that left the Democratic candidate 3 million votes behind George Bush. Yet, so far Obama doesn't know exactly how to reach out to them, a problem critical to a victory in November. In John McCain, the Democrats find a daunting opponent in competing for white men's vote. He is the embodiment of much they admire.
A simple look at the 2004 exit polls provides a telling lesson for Obama.Using education level as an indicator of social class, you find that white male Democrats without college educations are roughly three times more likely than those who graduated college to value that the candidate who "cares about people like me." In comparison, those who graduated college are roughly three times more likely than those who did not value that the candidate "is intelligent." White male Democrats who graduated college were also three times more likely to say the issue that mattered most was the war in Iraq, where Obama benefited from his early stance against the war. It is no surprise that they would be more sympathetic to Obama today.
It will be this presidential election that tests whether Democrats can turn working class men’s frustration with Republicans into a new majority. In order to to that, however, they must offer something more than platitudes on the economy: it's the big issue of deepening economic inequality that the Democrats must confront. Will Obama say something about raising wages?

______________

Angry Democratic White Men/3 - an Interview with Michael Katz

Michael B. Katz is Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania. He is considered one of America’s leading experts on the history of social welfare, poverty and inequality. Professor Katz spoke with Marco Polo Review of Books about the issue of racism and how it might affect Democratic candidate Barack Obama.

Marco Polo (MP): There has been much talking recently about Barack Obama’s problem with white working class voters. Do you think that this is true at the national level or are his difficulties with this particular constituency regionally-based?
Michael Katz (MK): My sense is that it may be a problem in general with white working class voters but I suspect that it is more extreme and regionally concentrated in some areas, such as rural areas and Southern states. Basically we are talking about those places with a history of slavery and confederation, where I think racism lingers, especially among less educated people.

MP: How much do you think these problems could affect the general elections and the race against John McCain? Is it something the Democratic Party should seriously worry about? And could it be an issue that might convince super-delegates to endorse Clinton against the results of the primaries?
MK: My suspicion is that if Obama wins the greater number of delegates, the majority of leaders and officials of the Democratic Party will move behind him and mobilize in those areas where he has been weak. In the cities this would be easier to do because there are more established Democratic machines and voters could be rallied more easily. As far as white working class voters that seem hostile to Obama, their influence in the general election will depend on the state where they are located, what percentage of the population they comprise and if they will turn out to vote. In the last analysis, these people will really have to ask themselves if they want to vote for a Republican, considering the state of things now, between the Iraq war, the economy, gas prices, and the housing crisis. I think it will be very hard for them to make such choice. Then there is the other side of the issue as well, or the disgruntled Republicans. Yesterday I read an interesting piece on The Nation which pointed out that in a number of primaries, Republicans chose to vote in the Democratic contest and over 70% of them cast a ballot for Obama.
So, I think these will be very complicated elections; on one hand there will be white working class Democrats that could go Republican. On the other, there could be those frustrated Rockefeller-type Republicans that might go Democratic.
And, we should consider that there might be a slight decline in white working class voters’ turnout, but other than that there will be a huge participation among African Americans and young people. Obama has this way of mobilizing people that is incredible.

MP: What kind of an African American would you say Barack Obama is? How black is he?
MK: It is not a question of how black he is; it is a question of how street he is. And he is not street. He is a highly educated, articulate, handsome, presentable American and, let’s put it this way, I think that most Americans that would be uncomfortable with Jesse Jackson would be comfortable with Obama.

MP: Considering his peculiar profile and personal history, do you think Barack Obama should be viewed as a symbol of real change in America, of the end of an era of segregation and discrimination? How much instead is he just an exception?

MK: I honestly think that his candidature is a momentous development because, it is true, he does have a white mother and an unusual upbringing, but he is cast in the mind of the public as an African American, that is how people look at him. The fact that an African American could very well be the next President is unprecedented; something that ten years ago I would not have imagined could happen in my lifetime. But it can only be an African American who has Obama’s characteristics, well spoken and highly educated. It could not be someone like Al Sharpton.

MP: Because of his mixed racial heritage, his international background and his degrees from Ivy League universities, would you say that there could be doubts about Barack Obama within the African-American community itself?

MK: There was some discussion of it earlier, about the fact that Obama wasn’t black enough. But then people have come around. The African-American population in general has a very mixed background, and the homogenous view that is normally cast is simplistic and racist. Obama falls within this group.

MP: In conclusion, what do you think will be the biggest challenges for Barack Obama in running for President of the US?
MK: I do share the worry of many people that he might be a target for assassination. This is true for Hillary Clinton too. I think every President is, but there are hardcore racist people and hardcore misogynist people. I don’t think that this should stop him from running or people from supporting him. But I hope his security is well taken care of. Just think about those doctors who perform abortion and how heavily they are targeted by groups of extremists.
Secondly, he will have to unite the Democratic Party. He has to win over the people that have been Hillary Clinton supporters and he has to make them enthusiastic and get them to work for him and to go vote. I think Clinton will come around and she will support him wholeheartedly.
In the end, the two elements that will decide the race are, on one hand, the attraction for Obama, which is very great. On the other, there is the repulsion for Bush. So the next thing to watch in this election is how successful John McCain will be in distancing himself from Bush. But Republicans have a terrible record right now.

Angry Democratic White Men/2

What is important, in these comments by angry supporters of John Edwards, is the extent of their resentment, and their willingness to accept the rumors, half-truths, and complete fabrications spread during a presidential campaign. We must remember that these people certainly are part of the most active voters, not uninvolved citizens prone to swallow any lie that surfaces on the Internet. This is another comment posted on the ABC blog: “At the end of the day, the core preoccupation about our floundering Democracy lies in the issue of consistency and integrity. John Edwards knows that Obama is the ‘offspring’ of Chicago’s corrupt political machine, but he still supports him. John Edwards understands that Obama has personally funded, via his directorship in the Woodsfund, terrorist sympathizers (Khalidi and others) who claim that SUICIDE BOMBING is a legitimate method of resistance fighting (even if used against school children). John Edwards also knows that Obama is completely unprepared to become Commander in Chief, something to which he had continuously alluded to in multiple interviews, nevertheless, we now have him riding this faux pony all the way to the White House.”

Another participant takes issue with the perks of politicians: “I had heard on my local CBS radio station today that local US congressmen even charge the taxpayers for gasoline. So, on top of the best health care in the world, we pay the $4/gal gas for their SUVs. Yes, SUVs. Then they have the gall to lecture us about our polluting the air.”

Some readers try to defend Edwards’ endorsement of Obama: “I do not care how win the nommination!obama or clinton.democrat have to win,in november” but the majority vents its anger at his repudiation of Hillary Clinton: “John Edwards lies like a rug! I would not trust him anymore than I would Barack Obama or any other Democratic bully boys! Edward's funny timing endorcement for Sen Barack Obama amazes me, especially right after Hillary's landslide victory in West Virginia. GO-Go Sen. Hillary Clinton in '08....” and this: “John Edwards what a snake. Elizabeth [Edwards] must be really proud of your endorsement of Osama right now. I had thought better of you. Guess a lot of people were wrong about what you really stood for. Sad.”

And another one: “Does Edwards really believes that the American people are so stupid as to buy into his story that there was no deal cut to endorse Obama? He is just an opportunist who ran away from the North Carolina Senate reelection because he knew he would have never been reelected.”

The threat to jump ship in November is crystal clear: “Edwards has gone to being a man for the people to supporting elitists. You go figure. I am voting for McCain Well I think I am just not voting.”

There are some responses:”All of you so called "democrats" who insist that if Obama gets the nomination then you will vote for McCain in the fall. Well, you'll show them huh? Then we will have a 3rd term of Bush as if the country had not had enough already. WOW just because the nominee that some democrats wanted Hillary isn't going to get the nomination doesn't mean that you should switch parties. What are you accomplishing? If you vote out of anger and not on the issues then you are only hurting yourselves.”

Nevertheless, the split in the party is there and it is clearly dangerous in some swing States needed to create a majority in the electoral college: Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan. While it is technically possible, for Obama, to get 270 electoral votes and win without Ohio (if he prevails in some western States like Nebraska, Montana, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico) he definitely need Pennsylvania and Michigan, where many low-income white families do think along the lines we described above.

Angry Democratic White Men/1

A number of high-profile political figures like Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, governor of New York David Paterson have brought black politicians in the spotlight, and created the impression that the color of skin is no more a factor in the mind of voters. Unfortunately, this is wrong: most of these high-profile figures have been appointed, not elected, and it makes an enormous difference when someone must present himself to the judgment of citizens. The depth of resentment against “elitist” politicians, and the extent of hidden racism among white voters is apparent in the comments published by an ABC blog after John Edward’s endorsement of Obama.

Dozens, probably hundreds of Edward’s supporters rebelled against this choice, flatly ignoring the fact that Obama’ political positions are very close to those of their preferred candidate. Edward was at the far left of the political spectrum, but nevertheless he is a white Southerner, and this is what many of his fans had to say (I keep the original spelling for authenticity): “Obama is a superficial, arrogant individual who is dangerous. He said he is here to unite.. but he is here to destroy. A uniter doesn't go to the San Francisco elite fundraisers and talk behind America's back.”

Another one, referring to Obama and Edwards together on stage: “Actually both of them look quite effeminate. Maybe I would call them a lesbian couple??? No offense to the real lesbian intended.” The fact that both Edward and Obama are happily married with children didn’t prevent another angry voter from writing: “Maybe wants more $400 haircuts. is he gay?" Many were convinced that Obama paid the endorsement promising future appointments to Edwards: “No deal was cut? Yeah, I sure believe that. And to think Edwards used to be my guy.” Another one: Edwards is a traitor to the American working class that he teared up about. Political bull****. He is a traitor to West Virginia who chose who they believe will better represent them and help them. I cannot get over how out of touch these dems have become. Hello Edwards - you just betrayed the memory of your father.” And one more: He didn't endorse barack obama just for the sake of endorsing him. Like Bill richardson, edwards has an motive. Unfortunately for them, Barack Hussien Obama will never be president.”

Other contributors to the blog mocked the Democratic party: “Politics of Change! Ha,ha,ha,ha,ha. Politics of Change! Ha,ha,ha,ha,ha. Politics of Change! Ha,ha,ha,ha,ha. This is Obama's New Washington! Kennedy – Loser. Kerry – Loser. Richardson – Loser. Dean – Loser. Edwards – Loser.” (more).

"The math is controlling. This race, I believe, is over”

After Hillary Clinton's victory in West Virginia, former Governor of Colorado Roy Romer, said that he endorsed Obama because "The math is controlling." And indeed it is so: the race is over, comments by Howard Wolfson, Clinton’s communications director, notwithstanding. Wolfson said Tuesday: “I think superdelegates who have been moving toward Barack Obama in the last week are going to wake up tomorrow and say, ‘I’m a little concerned about the fact that our nominee, presumptive nominee, can’t win West Virginia. I’m a little concerned that he can’t win Pennsylvania or Ohio, or Michigan, or Florida."

Well, Wolfson might be correct, but up to a point: Superdelegates are cold-blooded politicians and they know that a Superdelegates' coup d'état handing the nomination to Hillary would fracture the party right in the middle, with all young people and all African Americans (the two most loyal constituencies this year) simply walking out (and may even supporting an independent candidate). Not to mention the fact that Clinton should convince NINETY-ONE PERCENT of the Superdelegates still uncommitted today, to snatch the nomination.

The fact that this scenario is a fairy tale doesn't mean that the problem of working class male who tend to vote Republican doesn't exist, as we pointed out earlier this year in several posts. However, the electorate of the two parties strongly polarized in the last 8 years, and most Democratic voters, even unhappy with Obama, will come back to the fold in November. The real issue is not how many of them will defect, but in which states: Ohio, Colorado, New Mexico, Wisconsin and Nevada are states where a handful of ballots changing side can deliver the victory to either candidate. And prevailing in those swing states is crucial to winning an Electoral College majority.

How ABC Set A Trap To Question Obama's Patriotism

Wednesday night there was the debate in Pennsylvania, considered an important moment before the democratic primary of April 22. Many observers remarked how silly were the questions asked by the two moderators (see, here and here, for example).

However, most pundits failed to note that the question by a member of the public on why Barack Obama doesn't usually wear a flag pin on his jacket was planted by ABC, which hosted the debate, and was in no way a "spontaneous" question surging from the heart of a citizen. What happened was that ABC tracked down Nash McCabe, the woman who asked "I want to know if you believe in the American flag" after she was quoted in a New York Times story about white voters in small-town Latrobe, Pa., being against Obama.

We know that because Joshua Micah Marshall's blog had this: "In this case, the producers put the producers' question into the mouth of a voter, because it made the question seem more authentic, as if people care in large numbers about the flag pin question. That is, the woman was used to legitimize the traditional media's focus on these frankly trivial and, yes, distracting issues."

It may well be that Gibson's and Stephanopoulos's unethical behavior was simply part of the traditional media's focus on trivial and distracting issues, but one might wonder if the long relationship between Stephanopoulos and the Clintons (he worked for Bill Clinton's campaign in 1992 and at the White House later) has really nothing to do with his obvious hostility toward Barack Obama and the plot to question his patriotism. 
In any event, the attack misfired: the latest Rasmussen Reports survey in the state shows Hillary Clinton with 47% of the vote and Barack Obama with 44%. This poll was conducted AFTER the nationally televised debate between the candidates. Last Monday, before the ABC' show, Clinton was leading Obama 50% to 41%.

Hillary Clinton, Religion and The White Working Class

Very often, innocent remarks by a candidate are constructed as "major gaffes," or even statements that are "deeply offensive" to a particular group, or to all American voters. This was the case with Obama's words last week in Los Angeles: "You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years, and nothing has replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate, and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Quite unremarkable, to say the least: there are thousands of studies about the "bitterness" of white working class, and the libraries of Political Studies Departments overflow with books about religion, and its role in American Politics. Not so, if you are involved in a dogfight with an opponent who will spin your speech into an "attack" against religion, or at least, against "people of faith." This is precisely what Hillary Clinton did in this video, borrowing another page from Karl Rove's campaign textbook in order to accuse Obama of being an "elitist."

The fact that Barack Obama was a community organizer in South Side Chicago during the very years spent by Hillary Clinton on the board of Wal-Mart should say something about her cynicism, but apparently her determination to win, even at the cost of destroying her party, has no bounds. However, as the Cook Political Report observed, "For Clinton, the odds are the incident is too late to save her candidacy. But more [Obama's faux pas] would increase her chances of drawing enough support in the April 22 Pennsylvania primary to justify, or even guarantee, her continued run. There are likely to be more gaffes for each of the candidates as this campaign progresses, but in a race like this, each one is exceedingly costly and, cumulatively, can become fatal." The issue of Religion and American working class was the topic of an interesting piece by Timothy Noah in Slate magazine. We shall return to this soon, but first have a look at what we wrote on February 28 here.

Will 2008 Be a Remake of 2004? The Role of Working Class White Men

Among political scientists, it is a truism that many working-class white men left the Democratic Party in 1968, voted largely Republican in 1972, came back home for a moment in 1976, and switched to Ronald Reagan in 1980 (a detailed analysis here). Many pundits think that Bill Clinton "won many of them back to the Democratic Party in 1992," but data do not support this opinion. Exit polls actually show that in 1992 Bill Clinton won about the same share of white men as Michael Dukakis in 1988. It was Ross Perot who moved many of them away from the Republican candidate and undid George H.W. Bush.

Democrats have been the party of minorities since 1972, and they did not really compete for white men since the Ford-Carter race in 1976. But in 2008, whith the Republican Party and its standard bearer remarkably unpopular, a war led by Republicans that has lasted longer than Second World War, during a struggling economy, and at the 40-year mark of the Republican majority (no presidential coalition has ever lasted more than four decades: the New Deal one survived only 36), Democrats have their best opportunity in a generation. Yet the Democratic ambition will only be realized by winning more white men, as many scholars realized a few years ago (see, for example, Ruy Teixeira).

It’s not only a southern problem: the bulk of the white men voting in Democratic primaries are not the same white men who migrated from the Democratic Party in the last half century, as David Kuhn has demostrated in his book, The Neglected Voter: White Men and the Democratic Dilemma. Contrary to New York Times’s Paul Krugman opinion, it was not only Southern white men nostalgic of George Wallace who left the Democratic Party. Krugman quoted Princeton's Larry Bartels as saying that outside the territory of the 11 Confederate States, “[in] the rest of the country the Democratic share of the two-party presidential vote among white men was 40% in 1952 and 39% in 2004." 

Bartels uses 1952 as a starting point but that year both parties attempted to convince Dwight Eisenhower, a centrist who was the hero of the Second World War, to be their nominee. When Ike chose the Republicans, many white men followed him, giving to the Democrats an unusually low share of the vote. Therefore, the 1960 race is a more accurate starting point: It was a narrow contest and prior to the shift of 1968 that defines presidential politics to this day. 

Looking at 1960, one discovers that between that year and 2004, Democrats lost 12 percent of the non-Southern white men and 17 percent of white men in the South: simply too much to win the elections. Conventional wisdom dies hard in presidential politics but clinging to it will damage the Democratic party for many years more.

This year, white men initially backed Clinton: their first instinct was to be with the frontrunner. But unlike white women, as Obama became more widely known, white men had no stake in the symbolism of her candidacy. Therefore, they were more willing to swing to the senator of Illinois.

Many of these men casting Democratic ballots today are of the 37 percent of white males who voted for John Kerry in 2004, a share of the vote that left the Democratic candidate 3 million votes behind George Bush. Yet, so far neither Clinton nor Obama understand exactly how to reach out to them, a problem critical to a victory in November, when John McCain will flaunt his military record in order to appeal to this key constituency. In John McCain, any Democrat will find a daunting opponent with white men. He is the embodiment of much they admire.

A simple look at the 2004 exit polls provides a telling lesson for Clinton and Obama. Those white men who voted for George W. Bush in 2004 said the "issue that mattered most in deciding their vote" was terrorism (35 percent) or moral values (31 percent). Yet among the minority of white men who voted Democratic, only five percent said terrorism and 10 percent said moral values. In other words, Clinton's muddled stance on Iraq and hawkish stance on Iran was wrong for most Democratic white men.

For those Democratic white men, the foremost issue in 2004 was Iraq (26 percent) and economy/jobs (35 percent). Clinton's recent effort to mount a broad economic appeal may prove too late in a year when economic catastrophe for millions of American families is already there.

Clinton failed to consider white men in her strategy. Obama's campaign was more successful (particularly after Edwards drop off) because his broad appeal, less obsessed with individual subgroups. He reflected the framework of the Democratic mind in 2008 and therefore attracted white men sympathetic to that mind.

Consider when 2004 voters were asked what issue mattered most in deciding whom to support. White men who voted Republican said they supported the candidate who "has clear stands on the issues" (30 percent), is a "strong leader" (31 percent), or is "honest and trustworthy" (18 percent).

Meanwhile, of those white men who voted for John Kerry: five percent valued that their candidate was a "strong leader," 10 percent valued most that he had "clear stands on the issues," and nine percent said is "honest and trustworthy." White men, like white women, are not one monolith. Yet in the general election, the patterns shared by all those white men who left Democrats will have to be considered by the political left.

Those white males who supported Kerry most valued the personal qualities of a candidate who "will bring about needed change" (47 percent), is intelligent (17 percent), and "cares about people like me" (13 percent). That "change" ranked so high on the list explains Obama's appeal, at least in part.

Using education level as an indicator of social class, you find that white male Democrats without college educations are roughly three times more likely than those who graduated college to value that the candidate who "cares about people like me." In comparison, those who graduated college are roughly three times more likely than those who did not value that the candidate "is intelligent." White male Democrats who graduated college were also three times more likely to say the issue that mattered most was the war in Iraq, where Obama benefited from his early stance against the war. It is no surprise that they would be more sympathetic to Obama today.

Equally, that working class white male Democrats want to believe that the candidate "cares about people like me" certainly explains in part why Clinton has generally held on to their support. Obama's strategy to leave behind the cultural politics of the '60s and run a post-racial campaign appeals to some independent white men: will that be enough? In the 2006-midterm elections many white men were open to supporting Democrats, particularly moderates, even in states like Virginia and Montana, where George W. Bush got 60 percent in 2004.

It will be this presidential election that tests whether Democrats can turn working class men’s frustration with Republicans into a new majority. This is why the contest for white men is larger than the Democratic primary and is a harbinger for who becomes America’s next president.

It's the economy, stupid!

Bill Clinton's "War Room" during the 1992 campaign had the poster "It's the economy, stupid!" prominently on display. It was the brainchild of James Carville, one of the most original, and successful, political consultants of the Nineties. This year, according to Rasmussen Reports, "The economy has emerged as a top voting issue for Election 2008," because "During the past week, consumer confidence fell to the lowest level of the post-9/11 era." It's no surprise that, facing the social catastrophe of millions of families that lost the homes in the subprime mortgages mess, "most Democrats believe that reducing the income gap between rich and poor is more important than creating economic growth." Are Clinton and Obama proposing anything substantial on this front?
The deep economic divisions inside the American electorate have been Jeffrey Stonecash's object of analysis for many years. Stonecash, who teaches at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University, recently wrote Split, an important book about political trends in the USA. You can also read an interview with him here at America2008.