Word: collared
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...scene was indicative, though, of the Illinois Senator's shaky first steps with labor. A year ago, many pundits predicted that John Edwards' populist message and tireless union wooing could earn him the bulk of labor endorsements, with Hillary Clinton's establishment mantle securing the rest. Most blue-collar workers didn't know what to make of the upstart Obama, who didn't help matters by skipping one early labor forum due to a scheduling conflict - and falling flat in several others...
...sure, if the hard-hat white Democrats who are backing Clinton in the primaries stampede to John McCain in November, Obama will be in trouble no matter how many computer programmers he wins. That's what happened to McGovern and Dukakis, neither of whom cracked 40% among blue-collar whites...
...Something similar happened in 1988, when white working-class Democrats couldn't stomach Dukakis' opposition to the death penalty. In both years, the primaries exposed bitter ideological divisions that came back to haunt the party in November. In 1972 Democrat Henry (Scoop) Jackson, in his bid for blue-collar primary votes, called McGovern the candidate of "amnesty, acid and abortion"--a line that Richard Nixon borrowed to devastating effect. In 1988 it was a young Al Gore who first brought up Dukakis' furlough program for convicted murderers in Massachusetts, a program that George H. W. Bush infamously associated with Willie...
This year, by contrast, the issues that once split the Democrats along race and class lines--the death penalty, welfare and affirmative action--have virtually disappeared. On foreign policy, blue-collar Dems have grown as tired of the Iraq war as have their upscale counterparts. And downscale white Democrats simply aren't as conservative as they were in the Archie Bunker days. During Vietnam, Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley--the quintessential lunch-pail Democrat--sent cops to bust the heads of hippie protesters. Today his son, Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley, opposes the Iraq war, promotes environmentalism and marches...
...fact, this year's deeper class divide is among Republicans. The party's blue-collar base is furious over illegal immigration and has begun to notice that the GOP's business wing is keeping the borders porous. McCain, whose position on immigration is more chamber of commerce than Lou Dobbs, may get caught in the cross fire, with nativist Republicans opting for a third party or simply staying home. All of which suggests that the media's fretting about beer and wine Democrats is misplaced. The party that's likely to have trouble holding its liquor this fall...