It is way too simplistic to say that white working class voters will not support Obama because he is black. Despite racial divisions, and even because of racial divisions, there is a deep seated longing to get past the racial divide. Many would support him if he had not raised questions in their minds through his association with Jeremiah Wright, his wife's comments, his playing of the race card in S. Carolina when he accused Hillary of belittling Martin Luther King, and his remarks about his grandmother's racism, including calling her a typical white person.

In fact it is Obama supporters' accusations that the white working class is racist that have set race relations back. The hope was that Obama was not going to be a black political figure who points the finger of accusation and guilt toward white people. But he himself has sent a mixed message in this regard, and his supporters have been far more direct in their accusations and guilt slinging. Some have even played the fear card by suggesting that if Obama were denied the nomination there would be race riots.

And it is illogical to accuse the majority of working class whites of racism for not supporting Obama while overlooking his near unanimous support from working class blacks.

As for Obama's message of change and reform, that is just a message. We've all heard plenty of messages from plenty of candidates over the years. Bush, for example, was a "compassionate conservative", and "the environmental President". People always go for messages and image. And eventually people are usually disillusioned. Not responding to Obama's message of change is actually a healthy sign of skepticism. It also reflects that Obama has frequently used negative attacks against Hillary "Annie Oakley" Clinton while couching it as only a response to her negativism. Those who were not already predisposed to believe Obama were the most likely to notice that he was not acting like "a new kind of politician" by any means.

In closing I have to say that your post seems to argue that this political race really is all about race, but we should pretend it isn't. And you seem to believe that white working class voters are too stupid to see through the veneer. I beg to differ. More likely they will immediately pick up on the deception, and will be even less likely to vote for Obama.

Obama needs to fight an uphill battle by trying to convince working class white voters that the doubts he created in them were unfounded. I'm not convinced that those doubts are unfounded. I see Obama as a man who is intensely conflicted about race. He's going to have to deal with it publicly. And the only way he can do this is to call more attention to race, which has the potential of working against him as much as it might help.

What will help Obama is if Hillary is on the ticket. Otherwise I do truly believe we are looking at another defeat in November. The campaign is going to be ugly, and there will surely be more revelations about Obama. Many Hillary supporters who said they will not vote for Obama will keep their word. If you don't believe that, you don't grasp the fundamental distrust many feel toward Obama. Many Reagen Democrats will vote for McCain. Remember, in early 2004 we were sure there was no way Bush could defeat Kerry, but Kerry lost by 3 million votes.

It all comes down to trust.

Thank you for the post (and thanks to Billy for putting forward Clinton supporter concerns in clearly non-racial language). I strongly believe that once the nomination is sealed, and Clinton (as promised) supports the Democratic candidate, she herself will do a great deal to heal this divide.

I also think that a couple of good forums for Obama will work wonders. Not just debates but FORUMS, like last month's Compassion Forum on CNN, where the candidate is talking about issues, in front of an audience, with informed but non-aggressive moderators. Most people, when they get a chance to hear Obama in more than simple soundbytes, really are able to recognize his earnestness in everything from his body language to his direct answers. I have a VERY Republican, VERY fundamentalist Christian friend who watched CNN's CF, and called me to ask if I had another Obama button. "I don't agree with him on a lot of things," she said, "but I sure do respect that he means what he says, and he considers me adult enough to understand it."

If he could just give us a half-hour conversation on the economy, like Ross Perot used to do on the economy and like Barack Obama did on Race, that would help a lot too.

Many of the Democrats that currently support Clinton will, as November gets nearer, realize that Obama's certainly better than McCain. And many of the Independents and Republicans who have swung onto Obama's side, part of the swell of voter registration he and Clinton have created, will certainly help against the dwindling enthusiasm of the Republican party for McCain.

Wow, grown up political analysis with wisdom; thank you.

I also think your solutions should not be deprecated as you have done, they are spot on, and I also think you have managed to pick out the most important things that need to done for him to win the election.

(That said: Guerilla, my ass! I can see you lack desire to inflame or impassion, refuse to parade a bunch of "principles" that you won't negotiate on, have only one working class voter easily available to talk to, and furthermore, guerillas don't borrow from Krugman. I never seen a less appropriate screen name. :-))

Fidel.

Here are some of my thoughts on your topic with apologies if they don't address specific points. It will be very sketchy and without nuance, so take it as a load of nothing if you want.

Race has been a problem for the American Left for a long time. You can pick up the theme at any point in America's history, even when the word "left" wouldn't be accurate. Let's say "progressive" or "seeking the full freedoms suggested by the Age of Reason" and the " American Revolutions"--whatever. Within this long revolutionary arc are smaller, shorter revolutions, each in turn reacting to some kind of establishment.

Pick up the thread towards the end of the 19th century. Union organizers, communists, socialists, and anarchists (who didn't care anyway) could never find a way to create a coalition among white working class Catholics ( Irish, Italians, and Poles, for example, whose later generations still vote today in places like Pa.), the poor White Protestant working class ( arriving in American primarily from England and Scotland for 150 years and more, before the Catholics, --and still inhabiting places like West Virginia and Kentucky) and the resident, most potentially revolutionary group in America, slaves and the generations that followed them.

The first barrier to fall was between Catholics and Protestants, first in the mines. The barrier between any coalition that included blacks was unattainable in the south. Union strikes as late as the 70's in Kentucky and West Virginia did not include blacks. First off, they were not working the mines, and were a relatively small part of the population.

So, in recent elections, and those next week and the next, you have two areas with many years of historical antipathy and racism. That's a fact. Anyone who tells you that race and racism are not issues in these areas, either doesn't know the history of it, or, just glossing over it which, at the public level of discussion, is pretty often the right thing to do. (This is really too simple so I'm going to bail on the nuance fast.)

Considering the history and demographics, Obama cannot do well in Kentucky and WV. A big win against him is normal. A "blowout" is just a confirmation of history. Right or wrong, spoken or unspoken, spun or not, those are the facts.

So, among the white working classes in these next two states, it is what it is. What be interesting are the margins.

In the north, depending upon the region and industry, a coalition that included blacks began to emerge in the 50's.
That coalition was political and economic--not social. An auto strike at a GM plant in Tarrytown NY in the late 50's would be a coalition among Irish, Italians, and Blacks. But they wouldn't eat together, other than at the union hall. That division is still in place.

I'm not touching the south and the west.

The efforts to align working class whites and blacks before the second world war was done primarily by socialists and communists. After the war, and during the 50's, the Reds were put out, and the white/black coalitions came under mainstream, respectable unions. These are the kinds of voters that began to move to democrats.

Whatever the successes, there was always a latent division along a racial fault line. Sometimes it would open up.

Now, the Republicans (and all forces of the Right, whatever they have been called) have long understood that the most useful tact to keep white and black working classes apart was race. They have been at for a hundred years.

This year, that old racial divide is being tested in a radical way. By a black man running for president. And this is some test. History will play out as it will.

But consider another group. People who have grown-up in recent decades. They are post-racial. The weight of that history isn't part of their dues. They don't need to move on. They arrived some time ago. They also don't see themselves as "working class" in the old sense. They have money or they don't.

All this plays out against a collapse of an old economic structure
(auto and steel, for example) to some unknown kind of economy.

These are crazy crosswinds, Fidel. History will play out as it will.
A lot of what will happen has been set long ago.

The new question is when will the demographic change? Imagine
Obama losing this time around. Well, four years on he runs in a changed demographic. Old people die. Younger post-racial people reach voting age.

I'm not addressing what's right or wrong. What's said and unsaid. Not that these are not unimportant. But the election can be seen as beyond Obama and Clinton. Historic shifts. Older patterns overlapping with new.

I don't believe that Obama can cross into the old coal mines of Pa. without Hillary, or Rendell perhaps. He could bring Christ with him to WV and Kentucky and only gain a few points.

Talking nationally is another issue. But I'm out of crap to wright.

Make no mistake. These days have been a long time coming. Paid for in blood, not lattes, It is ironic that Clinton has been caught in a nasty circle of the racist divide. I'm making a judgement in these comments. She is also part of a revolution, related till recently. And that revolution has its own honor.

My thoughts. I threw in all the stuff about the Reds because, well, you are Fidel. I left out the Jews, half of my folks. Long actors in the drama, and with new roles it seems.

One thing that often seems to get ignored in these discussions is gender. Clinton has consistently done much better with women than Obama has. Obviously, Hillary has a special (and understandable) appeal for women, just as Obama has a special (and understandable) appeal for black voters. Still, with Clinton out of the race, there's no reason that Obama shouldn't do at least as well with women as McCain does. I think that, right away, that will cause some of Obama's apparent weaknesses to disappear (if Obama did as well among white working-class women as he does among white working-class men, for example, his deficit with working-class people in general in the primaries would start to look less gaping).

Also, the worried tones of many of these posts seem bizarre. All the national polls I've seen show Obama ahead of McCain, even though large sections of the Democratic party are just waking up from an incredibly bitter primary campaign. Obama has shown himself able to raise tons more money than McCain -- and again and again (Iowa? Texas) in this primary, we've seen how TV ad buys and well-funded ground organization can transform a race. Obviously, Obama has some challenges (campaigning in Florida, McCain's favorable media coverage, the experience argument) but they look nothing like as formidable as those facing McCain (money troubles, poisonous atmosphere for Republicans, the change argument).

In other words, calm down, chill out, take a deep breath. If the election were held today, Obama'd have a good chance of winning. If Hillary ever gets out of the race and endorses him, his chances will only improve. If he campaigns for another few months exclusively against McCain and has (as it looks likely he will) tons more resources than his opponent -- well, that's not going to hurt either. It's not in the bag or anything, but there's every reason to feel hopeful; dithering about what a weak candidate we've got is neither true to the facts, nor especially helpful.

Incidentally, one commenter asked what other states Obama would put in play. There's been some talk that, given huge turnout among African-Americans, he might have a chance in Georgia and the Carolinas. A Texas blogger talking about the amazing Democratic turnout said he thought that even that state might be in play. It seems clear that Obama'll at least be able to force McCain to put resources into places Republicans have considered sewn up for decades. And if that seems impossibly naive -- well, thinking that Obama would win the nomination would have seemed foolhardy a year ago, yes? Yet here we are.

I'll take your Bob Herbert and Paul Krugman and raise you Frank RIch:

"Almost every wrong prediction about this election cycle has come from those trying to force the round peg of this year’s campaign into the square holes of past political wars. That’s why race keeps being portrayed as dooming Mr. Obama — surely Jeremiah Wright = Willie Horton! — no matter what the voters say to the contrary. It’s why the Beltway took on faith the Clinton machine’s strategic, organization and fund-raising invincibility. It’s why some prognosticators still imagine that John McCain can spin the Iraq fiasco to his political advantage as Richard Nixon miraculously did Vietnam."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/opinion/11rich.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin

Rather than race, I think Obama’s difficulty in reaching out to swing voters/working class whites has been that his message of reform doesn't connect.

I think his problem is that he refuses to pander. They all knew Hillary's gas tax holiday was bunk. They just appreciated her effort. Many of these people live in a dream world, and they want someone in office who promises to keep them there. They may lose the house they could never afford in the first place, but there's NO WAY they're giving up the Escalade.

Hillary won more of these voters because she was willing to lie to them for their vote. She knew she was lying. They knew she was lying. But they all desperately want to believe in miracles. Don't believe me? Hillary still thinks she can win.

Good post. Though it seems that your action items are already things the Obama campaign is working on.

Not bashing Hillary and Hillary supporters gratuitously is something Obama supporters could learn to do a better job of, though.

Well, I think Obama will win in the GE, especially if the Obama/McCain road tour takes place, because to all but the fatally mind-locked Obama's temperament and command of policy issues will be fully revealed.

No doubt there are those who "will never vote for a black" as said during a phone bank where I was working, but other Americans will listen to the candidate who is truthful and has their economic interests at heart. I cannot imagine the "Clinton" Hispanics voting for a Republican, even if John McCain co-sponsored the immigration legislation because the Republican party has savaged Latinos in general.

I think the coalition that wins in November will be young adults, progressive adults, and workers of all skin colors who have been damaged by "free" trade and $4 gasoline.

Billy - If you've said it yourself many times, why can you not trust someone who also says it?

Here's the quotation:
""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's 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."

I grew up in a depressed area of the country (at the time). Having lived there, having had older people in my family "clinging" to religion, guns, claimed superiority in just that way, I don't find his comments offensive at all. Nor would they if you talked to them in a calm, non-judgmental fashion. It's honestly not much more than a recognition of human nature, just as his shocking comments about Reagan were little more than recognition of political/historical truths: Reagan was a 'transformational' president (for good or bad) in a way Nixon and Regan were not.

What is so shocking and insulting and not-worthy-of-trust to recognize that, with all humans, the more lost and powerless you feel, the more you "cling" to and give importance to the things in life that are 1) certain - more black and white than shades of grey and 2) allow you to feel and deeply believe that you are on the 'right' side of that certainty. If you feel in control and on the 'winning' side of things (like the SF funding folks), you look at things differently - you don't understand the discouragment or the more rigid positions on those things over which you do have some control.

It seems to me that Obama was explaining this strange and different culture (to San Francisco money people) in a way that says "and if you were in their shoes, you would give more importance to thes things also" (and if they were in your position, they would have as much trouble understanding as you do). Is that really so insulting? -- or insulting more in one direction than the other? (What if he'd said "Look, you secure fact cats don't have a clue what life is like for many, many 'real' people"?) -- Why is it okay to recognize that the folke in the 'rust belt' have been let down and ignored and misled by government for generations ("that's good - he 'feels our pain' .... but you're not supposed to recognize what those decades of powerlessness do to any human being .. you and me included.?

I understand Clinton taking that comment and running with it -- it was a handy tool, just like the Reagan comments were. You say "Oh, my word!! How shocking!!" and hope folks will go along with you because you set the tone with your reaction. But I don't understand thinking people, of whom you (Billy G) are certainly one, believing that in making that comment Obama was saying, somehow, that he didn't want to be president of all the people or didn't care about, and respect, all of them.

Remember where he's coming from: growing up a "white working class" family, being a community organizer with urban blacks who felt just as powerless and did some 'clinging' of their own. Did it occur to you that Obama was saying "I understand this, I've been part of this, it makes sense, these folks are no different than you, no less worthy of respect - just in a very different place."