Pennsylvania
Posted on April 21st, 2008
by Daniel Larison |
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Clive Crook is talking sense:
Also, the Democratic voters most likely to be offended by Mr Obama’s sympathetic account of their errors are the white working class and they were backing Mrs Clinton anyway. If and when she drops out, they will have to decide whether to vote for Mr Obama or switch to Mr McCain. Only then will we know how they feel about Mr Obama’s lofty take on their beliefs.
Crook’s assessment is backed up by post-”bitter” Rasmussen polling. The Rasmussen summary from last week said:
Thirty-seven percent (37%) say that the comments reflect an elitist view of small town America. Forty-eight percent (48%) disagree. Most Clinton voters (57%) believe Obama’s comments reflect an elitist view while Obama voters overwhelmingly reject that notion.
This is another way of saying that the reaction to the remarks themselves was probably muted because the people likely to be put off by these remarks were already inclined to oppose Obama, and many of them may have already thought him to be an elitist. Add the preferred description to account for Clinton’s supporters to see those remarks as elitist: Obama is the “priest,” the ”wine track” candidate, the intellectual, process-oriented reformer, the yuppie, and so on. The reaction probably has been, “Of course Obama is an elitist–tell me something I don’t know!”
The overall poll movement in the past week seems to have been the result of Obama gaining strength in southeastern Pennsylvania, as he consolidated support in Philadelphia and the suburbs, while Clinton has picked up support in central and western PA. So what seems to have happened is that, far from people ”not caring” about the controversy, the controversy (including Clinton’s lame attempts to portray herself as one of the people) has made the race more sharply polarised in the last week than it had been earlier. That appears to be what the polling companies are saying, including those that are showing a closer statewide race in recent days.
32% of Democrats in this Suffolk poll say this his remarks show that he is “out of touch” with rural Pennsylvanian values. Obviously, that’s nowhere near a majority, but if a third of Democrats in the state believe this it is a problem for Obama in the future. Certainly, it is still hard to measure the intensity of this sentiment, but it definitely exists. Literally every one of those Democrats could already have been a Clinton supporter, so the backlash would not necessarily register in head-to-head polling between Clinton and Obama.
Update: Comparing SUSA’s poll from 4/1 and another from today, the different regional reactions are clear: Obama has picked up six points and Clinton has lost five in SE Pennsylvania; Clinton gained four and Obama lost seven in NW Pennsylvania; Obama lost three in the southwest, and Clinton gained two. It is northeastern Pennsylvania where Clinton apparently collapsed: she led 71-23 three weeks ago, and is now up just 60-37. Changes in central Pennsylvania, according to SUSA, were minor.
Filed under: politics
NE Penn is fairly Catholic from what I understand. I wonder if Casey campaigning on Obama’s behalf is helping a little bit.
Your analysis is very solid. But one must wonder: why does Obama give a speech after the Wright affair to shore up his airtight support among latte liberals and blacks and continually have a tin-ear for blue collar whites and Hispanics. It’s true, nothing in his life experience has given him much exposure to these people, but he always seemed affable and unflappable on the campaign trail. Then he devolves into long disquisitions on race that would make Marcuse proud and obviously poorly phrased (and also innacurate) accounts of the beliefs and problems of Pennsylvanians.
Incidentally, this is Catholic and Orthodox country, not like the wealthier mega-church Bible belt, which seems to be what Obama has in mind. He seems to be transposing the experienc eof alienated blacks and their churches that give a voice to that alienation and the more spiritual and less political life of rural, poor whites.
Good analysis, except that you still haven’t demonstrated that anyone actually cares about these comments (except that they have answered polsters questions, which isn’t the same as caring about it). Meaning, changing their votes. It’s been obvious for ages that Obama has trouble relating to blue collar white voters of certain ethnic backgrounds in certain parts of the country. What’s not obvious at all is whether his comments have changed that at all. Are more rural blue-collar white ethnics against him than before? Doesn’t seem to be much of a change there. Will it affect the general election? Hard to say. It’s not like Obama is running against an egalitarian man-of-the-people from a blue collar background. McCain is from blue-blood background, not blue-collar. Both his father and grandfather were Navy Admirals. He’s a centamillionaire by marriage.
If these comments actually do affect Obama, it’s not clear that it’s anything more than a reification of people’s pre-existing impressions and doubts. But November is still a long way off, and Obama does have the general advantage that the better people get to know him, the more likely they are to vote for him. As you say, finding out that he’s got some elitist views is hardly news. People who have heard him speak before already know that. He’s obviously got a lot to overcome. And it’s not as if this particular demographic in PA isn’t already disinclined to vote for black candidates. The big undercurrent to Hillary’s campaign, as it will likely be for the GOP campaign in the fall, is providing emotional contexts for not voting for a black man that aren’t explicitly racist, but play upon that unspoken prejudice. That’s why comments like this get played up by the opposition so much, when the opposition is not, itself, any less elitist in any sense whatsoever.