Obama, McCain battle for blue-collar vote

[DeepModem Mom]

CNN: Thu July 10, 2008
Obama, McCain battle for blue-collar vote

....So how is Obama doing with those voters against John McCain? Not too well. McCain is winning white, non-college voters by 13 points -- 53 percent to Obama's 40 percent -- according to a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. Poll taken June 26-29. The poll had a sampling error of plus or minus 6 percentage points....

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So are there lingering effects of "bittergate?" Maybe not.

In 2004, long before "bittergate," Sen. John Kerry lost white, non-college Democrats by 23 points -- 38 percent to George W. Bush's 61 percent -- according to CNN's exit poll. In fact, Democrats don't usually do very well with white working-class voters any more: Jimmy Carter lost them in 1980; Walter Mondale in 1984; Michael Dukakis in 1988; Al Gore in 2000; Kerry in 2004.

All those Democrats got defeated. The good news for Obama is that he is not doing as badly as they did with the white working class.

The only Democrat who's won since 1980 is Bill Clinton. How did he do with white working-class voters? According to CNN exit polls, there was nearly a tie with the first President Bush in 1992 -- 39 percent to 38 percent; and again with Bob Dole in 1996 -- 44 percent to 43 percent.

To keep (Obama's) blue-collar support down, Republicans are trying to paint him as a social elitist in the tradition of Dukakis and Kerry. To pump it up, Obama is running as an economic populist in the tradition of Bill Clinton -- and a lot of Democrats think putting Hillary Clinton on the ticket could help Obama with those working-class voters.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/10/blue.collar.vote/index.html