A great analysis, and one I think is exactly right. This whole obsession with the "Reagan democrats", as this group of voters has for more than twenty years been mischaracterized, is an anachronism developed by the DLC in the 1980s.

The idea may have made sense in the '80s, but it ignores the great changes in the composition of the electorate in the ensuing years. And this year it ignores the fact that Obama and his camp have been realigning the democratic coalition, just as Reagan realigned the republican coalition in 1980, using a message of hope, no less.

How exactly are these folks democrats in any sense of the word? The group has, after all, voted for Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II twice. Only voting in some numbers for Bill Clinton by virtue of his bona fide bubba credentials.

A similarly deluded member of the punditocracy reminded us last week that ever since the 1960s (and its civil rights legislation) the only Democrats to win the presidency were from Southern states and he suggested that may still be true.

The foregoing brings to mind this line from a Joe Klein piece "....the media — like pollsters and political consultants — tend to look in the rearview mirror and pretend to see the future."

Klein piece

Good points in an interesting post. Thanks.

The notion that working-class, non-college-educated whites is the core constituency of today's Democratic Party--and winning it by isolating it and pitting it against other groups--is an unbelievably dumb and outdated way of looking at the party.

Obsma's strategy uses big thinking--building a large coalition of voters and majority mandate--to advance a progressive agenda.

Now's the right time to do it. The Demcratic Party has the opportunity to take a bold risk on a new leader and a new coalition of voters (the odds have never been better) and reap huge rewards.

nathalie, you are a treasure!

Thanks for this wonderful post! Beautifully written. So lucid. Well backed up. And your toilet metaphor! Outstanding!!!

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Nice post but I think you are making what is quite complicated seem simple. As with all Politicians you craft your message to where you are currently campaigning. Admittedly, Hillary has taken a decided turn towards Blue Collar Blues workers since coming North for Ohio/PA/IN. But if you take a look at elections in these states over the past 20 years it is precisely that voter that has swung side to side and decided elections. Take Ohio. John Glenn succeeded the now deceased Howard Metzenbaum on the back of that constituency. And, John Glenn, lost to Mike Dewine off that same group in 1994. So in the Steel belt states that voter is still very very important. Ask Rick Santorum.

When she was in the south, however, she didn't use this strategy at all. She understood the new realities of the south. Specifically Texas where the largest minority now is Hispanic rather than African American and that minority will shape elections for years and years to come. She recognizes this as well as any National Candidate obviously outside of Bill Richardson himself.

So, I agree we as Democrats must look at reality rather than living in the past. I disagree with your statements that Hillary doesn't understand this. She does and her campaign has showed time and again it knows it.

The white, working-class, not college-educated voter is not Bubba. If you want to write off Bubba, that's fine with me. I have never though people should be rewarded for racism, homophobia and downright meanness.

But the white, working class non-colleged-educated voter of the industrial heartland and the north/northeast is not an irrational voter like Bubba. Larry Bartels explains quite clearly that this voter is swayed by economic concerns more than anything and that in fact, contrary to stereotype, it is the better-educated, high-income middle class that is more swayed by social wedges.

This, incidentally, was true during the Vietnam War. Working collar opposition to the war was high and the educated elits polled much stronger in support of the war. And why not? it was the working class whose children were being sent to die. It was only the childish and self-indulgent tactics of the anti-war left who alienated the working class who would have been their ally in opposing the war.

I see this happening again with the condescension and contempt oozing from so many of you for working class voters. Nathalie may want to write of the working class white voter -- but shame on you all if you do.

I have several friends who fall into the non-college educated white working class. I think the best way to reach these people is to reduce the economic argument to several basic points. When the Republicans argue that letting the Bush tax cuts expire would cost everyone an average of $1000, point out explicitly that the 99 people making under $50K per year wouldn't pay anymore while the 100th guy making $10 million would pay $100,000. Bring back Bush 41's charge of Voodoo economics. Point out repeatedly that of our $9.5 trillion national debt, more than $7 trillion was rung up under three presidents: Reagan, Bush, and Bush. Trickle down has been a disaster for the workin' Joes. At the same time, the income divide between the wealthiest and the poorest is the greatest since the Great Depression.

Hammer these points home in commercials and all discussions. These aren't attack ads, but issue ads.

My friends don't pay much attention to political details. They are "gut" voters. The votes can be gotten, but Obama needs to reach their gut instincts.

Okay, I'll bite. Since ordinary, "Joe Six-Pack" folks aren't the core constituency of the Democratic Party, just who is? You seem to have missed out that part. Well, let's see: as of July 2005, the population was 70% white, 13% black, 14% hispanic and the rest accounted for a piddling 3%. So, racially, if you're discounting the significance of whites, you are claiming that the "core constituency" of the party is comprised of about 27% to 30% of the population. Yeah, you'll win a lot of elections with that lot.

Okay, maybe the divider is income. We've just grown too important to bother with the lower economic classes. According to these numbers from wikipedia, roughly 45% of the population earn over $50,000 a year, meaning 55% are under that number. I reckon that is where the "toilet-bowl" constituency lives. But wait, a disproportionate number of blacks and hispanics live in that unimportant, non-core constituency. So, we don't care about people making under $50K but that means we don't care about blacks and hispanics, either, unless they fall above the making 50K-line. I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine what percentage of the minority vote we now care about.

Oh wait, maybe it's education. Hmm, 25% of young adults have postsecondary degrees. Of the 75% without a bachelor's or equivalent degree, around 20% of the young adults had "some" postsecondary coursework. The remaining 55% of young adults had high diploma or less. Okay, so maybe we'll only concerned about the two groups that have postsecondary education -- that would make up 45% of the young adult population. That kind of makes sense in a perverse way, since Obama and his campaign have shown zero interest in the "over 30" crowd.

In summary, after making the bald claim that "the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker" are no longer the "core constituency" of the Democratic Party, the article makes no advances, such as identifying which groups have taken the place of working Americans as "really significant" to the party.

I find the commentary not only elitist (after all, you aren't blogging on TPM if you aren't already in the social and economic elite class), but dangerously shortsighted. You can't win an election of any significance without "Joe six-pack" and his candlemaking friends. Ain't ... gonna ... happen. Worse, the article makes the fundamental political blunder of assuming that somehow the needs of that "noncore constituency" are so far divergent from your own needs as an elite member of the "core constituency" that they can just be ignored.

If the only "core constituency" of the Democratic Party is comprised of bloggers and friends, plus the handful of Americans deemed worthwhile by that group, John McCain will win a 50-state victory.

I don't actually see that happening. I suspect your algorithm has a serious bug.

Thanks.

mp

I think the main point is that if we keep losing by trying to court our "core" Constituency then why do we keep trying to court them?

That what I see Obamas campaign as, a new constituency, and if you look at the numbers he has arguably crated a constituency as large as the old core.

Now if we can keep a large part of the old core (Which he really dose seem to be doing) and add it into the new core then we win.

eh, fair enough, I say ship em off to Mexico in return for hard working Hispanic immigrants.

well, a few more well considered thoughts on affirmative action. Certainly, I would not compare African-Americans to monkeys. Let's take for example the bar exam. THERE IS NO WAY A MONKEY COULD PASS THE BAR EXAM. End of discussion. Now let's look at the bar passage rate for Howard University's law school. It has averaged around 50% for years, some years dipping below 50%. Compare that to a third-tier state school like U of Idaho, where the bar passage rate is about 85%. Clearly, there is a pattern here. Let's examine the numbers:

Monkeys: 0%
AA elite: 50%
Potato farmers: 85%

Now there is no way for monkeys to improve their bar passage rate. However, for AAs, it's not genetis, IT'S INCENTIVES. Affirmative action and its accompaniaments are a system of perverse incentives actually. There is no incentive to excel or to perform well on tests that test problem-solving ability. There is every incentive to wear a FUBU sweatshirt and say dumb ignorant shit, pretending that it's cutting edge cultural theory, and to engage in empty pathetic exercises like exchanging Kwanza cards.

Solution: easy, just let AAs compete on an open playing field, like everyone else. I'm betting they could handle it.

Great post Nathalie - thank you.

I've been trying to hammer the point around various blogs that Obama's gravitational pull has more to do with his generational sensibility (he's a Gen-X-er like myself) and his intuitive understanding of the rising 'creative class' future than with anything else about him, especially race.

As a matter of fact, his new generational sensibility is the substance of the "post-racial" label: I am so damn excited that he 'gets' the 'creative class' cultural phenomenon that I would strongly argue against Ferraro's claim that his being black is what got him where he is. No Geraldine and Hillary - even if he wasn't black, but tapped into this feeling for the socio-economic-cultural future of the country he would be contending.

There will be more Obamas coming of both genders and various races!