My cousin lives in downstate IL (NE of St Louis) - he's a farmer, son of a preacher, owns guns, hunts, and drives a truck for a living and this is what he said: (I can't quote it because it's been a few weeks since we talked.) Obama knows what it's like to work hard and drive a beat up old car. He knows what it's like from his time as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago. Hillary, has never known what it's like to sleep on a cot. Or live on $11K a year. There were other policy issues that we discussed that he agrees with, but I'll keep this post short. The point is my cousin is the typical "red-neck" white guy and he voted for Obama.
Me, I'm the white gal who's over 55 who should be voting for Hillary - not me - Obama's got my vote. We don't need short term solutions - (gas tax holiday, 5 year mortgage freeze - good luck with that one), we need long term problem solving to get this country back on track - and your selection for President should not be "what can he/she do for me," but what he/she will do for the country. The Republicans have played the "what's in it for me" card for way too long and see where that's gotten us. We're all in this together and we need to do what's best for the country, not for our selfish
Can Obama Appeal to White Rural Men?
In a number of recent primary contests, white rural men have tended to support Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama. And the renewed focus on the views of Obama's Pastor, Rev. Wright, certainly doesn't help. But the notion that Obama "can't appeal" to white rural men sells short both Barack Obama and white men who live in rural America. It also flies in the face of the facts.
There are five important factors that are critical to understanding the role these voters will have in this year's presidential election.
1). Contrary to popular belief, Clinton's advantage with this demographic has been far from universal. Remember that the entire primary season opened with Obama's surprise victory in Iowa -- not exactly Manhattan, unless of course you mean Manhattan, Kansas. (Obama also carried the Kansas caucus by 74% to 25%.)
And let's remember he also swept other states with major white rural populations. Examples include Nebraska (67% to 32%); Maine (59% to 40%); Alaska (75% to 24%); Wyoming (61% to 37%); Wisconsin (58% to 40%) and Minnesota (66% to 32%).
In Wisconsin, exit polls showed Obama carrying white men by 63% to 34% and rural voters 56% to 43%. In Virginia he carried white men 58% to 40% and rural voters 79% to 20%. In Georgia white men preferred Obama 48% to 46%, and rural voters preferred him 60% to 35%.
2). Clinton's own super-high negatives among independent voters -- including those in rural areas -- present her with a more difficult task than Obama in many rural states in the fall. Take Iowa, where the RealClearPolitics.com average of polls shows Obama up on McCain by 9.3% and McCain leading Clinton by 10%.
3). My mother used to say that you know that a romantic relationship has promise if the better you know the other person, the better you like them. The same is true in politics. When Barack Obama first ran for the US Senate from Illinois, many pundits laughed that an African American guy with a name like Obama had no chance at all in downstate Illinois. Wrong.
As people in downstate small cities and rural areas got to know Obama they warmed up fast. In the end Obama won almost 53% of the primary vote statewide against three other very strong candidates. When the original Republican candidate was forced to leave the race because of a sex scandal, Obama was so strong that the state GOP was forced to ship in Alan Keyes from Maryland to be their candidate. Obama crushed him in the general election.
I had dinner recently with the chair of the Scott County (IL) Democratic party. She described Barack's first meeting with her mainly rural, white male precinct committee people. It was safe to say that he didn't have them at "hello." They were pretty skeptical at first. But by the end of the meeting, most were sold on Obama's authenticity -- and on his understanding of people like themselves.
So it's not surprising that in the Illinois primary for president, Obama beat Hillary almost two-to-one in Illinois. Most of Illinois' 103 counties are rural or home to small cities and towns. Obama carried all but 14.
Does Obama play in Peoria? He carried Peoria County with 69.3%.
Obama won Adams County -- home of Quincy, on the Mississippi River -- by 60%.
He carried rural Henry County in northwest Illinois by 62%.
The fifteen counties in the far southern end of the state are physically -- and culturally -- closer to Jackson, Mississippi than to Chicago. People hunt, have guns, are predominantly white, and are committed to their churches. Obama carried far southern Illinois against Clinton.
Exit polls from the Illinois presidential primary show white men went for Obama 59% to 37%. Those men and women who earn less than $50,000/year voted 64% for Obama. People who live in small cities and rural areas supported Obama 53% to 43%.
Well, of course, you say: these people are from his home state. But that's the point. The more that rural voters and white men generally know about Obama, the more they support him.
4). Even where white rural men express their preference for Clinton in a Democratic primary, it doesn't mean they would vote for McCain in the general election if Obama is the nominee. Democratic primary voters almost always vote for the general election candidate of their party, and for good reason. They are Democrats because they understand that McCain's economic and foreign policies don't represent their best interests.
The real question is not primary voters -- it is how independent voters (people who don't vote in primaries) of all sorts would vote in the fall. Obama has shown that he is much more attractive to that all-important category of voter than Hillary Clinton.
5). There is one more fatal flaw in the narrative that Obama can't attract white rural men. You can say what you want to attack a political candidate, but if, in the end, it doesn't ring true, the argument generally won't prevail. Barack Obama is the furthest thing from the "elitist" that the Republicans and the Clinton campaign have tried to portray. In fact, at his core, he's the guy who went to work organizing unemployed steelworkers for a coalition of churches -- not a Washington insider like John McCain whose family is worth $100 million and owns nine homes.
The renewed media attention to the views of Obama's Pastor Rev. Wright may briefly distract attention from the real Obama. Of course the silver lining of Rev. Wright's three day PR tour is that it was conducted with such utter disregard for the interests of Obama's campaign that it serves to emphasize the great gulf between Obama and Wright - both in substance and in style.
And as voters come to know Obama, they realize that he has a huge quantity of the one quality that is just the opposite of elitism: empathy.
In her Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Abraham Lincoln, A Team of Rivals, Doris Kearns Goodwin contends that Lincoln's ability to empathize -- "the gift or curse of putting himself in the place of another, to experience what they were feeling, to understand their motives and desires" -- was one of the major ingredients in his success as a politician and as a person.
In my own book, Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win, I make the argument that empathy is the key that allows progressives to win -- and is the keystone of progressive values.
Barack Obama is blessed with an enormous abundance of empathy. That empathy is the quality that will enable him not only to reach out to white men, but to bring people of different backgrounds and cultural histories together to create a common American future.
Robert Creamer is a long time political organizer and strategist and author of the recent book, "Stand Up Straight. How Progressives Can Win," available on amazon.com
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to answer that question you need to keep in mind that white rural men don't appeal to white rural men.
What has been so disgusting lately is to listen to Hillary and her husband and supporters and their insinuations that working class whites or rural whites won't vote for the Black guy. First they paint this as a reality (earlier in the campaign it was Latinos, remember). Second, they try to capitalize on what they've basically portrayed as the racism of rural and working class whites. And in the final step, they look all hurt when confronted and say "Who me?" as they deny that they are race baiters par excellence. The fact that so many Democratic party elites are willing to go along with the Clintons in this three step dance is teaching us a lot about their cynical view of African Americans. Apparently, we're a group to be trotted out come the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Otherwise, we are dispensible and we should on no account aspire to the highest office in the land because after all whites are too racist to vote for us. I believe that if Obama does not get this nomination (because Super Delegates decide that Hillary is more "electable" despite the fact that Obama has more pledged delegates and more popular votes, there are going to be a massive number of Blacks taking a permanent vacation from their first Tuesday after the first Monday in November duties.
standforpeace,
I think the Democratic Party is undoing itself regardless of what happens with this primary nomination. The Party seems to have splintered into two different representations of itself -- the progressive Dems and the conservative Dems, who largely align with the right-wing agenda. Those who are running the Party have stopped listening to their constituents in general. The only attention they pay to the public is to the conservative side in an attempt to determine how they might defeat the conservative candidate. Other than that, they ignore the public, for the most part.
Perhaps the progressive Dems in congress and those of us who are still progressive constituents, will eventually break away and form a truly progressive Party.
Thank you for this article. In 2004, I went door-to-door campaigning for Kerry in working-class Columbus. I was greeted with respect, and the questions about the Kerry platform that I got were probing, sincere and demonstrated a knowledge of both issues and possibilities. Many were genuinely undecided and were looking for anyone to engage them in informative conversation. As I was responding to these questions, I discovered I was giving answers about what I, not Kerry, wanted for America(health care, better Education). What the Kerry campaign gave me were cliches, hunting in eastern Ohio, windsurfing, etc.) and that these people were not being given the respect of being intelligent, thoughtful and -- believe it or not -- quite well informed. If Obama talks straight about the big issues, providing specifics, he will be given a warm response, and make his campaigners' lives a lot easier.
There is another aspect we might consider. Let's imagine that John Edwards and Hillary are running and Hillary is where Senator Obama is in delegates. Would it be fair for the super-delegates to vote for John Edwards based on the belief that he is more popular with men than Hillary? If they did that, it would be an outrageous decision and one, to be sure, based on gender discrimination. But this is what is going on with regard to Senator Obama. The concern is that an African American can't win the blue-collar racists whereas Hillary can.
Obama's race has less to do with winning among blue collar workers than his inexperience. The gaffe in Iowa about arugula was passable, then the NAFTA issue hurt him, and his comments in San Francisco about middle class people clinging to guns and religion did more damage.
The question is whether Obama can relate to the white male rural experience at all.
yes!!!
Sen. Obama and the Yes We Can movement are about unity; Rev. Wright focuses on what divides us. Revs. Barbara Reynolds and Jeremiah Wright have promoted themselves by giving Clinton backers a way to deny Barack the nomination without a charge of racism being leveled. The Clinton camp can now say to uncommitted superdelegates "See, this issue won't go away! He must not be electable." One has to be curious about what Reynolds was offered by the (potentially) future Clinton administration.
As a member of a multiracial family, I want our next President to focus on finding solutions, not wallow in what historically divides us. We can fight racism today by moving beyond historical wrongs. Reynolds and Wright"s grandstanding doesn"t help. The Yes We Can movement will give us the change our country needs because it"s more about the rest of us than about Obama.
Every dishonest attack on Obama from right-wing pundits has backfired. The lapel pin hoopla gave us a better understanding of why and how Obama IS patriotic, with a depth, complexity and passion many of us baby boomers feel. The Wright sound bites resulted in people hearing and being won over by Obama"s sensible and balanced "race speech."
Well stated.
I"m surprised white men aren"t flocking to vote for Obama. How often does a black man show he understands their frustration with the inherent reverse discrimination of affirmative action? Middle and working class white guys are voting for Sen. Clinton even though the last Clinton administration gave us NAFTA outsourcing that destroyed America"s jobs. While Clinton claims she never supported NAFTA, her schedules reveal that she actually lobbied for it. She says she doesn"t agree with trade agreements now, but her husband and campaign manager just made over a million bucks to promote yet another trade deal with Columbia when the Clintons are back in the White House. Similarly, elderly people helped reelect Bush because he said he fixed Medicaid for them. They didn"t find out until after the election that he actually fixed Medicaid for the drug and insurance companies, not them. The question is now, will voters get fooled again? I
"m going to trust my intuition about Barack Obama. My gut tells me he"s a good person with great ideas to engage us in creating an America we can be proud to pass on to our kids.
Oregon Mom
I'll bet a million dollars white middle class men would support him if he promised to support the Fair Tax.
if the fair tax was set at about 1/62 of a penny for ever $100. spent i might think it fair....
do you realize how many times a dollar changes hands every day with all paying a tax on it.....?
Obama... good guy, solid orator... but short on executive experience. Do you trust the presidency to a rookie senator who decided in his first year to run for President. Tranformational, yes; insurgent, yes... able to get things done... who knows?
His flinching on universal health care is concerning. Our kids need healthcare... and so do their parents. To get it done will require commitment and bi-partisan support. Hillary knows how to work the channels in Washington.
And Sen. Clinton has zero executive experience, and Sen. Obama has three times public office experience.
Mandated healthcare without the proper policies and regulations in place to ensure it is AFFORDABLE insurance is meaningless.
It is less about knowing how to work the channels in Washington, and more about getting the voters on your side. We've all seen how Sen. Obama can move a crowd. A couple of solid speeches about healthcare, middle and working class families going bankrupt because of catastrophic illness, and some American auto-makers talking about the burden of their healthcare programs and how much natioanl healthcare could ease that burden, make them more competitive, and even affect the pricing of vehicles and the citizens in mass would demand national healthcare, and woe to the GOP or DLC congress person who stood in their way come election time.
What Sen. Clinton's supporters are missing is WE hold the power. When WE mobilize as an informed and unified people the politicians have no choice but fall in line or fall behind. IT isn't about politics as usual.
Good point, We already had someone with "Experience", A TURD from TEXAS.
I think i'm ready for someone else.
No she doesn't ... know how to work the channels in Washington. Her tactics with respect to health care reform in the 1990s with her insistence on secret back room meetings and unwillingness to pull the Democrats in Congress into the process (and remember there was a Democratic majority at the time) made an already difficult battle impossible. Her shenanigans then set this fight back for years. Let's not reward her for her failure with the presidency.
Let the 90's go... Hillary learned from the experience and applies this is her work in Washington today. As she is known to say, "What did you hate about the 1990's, the peace or the prosperity?
The candidate that rural white males in Louisiana would not possibly vote for is Hillary Clinton. During Bill Clinton's terms there was talk here of organizing militias to oppose his expected gun control measures, and because of his debacles at Waco and Ruby Ridge.
I am rural white, southern, and independant, and I will vote for Barack if he is the nominee. If he is not ,then I will vote, support, and organize for Ralph Nader.
Does Reverend Wright compare with Hillary's war vote? Travelgate? Healthcare failure?Her husbands relationships with every foreigner with megabucks to share? What does Bill have to offer in return? The Clintons are flimflammers and we have just barely survived eight years of another flimflammer. Not to exculpate Sir W, but al least he was corrupt for his industrial friends whereas the Clintons are in it for nobody but themselves. That is not an accolade!
Does the Reverend Wright compare to 100 years of war; bomb, bomb, bomb Iran; the Keating Five; and Vicky?
McSame & McClinton just can't drag Obama down to their own flawed level. The only chance for either to win is with the other as their opponent. This would realize the corporatists' demonic dream team so they can continue to slake their insatiable thirst with the lifeblood of this pale republic.
I think that things are about to start getting much more maneagable for Barack Obama as with every impending minute, voters finally realize just how much change is not an option.
I pray your view is shared by A LOT of southern independents, but I'm not going to hold my breath! I just hope IN and NC show sense and vote for Obama not the Clinton machine!
Mr. Creamer, it seems to me that Senator Clinton, her supporters and the great majority of the punditocracy's whole argument about Obama"s inelectability relies on their perception of bigotry in small town America. Even if we buy their insinuations that the vast majority of white men are bigots, as, it is still a despicable argument. They should challenge bigots, not throw one of their own ( at least in Clinton's case) to the wolves.
Their flawed argument fails to put into account that racism, sexism and homophobia go hand in hand. What makes them think a racist would vote for a woman, when he has a white man to vote for. From my experience people who judge people on the bases of their skin colour are usually simple minded and they are misogynist and homophobic as well. That argument also applies to people of colour - while they cannot be racist (racism involves institutionally built power, which supports your idea), they can harbour a destructive sense of internalized oppression.
Incidentally, I do not agree with the premise that rural white men are racist, or Obama will fail to attract them when he wins the nomination. I am hoping that the Suppers will stick up for the unfairly maligned rural white man and Obama by saying to Clinton and her race baiting surrogates and opportunistic supporters (yes, I am talking to your racist ass Pat Buchanan), we will not vote based on fear and division.
Creamer's comments about Iowa and Kansas are either disingenuous or simply ill-informed. Democratic caucus goers in Iowa are among the most liberal voters in the nation and hardly represent the average rural Iowan. Kansas, ditto.
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No matter who wants this Pastor nonsense to be The Issue in November, they will see a race with Obama next to McCain, and the obvious choice will be Generational. Yes, GENERATIONAL.
Not race, not religion. Look for the contrast in generations to startle America back to The Issues: War, Money, Oil and Medicine. The differences on these four topics will Dominate The Fall.
:
I hope this is true. Hillary and McCain are the past, Obama is who I want to lead this country into the future for my children. My 17 year old daughter watches Hillary and wonders why people aren't offended by her tactics, why middle class people feel she understands them better. The fact that Obama is educated and doesn't sink to the kindergarten playground tactics, keeps his cool...these things should be a plus not a negative. I'm annoyed beyond belief that the conservative right who often bill themselves as "christians" using the tactics they do...sickening and nauseating!!! Hillary Clinton has fallen into the same trap. IN and NC wake up wake up and vote Obama
I am a 40 something yr. old white male. I support Obama as finally something more than the lesser of 2 evils. I have contributed dollars & time to his campaign & oddly enough my direct experience with his campaign was dominated with white males. It just seems to me that there is a concerted effort on the part of the media to divide US into sub groups & numbers & stats so that they can justify the theft of another election. REAL PEOPLE OF EVERY RACE, GENDER, AGE ,GROUP, & WALK OF LIFE ARE SUPPORTING OBAMA. Need proof??? Count the frickin' dollars. Count the donors. Count the volunteer hours. Count the People showing up to hear him speak. Tell the truth & do your job of reporting the facts & quit perpetuating divison we're sick of it.
Actually, most support comes from kids and people who feel they need to shout. Like you. As the saying goes, you are entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own set of facts.
I beg to differ. I'm no kid at 49. And if you were to look at the number of donors and the amount we contribute over time, I doubt you could logically, honestly conclude we're just a bunch of kids. As for the shouting, I wish someone would analyze the comments on these sites and compare the civility levels of the various groups. Of course I'm biased, but I would wager a great deal that the most caustic comments would come from the anti-Obama groups.
We can not afford another Clinton Presidential term. She has bent everything to suit her direction. She has stripped the Democratic party of any chance of beating McCain.,to fulfill her destiny to destroy America from the top down. We have see the great deeds she has accomplished, some one has to take lobbyist bribes and return favors, she has shown her true colors,by dragging the party into the dirt. by refusing to see whats coming, she isn't in this for the people, she is in it for herself and her lobbyist supporters. If she gets the nomination, the people of America need to rethink our political system, because its as crooked as our already elected officials. America is in need of leader ship to move forward not to step back 10 years and relive past problems, Hide the interns Bill is back is not a good campaign motto!
yes, he can. I am one. I would rather fall on my sword than vote for a liar like Hillary.
Although the Obama campaign would like to spin it otherwise, the 10% PA loss was painful. They indicated they would have a large number of "Superdelegates" joining them immediately after the election. It turned out to be one, the OK governor. They were counting on a very close result, or even a victory. They didn't get it, or anything close. His argument that once people got to know him, he wins, died in PA. He spent six and a half weeks (a lifetime in elections) getting folks in PA to know him. He outspent Hillary by 3 to 1 on advertising and still couldn't get closer than 10%. He won't have that kind of time to devote to any individual state in the general election, and he won't be able to count on outspending McCain 3-to-1.
Pundits talk about Hillary's need to win IN. Obama too. If Obama doesn't win IN, or fails to win NC by 20 points or more (a state with 40% Black voters in the Dem primary), it confirms that he can't win in the rustbelt, (IN is his last chance) and he won't win enough votes in Republican states like NC to swing them into the Dem column. Then when Hillary wins WV and KY by double digit margins, the undecided delegates will have to look hard at who will carry us to victory in November, because that's the real reason for all of us to be here.
Hillary/Obama 08
I have Jewish friends in PA who told me they voted for Hillary because just before the vote she said she'd obliterate Iran if they bombed Israel. Twenty five percent of our country's USAID money goes to Israel, and they want reassurance that the next President will keep giving our tax money to them. Clinton knows just what to say to buy votes. She's a smart politician, but she's still a cheater.
The perfect illustration of how reasonable people can look at the same set of facts and come away with opposite conclusions. None of the Clinton supporters I know doubt Obama's native abilities, his intelligence, and that as people come face to face with him they grow to like him. What we doubt is his ability to reach enough people to change their natural inclination to distrust whatever they do not know. Obama is unknown, because of his background, his lack of having had a tough, competitive election, and minimal national experience. His election to the Illinois Senate was largely uncontested in an ultra-liberal district. His "race" to the U.S. Senate was a cakewalk thanks to Republican scandals and a weak competitor at the last minute. He wasn't in the Senate long enough to run for re-election against Republican challengers.
In spite of Obama supporters' illusions that the Clintons are this "attack machine", the evidence is quite the opposite. This has been a gentle joust compared to many Democratic primaries I have watched in past elections, and, as Geoff Garin pointed out in the Washington Post, "The bottom line is that one campaign really has engaged in a mean-spirited, unfair character attack on the other candidate -- but it has been Obama"s campaign, not ours. You would be hard-pressed to find significant analogues from our candidate, our senior campaign officials or our advertising to the direct personal statements that the Obama campaign has made about Clinton."
Every dishonest attack on Obama from right-wing pundits has backfired. The lapel pin hoopla gave us a better understanding of why and how Obama IS patriotic, with a depth, complexity and passion many of us baby boomers feel. The Wright sound bites resulted in people hearing and being won over by Obama"s sensible and balanced "race speech."
I"m surprised white men aren"t flocking to vote for Obama. How often does a black man show he understands their frustration with the inherent reverse discrimination of affirmative action? Middle and working class white guys are voting for Sen. Clinton even though the last Clinton administration gave us NAFTA outsourcing that destroyed America"s jobs. While Clinton claims she never supported NAFTA, her schedules reveal that she actually lobbied for it. She says she doesn"t agree with trade agreements now, but her husband and campaign manager just made over a million bucks to promote yet another trade deal with Columbia when the Clintons are back in the White House. Similarly, elderly people helped reelect Bush because he said he fixed Medicaid for them. They didn"t find out until after the election that he actually fixed Medicaid for the drug and insurance companies, not them. The question is now, will voters get fooled again?
I"m going to trust my intuition about Barack Obama. My gut tells me he"s a good person with great ideas to engage us in creating an America we can be proud to pass on to our kids.
Posted April 29, 2008 | 08:22 AM (EST)