The Dartmouth Observer |
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Commentary on politics, history, culture, and literature by two Dartmouth graduates and their buddies
WHO WE ARE Chien Wen Kung graduated from Dartmouth College in 2004 and majored in History and English. He is currently a civil servant in Singapore. Someday, he hopes to pursue a PhD in History. John Stevenson graduated from Dartmouth College in 2005 with a BA in Government and War and Peace Studies. He is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago. He hopes to pursue a career in teaching and research. Kwame A. Holmes did not graduate from Dartmouth. However, after graduating from Florida A+M University in 2003, he began a doctorate in history at the University of Illinois--Urbana Champaign. Having moved to Chicago to write a dissertation on Black-Gay-Urban life in Washington D.C., he attached himself to the leg of John Stevenson and is thrilled to sporadically blog on the Dartmouth Observer. Feel free to email him comments, criticisms, spelling/grammar suggestions. BLOGS/WEBSITES WE READ The American Scene Arts & Letters Daily Agenda Gap Stephen Bainbridge Jack Balkin Becker and Posner Belgravia Dispatch Black Prof The Corner Demosthenes Daniel Drezner Five Rupees Free Dartmouth Galley Slaves Instapundit Mickey Kaus The Little Green Blog Left2Right Joe Malchow Josh Marshall OxBlog Bradford Plumer Political Theory Daily Info Andrew Samwick Right Reason Andrew Seal Andrew Sullivan Supreme Court Blog Tapped Tech Central Station UChicago Law Faculty Blog Volokh Conspiracy Washington Monthly Winds of Change Matthew Yglesias ARCHIVES BOOKS WE'RE READING CW's Books John's Books STUFF Site Feed    |
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Reality Check: Obama DOES Has A Problem With White Working Class Voters And It's Not an Appalachia Problem Sometimes I feel like a one-man army trying to rid people of their illusions about politics. Today, I want to address this new meme that has developed: Obama's problem with poor (white) working class voters is limited to Appalachia. (That's a very polite way of saying "Those people are racists.") As Markos notes, Montana is an overwhelmingly White state. Likewise, it's one of the poorer states in the nation. So Obama's 17-point lead in the state seems to undercut the notion that he performs particularly poorly among working class Whites outside of Appalachia (a fact underscored by Obama's similarly large victory in Oregon last week). (emphasis added)The CNN Exit (Telephone) Poll of Oregon shows something very different. Obama won the state by 18 points, and won all income groups earning over $30,000 a year. However, Clinton won those making between $15,000-$30,000 a year by a 54-45 margin with those making less than $15,000 a year not. Slicing the demographic another way, Clinton won by a 53-46 margin those who had graduated high school but not attended college with hose who didn't graduate high school not polled. How is this not the white working class of Oregon? In an overwhelmingly white state, lower income voters, and those who have not benefitted from higher education would seem to qualify as the very category we have been talking about. And unless we are going 'Obama geography'--in which Arkansas is closer to Kentucky than Illinois is--then we have to acknowledge that this is him losing the working class vote in a place no where near Appalachia. |