In the wake of Hillary Clinton's rock-solid Pennsylvania victory, David Axelrod, the able chief strategist of Barack Obama's campaign, attempted to minimize the political significance of his candidate's having been overwhelmingly rejected by Pennsylvania's working-class voters: "Let's understand — the white working class has gone to the Republican nominee for many elections. This is not new. Democratic candidates don't rely on these votes."
Whoa! First, to be accurate, Bill Clinton, the only Democratic president since FDR to win re-election, did — narrowly — carry white, working-class voters twice. Second, David, we are talking here about Obama's having lost badly working-class voters who are registered Democrats and who voted in a Democrats-only primary. Third, earlier in 2008, Obama had run quite strongly among these very same voters.
In Connecticut, Obama had carried white men by a three-to-two margin as well as labor union voters. In Wisconsin, he won white men by 63 percent to 34 percent and carried 55 percent of all working-class voters with family incomes under $75,000. In both Maryland and Virginia, he won voters in households with union members by 20 percent, and carried white men, as well as working-class voters, in households earning under $75,000 by more than 20 percent.
Barack Obama must figure out again how to win white voters with household incomes under $75,000. He must do so in Indiana, a state where, in his favor, many voters already know him as a neighboring U.S. senator, not just as some stranger with an exotic name. He even has a model to guide him in his urgent quest.
The last time the Indiana presidential primary really mattered was 1968, when the state's amiable Democratic governor, Roger Branigin, campaigned with the formidable backing of the state party organization as the favorite-son stand-in for, first, President Lyndon Johnson and then, following LBJ's withdrawal, Vice President Hubert Humphrey.
The better-educated and anti-(Vietnam) war voters already had their favorite in Minnesota Sen.
Eugene McCarthy. That left the late-entering Sen. Robert Kennedy, confronting charges of ruthlessness and opportunism, with political problems.
Robert Kennedy was the Change Candidate that year. Both the Establishment and many not in the Establishment — but who resented and who resisted the change they knew a Kennedy victory would mean — opposed him vehemently. Like Obama now, Kennedy did have a money advantage over his opponents.
More than a few Hoosiers were made uneasy by the passion and excitement Kennedy generated in his public appearances. (Sound familiar?) Almost alone among American politicians of his era, RFK had a personal sense of identification with the casualties of the American experiment — the forgotten and the marginalized.
In the informed judgment of pollster Peter Hart, "America in 1968 was full of anger, while America in 2008 is wracked with anxiety."
In that angry year, some Indiana voters who heard Kennedy were inspired. Some were engaged. Others were critical, even hostile. But those who heard him were rarely indifferent. He could mock himself, like the day when a sudden gust blew away a sheet of paper and he quipped: "That's my entire farm program. Please get it back."
But what Robert Kennedy's winning campaign did in Indiana — and what Barack Obama's must do now — according to Peter Hart, was "to capture his time. Ultimately, the campaign was about who we are and who we can become."
Those of us privileged to hear that remembered passion, delivered often too rapidly, will never forget his summons to heal the divisions among us between races, between generations, between classes and on the war. "We are a great country, an unselfish country," he told his audiences, followed always with the quote from George Bernard Shaw: "Some people see things as they are and say: Why? I dream things that never were and say: Why not?"
Indiana is the test. By once again inspiring voters and by reminding us who we are and who, with common sacrifice, we can become, he, too, can win Indiana and, with that victory, the presidential nomination.
To find out more about Mark Shields and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
COPYRIGHT 2008 MARK SHIELDS
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3 Comments | Post Comment
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Sir, thank you for another good article. I would like to make two comments. First, the urgency of Obama is nothing compared to the urgency of this whole country for change -while change might yet be managable. He is coming up against people just like myself who have no good reason to vote for a black man what ever his social color. I would not stick up for him in the least except for my sense of seeing a wrong done before my very eyes. I see a double standard at work here, and I know that any white man as well educated, and articulate would be everyones natural first choice for the job. I don't care about him, or how he feels, and I have done my part for black America, and I don't owe him the time of day, and in this I do not feel far different from many who say race is an issue, or who sat on their butts because they did not have a horse in the Pennsylvannia race. But, some small part of me cries out for fairness for the person, and that part of me sees that we owe as much fairness to any human being in all our dealings.
Second; What Peter Hart said of America being angry before and anxious now is absolutly true. So; what else has changed? I see anger as a moral reaction to injustice, like indignance. The demoralized know they can ill afford anger, but they cannot deny the hoplessness of the situtation. We have reached the point in this land where the rich have spent or invested all they have squeezed out of America in distant lands or fruitless wars. We do not have enough military to defend us here and our wealth abroad. But all the PLM, the people like me -don't have anything left to sell. Our labor markets are flooded and minimum wage does not support much morality. We buy from foreign lands, and often, from American owners with money that is becoming more paper every time we touch it. We don't have a choice, -of whether to buy foreign or domestic, of whether to pollute or not pollute, whether to eat healthy or not, or whether to stand with America or not. If we could be what we were once: Moral; then we could be angry. We could be angry at the way the flag was waved in our faces while our pockets were picked. We could be angry about how every promise made in the constitution was glossed over as though non existent. We could be angry about the evil done in our name for private profit and government power. Demoralized people cannot afford anger. In the effort to hold on to the myth of what America should mean to us, we have sold everything we own, all our rights, the whole land, and finally all our morals. We should be anxious. If you find yourself begging for a job, or for bread, or money, or time, and you beg for justice, but bare your back to any injustice with no greater hope than a prayer for providence then you are not a begger, but one whose slavery is profound, and it is the lack of a moral sense of ones own worth, and of the worth of others, and finally, the loss of ones sense of value and of meaning that keeps slaves in slavery. If we could all be ruined at once, and all could be driven to destraction at once, some moral spark might set us all aflame with anger. It will not happen. We will forever forget what America is supposed to be about. We will watch the condemned go to their ends with quiet desparation, and when our turn comes, we go to our ends in like fashion.
Comment: #1
Posted by: James A, Sweeney
Mon Apr 28, 2008 6:27 PM
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We do not fit in the usual compliment of obama supporters.
We're retired, live outside the US but can vote. we live on our pensions and try to give back to the world what we have enjoyed from it. So not the big money people.
I am so saddened at what I have seen within the US. Poor quality in education, health care,senior care, a growing disparity between wealthy and not wealthy. How can this happen to a most blessed place?
Is it the apathy of the citizens? Is it the comeuppance for the re election of W?
Or is it the old..."If the candidate looks good, if you can visualize sitting down and sharing a beer than that candidate should be great at running the most complex nation in the world"
....Hmmm maybe that's not a basis for electing a President. Hopefully , we can elect a man and a congress that can actually pass some legislation without lining their pockets to over full..
I want a woman to become president, as I feel a woman could do a great job BUT not this woman..
And for a lot of reasons, besides First Bill.
How does a man who works for a living ( Obama's net worth is minute compared to Hill and Bill's) get termed elitist??
Who cares what the colour of his skin is? What colour is his character, his mind, what colour his Vision? Also why has the link between the Clinton's and Rev. Wright not been mentioned by anyone except Michael Moore? (Wright was called in to counsel Bill and Hill during the Lewinski affairand there are pictures online to prove it!)
When did Hill go to Ireland and create the Peace Accord? I lived in Ireland at the time and we never heard anything about that??
If you've written a book describing an experience, easpecially one were you were shot at? How do you get that wrong, tired or not?? Shall we even mention the 'funny money' received for favours by Bill Clinton and sent to his Foundation, so it's not subject to any discerning eyes? so OK Press, Where the He** are You Guys????
Comment: #2
Posted by: maryann nolan
Tue Apr 29, 2008 5:09 PM
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Re: maryann nolan
How can this happen in this most blessed place? Easy. Thieves fall out over loot. We took this place from nature. We took this place from Monarch, and Native. And we are seeing this place taken from us. And yet, we are in a predicament. We can no more condemn injustice when we have been its instigators than we can blame another when bitten by our own dog. We have for too long justified injustice and now that we suffer it, we cannot unjustify it.
Comment: #3
Posted by: James A, Sweeney
Wed Apr 30, 2008 5:21 AM
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