Friday, April 25, 2008

voters choices: Generational, vocational, or racial?

Andrew Sullivan,

But doesn't that "white anger" feel very 1980s to you? Are white voters still motivated in large part by grievances about affirmative action (which, for the record, I strongly oppose)? You'd think that
our cultural politics had remained untouched and unmoved since the Reagan era. You'd think that political demography was frozen at exactly the moment boomers came of age. The truth is: the boomer media class is fighting the last war and misreading the current one.

As Ambinder reminds us:
It doesn't really matter if Barack Obama isn't doing as well among white working class Dems as Hillary Clinton is. He doesn't need their votes to win.

This election will be decided by white independents, African-Americans, new Hispanic voters, and a vast influx of younger Americans. Those are the people Obama has brought into the process; and they are the people who will change the face of American politics.


I agree completely (well maybe not totally on the affirmative action part). After the PA primary, on Wednesday I was just talking to my neighbor B and his colleague about this topic. They are both Labor professors at Univ of IL. They both hail from Youngstown OH, and study the true working class/ union voters extensively. They were talking about a theory (both of them hailing from Youngstown OH, and studying the true working class extensively) they had that really the white working class agree that they ARE bitter and more of them actually voted the way they did ( for Hillary) because they do want to have a fight (with the Republicans) over all the crap they have been through economically. The theory is that she's a "scrapper" and can dish it out back to the Republicans as well as she can take it (VRWC). I replied that I think the results are mostly generational, and that PA has a very high proportion of over 60 voters relative to other states ( 2nd only to FL). I seriously doubt that the vast majority of Democrats and Independents who oppose the war, are going to let themselves vote for McCain in the fall general election, no matter what doubts they have about Obama.

I'm kinda nervous now that Andrew thinks this will go all the way to the convention. I have too
much hope that the PTB (powersthatBE) will not let that happen.

No comments: