Barack Obama made headlines tonight for securing a near certain lead in pledged delegates, but did so with another Tuesday night spent showcasing his ability to get skunked outside of urban areas. are not supposed to be the stuff of presumed nominees.
For all the work of the Obama apologists to brush off this issue, the MSM continues to pay attention to it, including Chris Cillizza's breakdown from the Kentucky exit poll:
* Among Kentucky voters living in rural areas or small cities -- nearly six in 10 voters -- Clinton took 75 percent to 19 percent.* Among non-college educated whites in Kentucky (66 percent of the electorate), Clinton won by 44 points -- 69 percent to 25 percent.
* Among whites with a family income less than $50,000, Clinton received 75 percent of the vote while Obama took just 22 percent.
A few additional trouble points for Obama:
Only 47% of Democratic primary voters called him "honest and trustworthy." Not exactly the Audacity of Hope.
53% of those same Democratic voters said Obama shares the views of Jeremiah Wright. That's a startlingly high figure and a clear sign of the long-term damage Wright can cause (and perhaps already has) to Obama's campaign.
Only 46% of the Democratic primary electorate said Obama shares their values. It's one thing not to vote for the guy, it's another to profess serious detachment from him.
Keep in mind these are Democratic primary voters saying these things. If Obama is having this much trouble appealing to certain demographic groups among Democrats, what happens among the larger universe of voters in those same demographics voting in the general election?
This is a bizarre and historic election year, with an utterly unpredictable conclusion before us. Yet, as much as this is supposed to be a banner year for Democrats, their nominee sure looks like he has some flaws to go hand-in-hand with his concurrent strengths.
UPDATE: more MSM discussion of the white, working class voter problem - emphasizing the important role they play in many expected battleground states.
Posted by Eric Earling at May 20, 2008 10:02 PM | Email This''... what happens among the larger universe of voters ...... in the general election?''
This is diverging at least a little from the context of Eric's question, but I just came on perhaps the best answer so far; in an article for the Wall Street Journal by Sen. Joe Lieberman. In that piece Joe quoted Dean Acheson, who once said:
''No people in history have ever survived, who thought they could protect their freedom by making themselves inoffensive to their enemies.''
Seeing that quote made it strike home:
Obama would ''make nice'' with Iran, et. al., and try to convince them that they should like us. That's not gonna fly in the General, NEARLY as well as it does in the (D) primaries and caucuses.
Oops... that might be considered pointing "out only the negatives". Mea culpa and get over it.
Posted by: Ragnar Danneskjold on May 20, 2008 10:46 PMClinton has won Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Michigan (to some extent). Does anyone see a pattern there? The industrial midwest is not taking to Barack. It's like a kid that won't eat his vegetables no matter who tells him to.
McCain needs to refine his economic message and promise alot of good things for these areas if he is elected. He already leads Barack 86% to 5% on National Security, so no need to work on anything there.
I'm from Ohio-these people want a BETTER ECONOMY not a 6 month argument about preconditions and appeasement.
Come on get with it McCain.
Posted by: Bob on May 20, 2008 10:50 PMPlease provide a source for your Clinton prediction.
I love the term "Clinton Democrats" as if they were some sort of lower class voting bloc.
That's the nice thing about our system, EVERYONE gets one vote. Only the elitiests try to discount the legitimate votes of other people.
Posted by: Chuck on May 21, 2008 01:49 AM"Three quarters of whites who have not completed college -- a bulwark of Clinton support this year -- also backed the New York senator. She has seldom done better this year with those blue-collar white voters.
Just 45 percent of whites in Kentucky said they would vote for Obama in a matchup with John McCain in the general election.
Racial attitudes were also striking. About one in five whites in Kentucky said race played a role in choosing their candidate -- on par with results in other Southern states. Nearly nine in 10 of that group backed Clinton -- the highest proportion yet among the 28 states where that question has been asked.
Only three in 10 whites in the state who said race was a factor said they would vote for Obama should he oppose McCain in November"
As I have said previously: Whites will not vote for a racist pig. ESpecially a black racist pig. But we will give AA to blacks who deserve it: Condi Rice & Colin Powell. Ain't AA grand?
Posted by: Truth In Words on May 21, 2008 05:51 AMThat soviet-style socialist practitioners are the prevalent voting block in Multnomah County? That as a state, Oregon continues to be a slow-motion train wreck? That they're here, they're queer and we need to get used to it? That the people of Oregon are a bunch of easily lead leftist sheep, so possessed of BDS that any fringe-left empty suited socialist could come along and they'd vote for him?
I'll byte... what DOES it tell us?
Posted by: Hinton on May 21, 2008 07:05 AMLet's also call a spade a spade, Eric, and recognize that John McCain also has a significant minority of voters that don't like him, as also demonstrated by the KY voting. What does McCain have to do to reach them, without alienating his own base?
Posted by: tc on May 21, 2008 07:26 AMCNN said that they had several months yet to change Obama's negatives. Absolutely unbelievable!!
Posted by: swatter on May 21, 2008 07:37 AMIt tells me you're just as big of a partisan hack that you accuse everybody else of being.
Posted by: jimg on May 21, 2008 09:26 AMIn the CNN polls, Obama won every demographic, except White 60 and older voters and voters who attend church irregularly (i.e., they attend church, but only on a monthly basis, as opposed to those who don't attend church at all or attend church regularly).
Here is an article that describes the situation as I mentioned. Obama has a problem in Appalachia.
Just a side note/tidbit: On the History Channel a couple of nights ago, there was a profile of Appalachia narrated by Billy Ray Cyrus. One of the tidbits (at least by this documentary) was the orgin of the term "redneck." "Redneck" was the term to describe the Pro-Union mine workers that attempted to march into a Non-Union/Company controlled county. The workers wore red bandanas and thus the term coined to describe them was "rednecks." Talk about your battles, the battles between Unions and Companies in the Appalachia region in early 1900's was blood thirsty. The company hired detectives made the mob seem tame (like gunning down, in broad daylight, Sheriff Hatfield and his deputy, in front of the court house when they were to appear on charges for a gun battle between them and the dectectives when the detectives invaded Sheriff Hattfield's town). There as another incident described where the locals were upset about some Italian immigrant workers, working on the railroad, attempted to hit upon some local girls. The locals murded the Italian immigrants in cold blood.
Posted by: tc on May 21, 2008 10:19 AMInteresting, though was that Obama was dark blue and Clinton was light or baby blue. They reserve the red for the Republicans. What would that be- fire engine red and girly pink?
Posted by: swatter on May 21, 2008 11:33 AMI dunno, inflation is about to sky rocket. If McCain wins he'll be held responsible for continuing everything Bush did wrong. We already have the biggest govt, and biggest debt we've ever had in this country. Why not just keep plugging away with a guy who admittedly knows absolutely nothing about economics.
John McCain would be a fantastic Sec. of Defense.
As opposed to plugging along with a guy who thinks the nutjobs in Iran aren't a threat, thinks there are 57 states and can't find Hanford on a map even though he voted fro a bill about it.
Yeah that would be real great. He signs a 5,000 page treaty with his buddies in Iran and overlooks the small clause on page 3985 that says "All US territories submit to domince by Iran".
But hey, we can't possibly expect him to know anything about nuclear issues can we? As long as h e doesn't say "nuk-you-ler", that's what is important!
Posted by: pbj on May 21, 2008 02:52 PM