Word: blue-collar
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When Michael Dukakis ran for President in 1988, crime was perhaps the biggest issue in the campaign. It splintered his coalition, pitting blacks who saw the death penalty as racially unfair against blue-collar whites who demanded a hard line against crime and too often associated that crime with blacks. Today, by contrast, roughly 1% of Americans say crime is their top issue, and no one even knows what Obama's position on the death penalty is. For Obama, that's an enormous boon, and Bill Clinton deserves a lot of the credit. His policies--especially his bold proposal...
...part because he wanted to start campaigning against John McCain, in part because he knew he was going to lose; he even said so in Charleston on Monday. While Obama has consistently outpolled Clinton among blacks, young voters and college graduates, Clinton has been more popular among less educated blue-collar whites of a certain age. That sounds a lot like the so-called Reagan Democrats whose defections have hurt the party so badly in previous elections...
...could be whether Obama can do anything to increase his chances among voters who do mind his race, but might be persuaded to vote for him anyway. Elderly whites who might not have the most enlightened racial views might be swayed by warnings that McCain would privatize Social Security. Blue-collar whites might prefer Obama's economic policies. Surrogates like Jim Webb and Bob Casey might help with crucial Scots-Irish and Catholic voters...
...strategy on the big contests, she seemed to virtually overlook states like Minnesota, Nebraska and Kansas, which choose their delegates through caucuses. She had a reason: the Clintons decided, says an adviser, that "caucus states were not really their thing." Her core supporters - women, the elderly, those with blue-collar jobs - were less likely to be able to commit an evening of the week, as the process requires. But it was a little like unilateral disarmament in states worth 12% of the pledged delegates. Indeed, it was in the caucus states that Obama piled up his lead among pledged delegates...
...Obama was once rubber to Hillary Clinton's glue, his former pastor's inflammatory remarks and his San Francisco gaffe on working-class bitterness now are sticking to him-fast-as polls show white blue-collar voters harboring serious doubts about his candidacy. So on Monday, a day before the primaries in North Carolina and Indiana, the last question Obama took at a "town hall" meeting got to the heart of the matter. Diana Allen, 39, an employee of LED light manufacturer, CREE, who identified herself as an undecided Democratic voter, said the most important thing for her was victory...