FUD

by tristero

I think by far that Digby is the more street smart observer. I only wish I shared her optimism about the fall. I do think Obama will win, assuming no rampant voter fraud, but it will be a nail-biter. As mentioned, I’ve been reading Rick Perlstein’s must-read masterpiece, Nixonland (I’m deep in part IV now) and I think it goes without saying that Obama, as well as all Democrats, will be hit with an extensive, well-coordinated Nixonian-style ratfucking campaign that will make ’72 look like the work of rank amateurs. Obama showed considerable skill recently in responding rapidly to Bush’s innuendos in Israel. But that strikes me as a minor effort by the Repubs. We ain’t seen nothing yet.

I am also concerned by what Sean Wilentz points out in the second half of this post. I hope that those of you who dislike the first half won’t be distracted into arguing about what he says there. I think the important material as we look forward to a difficult campaign begins at the section quoted below. To put it mildly, Wilentz is very concerned about Obama’s support among the white working class, and openly angry at what appears to him the repetition of a classic progressive mistake:

The Democratic Party, as a modern political party, dates back to 1828, when Andrew Jackson crushed John Quincy Adams to win the presidency. Yet without the votes of workers and small farmers in Pennsylvania and Ohio, as well as a strong Democratic turnout in New York City, Jackson would have lost the Electoral College in a landslide…

[more history regarding the importance of white working class voters to Democratic victories]

…the perceived elitists Al Gore and John Kerry lost what Clinton had gained, as George W. Bush carried the white working-class vote by a margin of 17 percent in 2000 and a whopping 23 percent in 2004.

This year’s primary results show no sign that Obama will reverse this trend should he win the nomination. In West Virginia and Kentucky, as well as Ohio and Pennsylvania, blue collar white voters sent him down to defeat by overwhelming margins. A recent Gallup poll report has argued that claims about Obama’s weaknesses among white voters and blue collar voters have been exaggerated – yet its indisputable figures showed Obama running four percentage points below Kerry’s anemic support among whites four years ago.

Given that Obama’s vote in the primaries, apart from African-Americans, has generally come from affluent white suburbs and university towns, the Gallup figures presage a Democratic disaster among working-class white voters in November should Obama be the nominee.

Yet Obama’s handlers profess indifference – and, at times, even pride — about these trends. Asked about the white working-class vote following Obama’s ten-point loss in Pennsylvania, chief campaign strategist David Axelrod confidently told an National Public Radio interviewer that, after all, “the white working class has gone to the Republican nominee for many elections going back even to the Clinton years” and that Obama’s winning strength lay in his ability to offset that trend and “attract independent voters… younger voters” and “expand the Democratic base.”

Now, this may strike you, as it did me when I first read it, as a rehash of one of Clinton’s arguments, and a dubious one. I also resented the “perceived elitists” line, which evades discussing the extent to which that perception was falsely created. But given all these caveats and concerns, I was struck by the fact that Wilentz’s point is similar to a very compelling one made by Perlstein in his book.

Back in the 60’s and early 70’s, Perlstein writes (and this jibes with my own memories), progressives were extremely confident that they were forging a new Democratic coalition, arrogantly ignoring the traditional ties of the Democratic party to blue collar voters and their worries. They were abetted in their arrogance by a press that completely misunderstood, and misreported, the complex political and cultural changes that Nixon’s politics produced. One important wedge Nixonism drove into American life split the Roosevelt coalition of liberals and blue collars in two, creating an enormous amount of downright hostility between the two groups. Nixon harvested the blue collar vote for himself while progressives fooled themselves into thinking those votes were irrelevant to the trend of increasing liberalism. Perhaps they were, but they were also necessary to win elections.

Wilentz is worried that today, we may be repeating that mistake. I hope he is wrong but I’d be curious to know what you think. I’d like to believe that the country is very different than it was in ’68 and ’72, that the modern Democratic messages (and in particular, Obama’s) resonate not only with me – an unabashed liberal – but with others who would never describe themselves that way. I’m not sure it is that different in the way that concerns me here.

I’m sure that some of you will say I’m just obsessing over bowling scores, but that’s not it at all. I think Howard Dean pithily summarized my concerns when he said that Democrats need to make it clear not only to me but even to the guy in the pickup with the Confederate Flag sticker that they are the party that best represents the country’s interests. I thought he was right then (as did most liberals I knew) and I think he’s still right. As I saw it, Dean wasn’t talking about pandering, but about making the positions Democrats hold, and their advantages, clear to the widest possible audience.

So, please educate me. This aspect of politicking – framing appeals to specific constituencies – is not something I have much of a feel for (and Wilentz thinks that’s a fatal insensitivity). Rather my default position, probably naive, is to go with the assumption that we should craft a smart, feasible liberal program combined with a rhetoric of common sense that is simple, direct and understandable by all. Sure, one tailors the rhetoric to the audience, and one needs to connect in specific ways, but I put the emphasis on the strength of the ideas and rhetoric rather than on the specific framing (pace Lakoff). So Wilentz’s point, or more precisely, what to do about it, is somewhat unclear to me.

Is Wilentz – who I’m sure you all realize is neither stupid, ignorant, nor anti-liberal – simply wrong? Or does he have a point? Or, are his fears of such overarching concern, we should be very worried? I look forward to your comments.