At the Wall Street Journal, Jonathan Kaufman notes the historical influence of working-class white men in American politics:
Once, blue-collar males were the bedrock of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal coalition. They became “Reagan Democrats,” helping to propel Ronald Reagan into office in the 1980s. Bill Clinton won many of them back to the Democratic Party in 1992. Two years later they were “angry white males,” resentful of affirmative action and the women’s movement, who helped Republicans capture Congress.
This demographic remains influential in battleground states today:
Working-class white men make up nearly one-quarter of the electorate, outnumbering African-American and Hispanic voters combined…
***
They are especially crucial in Ohio, where they make up about 28% of the vote, as well as other battleground states including Michigan (about 27%), West Virginia (33%), Missouri (27%), Minnesota (27%), Pennsylvania (27%), Wisconsin (29%) and Iowa (34%).
In 2006, working-class men voted for Democratic candidates by a margin of almost two to one, helping the Democrats win control of Congress. The issue is whether the Democrats can hold onto their support in a presidential election.
The WSJ piece is filled with anecdotes with identity politics that cut in all sorts of directions. It is a portrait more nuanced than — but not dissimilar to — the portrait painted by Garry Hubbell in a recent Aspen Times column that Rush Limbaugh has started reading on-air as I type these words.
The most recent polling (with the usual caveat that November is an eternity away in political time) has Sen. Barack Obama doing well against Sen. John McCain in Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Sen. Hillary Clinton does less well in most of those states. Nor is this particularly surprising, from the standpoint of white voters. In the primaries and caucuses, Clinton has tended to do well with working-class white voters, but this includes core support from working-class white women.  Obama has often done well with white men, particularly in more northern states, but he is much stronger with college-educated white men. Like any other demographic, whites (and white men) are not monolithic (a phrase someone will enjoy).
In the WSJ, Kaufmann notes:
Both Sen. Clinton’s and Sen. Obama’s campaigns say race and gender shouldn’t be a consideration, and that they are targeting blue-collar voters with appeals to economic issues that hit working-class families.
Of course, neither is above race or gender appeals when it benefits them, whether it is palying identity politics with a call for solidarity, or playing on liberal white guilt over historical discrimination. The danger for both Clinton and Obama is that trying to have it both ways may look to some working-class white men like an affirmative action candidacy — and working-class white men are not the most ardent believers in affirmative action. If that perception takes hold, it could be easy for them to rationalize voting for Sen. John McCain as someone with more experience relevant to the job of commander in chief. That McCain also happens to be an angry white male will be merely coincidental.
Comment by JD on 2/19 @ 1:42 pm #
Karl – FWIW, I just spoke to my Dem friends who are both attorneys in Milwaukee. They said that there appears to be a lot of R-crossover to vote for Hillary in WI today, and that tracked with the anecdotal reporting that they heard on their way to the office and at lunch. If so, it could make for an interesting dynamic there.
Comment by alppuccino on 2/19 @ 1:56 pm #
I’ve never admitted this to anyone before, but I. am. white.
I’m seriously thinking of using my already spoken for primary vote and throw it to Frau Kankleplottz to spice it up a bit. Thoughts?
Comment by N. O'Brain on 2/19 @ 1:57 pm #
“Working-class white men make up nearly one-quarter of the electorate”
Wait, I thought that no one manufactured anything in America any more.
Comment by N. O'Brain on 2/19 @ 1:58 pm #
>… Frau Clinton …
>::: Horses whinny in terror :::
Comment by Education Guy on 2/19 @ 2:03 pm #
Wait, I thought that no one manufactured anything in America any more.
I guess you are not a regular consumer of the MSM.
-OR-
We are second only to the Islamic world in manufactured outrage.
Comment by Al Maviva on 2/19 @ 2:12 pm #
C’mon. Enough of this pish-posh about Angry White Males. That’s just divisive political talk.
What this country needs is real unity under a strong, charismatic leader. One country, one people, one leader.* Obama 2008!
Comment by Karl on 2/19 @ 2:14 pm #
JD,
Don’t let that get around. If she pulls an upset, we can start counting down to the Diebold conspiracy.
Comment by Pablo on 2/19 @ 2:28 pm #
I plan on doing just that. So, call me Diebold. BWAAAHAHAHAAAA!
Comment by Radish on 2/19 @ 4:51 pm #
One country, one people, one leader.
Sig heil?
Comment by Dan Collins on 2/19 @ 6:58 pm #
Wait. White swingers what?
Comment by Great Mencken's Ghost on 2/19 @ 7:22 pm #
I hope there’s enough working class white males left to make a difference.
We tried to stage some good old construction worker riots out here for the last ANSWER march but we couldn’t find enough translators…
Comment by Christopher Taylor on 2/19 @ 8:35 pm #
What’s interesting to me is that the left is convinced the economy is going to be topic number one, the deciding factor in the election and I don’t get that feeling from anyone I know or talk to. Unless they are a leftist on a website, or working for the DNC. Who knows in a few months, though? The legacy media is doing its best to talk down the economy and make it the number one issue.
Comment by datadave on 2/20 @ 6:36 am #
hmmm, you guys are clueless. I mean who’s a working class white guy here other than me? Christopher? yikes, are you a Buckley wanna-be? I think most here are in white collar positions maybe with time to sit around at a desk and type here.
The growing economic insecurity; it’s just reality. “Blue collar men” are making less now than their fathers did in absolute dollars. Reagan shafted them with higher payroll taxes (with help from an aristocratic Democratic leadership ala Moneyghan, Rostenkousty (sp?)
just doing the phonetic sounds of the names being w/o a translator…oh, se habla?) still many Americans do the work ‘that Americans don’t want to do”. That’s as usual Corporate America’s big lie to bid down wages.
It’s op. for Obama to reach out to working class Americans. If he just relates the injustices of Bushed-Reaganomics, huge profits of Texxon-Mobile, health care premiums with FDR maybe he has a chance. It’ll be hard beating McCain. And Hillary’s forced conscription of blue collar worker’s ever-slimmer pay checks into forced payment of premiums into fat health insurance executive’s pockets will go down real negative on the mostly small business employed blue collar type that often is self employed as a tradesman or sub contractor (as in much if not most of construction) or is employed in a company with less than 10 employees which rarely has health insurance as a business. Obama also seems aware of this too and is advocating lowering premiums but not forced conscription of paychecks into the private health plans (although Hillary’s govt. run program would be interesting if she’d flesh it out).
okay, remember who built your cubicle and infrastructure.
Comment by JD on 2/20 @ 7:07 am #
datadave – Have you ever met Cleo? My brain must be fried, because I was just thinking that it would be fun to have dd do the reconstruction at my place.
Comment by datadave on 2/20 @ 8:18 am #
you probably need help…seems like the project’s dragging.
Nah, it’s always that way. My ex, her’s is like taking for ever, “remuddling”, takes longer…it’s all the variables you know.
Cleo, (s)he’s ‘working class’?
Comment by Rob Crawford on 2/20 @ 8:24 am #
Yeah! Like that damned full employment! And rising wages! And all those tech-sector jobs!
Bastards!
Comment by datadave on 2/20 @ 12:52 pm #
that was 1992 thru 2000…. a little interval there. when wages actually rose faster than inflation.
Comment by Education Guy on 2/20 @ 1:02 pm #
datadave is a typical whiner. Rather than doing something positive to improve his own situation, he chooses to whine about how everyone else, or rather a specific set of boogeymen, is out to shaft him.
You’ll never do better dave, because you have given yourself the excuses needed not to.
Comment by datadave on 2/21 @ 12:07 am #
hey, it’s not about me. Why can’t you deal with the facts. Actually writing here helps my Go game.
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