How long is the Democratic Party going to continue to pander to "Reagan Democrats?"
For the past few weeks, and continuing today after Hillary Clinton's disastrous loss in North Carolina and near loss in Indiana, the Clinton camp has been using the argument to super delegates that "Obama can't win the white working class vote."
So I want to say a few things about that type of thinking.
First, Obama won plenty of white working class votes. Hillary won more, but he did win some of them. He even won some Reagan Republicans and Reagan Independents.
Second, if we want to play a game of division, it could be said that Hillary can't win the African American vote. She lost it by a much larger margin than Obama lost the white working class vote. The Clintons maintain there are more white working class votes than black votes, and that may be true, but here is another reality:
Some of those white working class voters will definitely vote for Obama when he runs against McCain. When the choice was between two Democrats, many white working class voters chose Hillary over Obama. There are probably many possible reasons for that. One was the great snow job Hillary pulled by painting herself as a regular gal, and calling Obama an elitist. Another was probably racism, which appears to be higher in the working class than in the upper classes.
Those who voted for class reasons will vote for Obama in the Fall because McCain and the Republicans are not good for the working class and they finally know it. And as time goes by, and the people get to know Obama and his history better, the "elitist" label wil disappear.
Those who voted against Obama because of race will probably not be won over, but do we really want to choose Hillary as the nominee because we want to appeal to racists? Can't we use this election, instead, as a chance to help many Americans overcome racism? Bill and Hillary, who actually fueled racism with their primary strategy, could now be Obama's biggest allies in overcoming racism. If Bill and Hillary renounce racism, including that which reared its head in their campaign, they could do a great deal to help this country finally renounce the remnants of racism that remain in this country.
Third, with this election, we may be seeing the beginning of the end of the dominance of the white blue collar vote and the importance of Reagan Democrats to every election since, well, since Reagan. Soon Caucasians will be outnumbered in the electorate by Asians, African Americans, and Hispanics and those Reagan Democrats may simply not matter to electoral victory as much as they once did.
Barack Obama may not have won over a majority of Asians and Hispanics, but he is certainly capable of it. Most of those voters will choose Obama over McCain. And Obama definitely has over ninety percent of African Americans as his base. He also has the college educated voters, as Democrats usually do. The college educated voters have been frustrated for years that they could not get their message out to their fellow Americans about how Republicans and some Democrats have been screwing them over, manipulating their vote and making promises to them that they never keep. This election may finally change that.
And finally, what Obama has that Clinton didn't, and what will provide him a new metric for victory, is the youth vote, the vote of those who are members of the Post Boomer generations. And what is particularly hopeful, unique, and game changing about those generations is that they refuse to be stuck in categories so loved by the Boomers. They can't be so easily divided by class, gender, race, ethnicity or sexual orientation.
The post Boomer generations are incredibly tolerant. Obama's message of hope and unity resonates with them because they are already unified, and already children of the world.
My children, for instance, who are in their twenties and thirties, see nothing unusual about going to a wedding where two men or two women exchange vows. They all count gay individuals and gay couples among their friends. They don't see sexual orientation - or color or ethnicity or gender - when they choose friends.
All but one have been to Europe. One recently visited Cuba on an educational visa because he was invited by Cuban artists he met at art exhibits here in the U.S. The fact that Cuba is a communist country meant nothing to him. Another counts as one of his good friends a Muslim from Morocco. Another has a seven year old son whose best friends include a boy who is half French and half Iraqi, and a boy who is half English and half Japanese. My children and grandchildren don't divide the world up into categories, as Republicans do, and as Hillary, unfortunately, tried to do.
Division doesn't work with young Democrats, which is why now that Barack has all but clinched the nomination, I hope Hillary and her supporters join the unity march and give up their strategy of division. John Kennedy once said that the torch of governing had been passed to a new generation of Americans. Hillary and Bill Clinton came smack up against another torch passing, from the Boomers to the post-Boomers, and they did not see it. They need to see it now. John McCain will see it soon.
It has been a tough democratic primary fight, and those of us who supported Obama and became increasingly angry at Clinton did so mainly because we saw her as becoming too much like the Republicans who thrive on negativity and divisiveness. But should she give that up, she will redeem herself with us.
Many of the older women who supported Clinton (and older women were her base) did so because they have felt discriminated against in the past and desperately wanted a woman to be their champion. I understand that. But that fight, though not completely won, is largely in the past with the other Boomer causes. That is why her campaign ultimately did not succeed, and why Jeremiah Wright was ultimately rejected. They both wanted to continue the fights of the sixties and seventies, while the younger generations, including Obama's generation, have moved past those fights.
I fault Obama for one thing. He has not addressed the concerns of those women enough. He has never spoken to the concerns of these women because he sees his campaign as beyond that. But there are many women who I believe would come over to his side if he would at least address what they are thinking, what they have been through, the anger they still feel, and what they are hoping for. His late mother was of that generation, and her absence in his life may account for this hole in his strategy. But he needs to speak to more sixty and seventy year old women who can educate him. Then, Obama needs a speech to women, just as he needed a speech on race. I hope he gives one soon, or at least includes women's concerns in his acceptance speech in August and his Inaugural address in January, 2009.
After he does that, perhaps he can convince these women that Hillary wasn't the only one who can create a better world for them, their children, and their grandchildren. Barack and Michelle can do this - they can reach out to Hillary's supporters - women, working class whites, and Latinos - and Hillary can help them in the outreach if she really wants a Democrat to win this Fall. Already Barack's youthful supporters have begun a dialogue with their older Democratic cohorts (many of them have convinced their parents to support Obama) and are leading them into a better, more color blind, more gender blind, more united country, and then into a more international, more peaceful world.
Yes, they can! Yes, he can! Yes, we can!
