Clinton & Obama: The Class Tensions Mount
The young support that "cool black guy"
Those who support Hillary aren't young or hip,
they're not on Facebook,
and they probably don't read many blogs
They're loyal, lunch-pail, working-class Democrats,
and Obama still has trouble reaching them
Clinton vs Obama; Workers vs Management
There is tension, and a brewing distrust between supporters of Hillary Clinton, who see her as so obviously the more qualified candidate that it scarcely needs explaining.
The backers of Barack Obama, who consider their man so clearly the more inspirational and powerful that they can't imagine, really, how someone could actually prefer Hillary.
Many, obviously, do. But they're not young or hip, they're not on Facebook, and they probably don't read many blogs. They're loyal, lunch-pail, working-class Democrats, and Obama still has trouble reaching them.
The exit polls didn't seem to ask voters their income and education levels - the two usual measures of "working class" - but the general results give some picture of what I'm talking about.
New Jersey and Massachusetts are two states where the Democratic electorate includes a fair number of union-household white voters.
Despite some suggestions that those states would be close, they were not. Hillary Clinton rolled up clear wins in both.
But here's an interesting anomaly: Obama does well in white ex-urban and rural areas.
He won counties in northernmost California, for example, where the black population is tiny and where the so-called "wine-track" liberals who are in his corner don't live in large numbers either.
(Amusingly, the main wine-producing counties split - Obama took Sonoma, while Clinton won Napa.)
Not quite
So Obama has a reach beyond the hardcore Democratic white constituencies. But he still doesn't connect to working-class voters. Clinton's challenges are more diffuse and can be summed up as "not quite".
That is, she does well among white liberals, but not quite enough to hold Obama at bay. She does well among voters neither young nor old - aged 30 to 60 - but not enough. And so on across several groups.
Obama has gained remarkable ground on Clinton in an astonishingly short period of time - to the point where they can be considered co-frontrunners.
Even so, I think the bigger challenge moving forward is Obama's.
He does, as his critics say, need to add more kitchen-table economics to his speeches and give working-class voters a clearer sense that all this "change" will bring them specific and tangible good things.
And oh yes - a John Edwards endorsement would also help. Now there's a man in the catbird's seat right about now.
If Obama can't close that gap, it would be my guess that Clinton ultimately wins a war of attrition because on balance, the later primaries point towards her. And if he can ... who knows?
Clinton's Working Class Edge
Barack Obama narrowly bested Hillary Clinton on Super Tuesday, but several primaries suggest a potentially crucial edge for her in the days ahead.
In a majority of Tuesday's primaries, Clinton beat Obama decisively among working class voters.
Set aside the candidates' home states and the six caucuses, where Obama ran up huge margins, and Clinton drew more lower and middle class voters in eight of fourteen primaries. That even includes three states that Obama won.
New Mexico was settled by less than a point, for example, but voters diverged sharply by income. Those making under $50,000 went for Clinton, while Obama did better among higher income voters.
He won Connecticut by four points, again buoyed by voters making over $50,000, while Clinton bested him among less affluent voters by nearly ten points.
Obama won Delaware by a decisive 11 points, but Clinton still drew more voters there earning between $15,000 and $30,000.
The fault line was even sharper in states that went decisively for Clinton. Her California margin was 10 points, for example, but she opened up a 25-point lead among voters making under $50,000.
In fact, the only income bracket that Obama won there was in the six figures.
The same was true in Massachusetts, where Clinton's 15-point statewide margin powered her from the poverty line up to five-figure-voters. (The federal poverty rate is about $17,000 for a family of three.)
She also won by about 30 points among voters making under $30,000, who comprised 16% of turnout. Tennessee had a similar breakdown, with Obama only winning among voters who earn over $100,000.
These gaps were not uniform, of course. Obama posted solid numbers across income groups in many states, even when trailing Clinton.
They largely split the working class vote in Arizona and Missouri, a pivotal bellwether for the general election.
He won all income groups in Georgia, Utah and Alabama. And while caucus states are hard to compare, given very different turnout dynamics, Obama's organization mobilized and won across income levels in several of the six caucus states as well.
Yet after months of campaign hype about race and gender, Super Tuesday revealed that another atavistic divide within Democratic primaries is still here. As columnist Ron Brownstein foreshadowed almost one year ago:
"Obama's early support is following a pattern familiar from the campaigns of other brainy liberals with cool, detached personas and messages of political reform, from Eugene McCarthy in 1968 to Gary Hart in 1984 to Bill Bradley in 2000.
" Like those predecessors, Obama is running strong with well-educated voters but demonstrating much less support among those without college degrees….
"All of the candidates whose support fit that profile ultimately lost the nomination to rivals whose support was rooted in the blue-collar and minority communities where Clinton is strongest in early surveys."
Early polls have been wrong about most things in both parties this cycle. But voter turnout now shows that Clinton is holding onto poor and working class voters. And the Democratic nominee needs their support to win back the White House.