For Obama There's Only One Answer
Thu May 01, 2008 at 09:57:09 AM PDT
Clinton is portraying Obama as an out-of-touch, effete, liberal elitist who can't relate to (white) working class and voters. If and when Obama wins the nomination, McCain will do the same.
Obama's problem in real. In every state but Wisconsin, even Illinois, he's failed to win the majority of white, blue-collar workers. According to a new poll, McCain crushes Obama among white working class voters in key states. For a while the campaign (and some progressives) seemed willing to write off these voters. Obama has come to recognize that he has a problem, but the changes enacted by his campaign are mostly cosmetic and will do little to solve it.
He can forget about bowling and basketball, he can forget about talking about his humble roots and his single mother. For Obama there's only one answer, and it's called progressive populism.
We've seen this crappy movie before, of course. For the last forty years, the GOP has managed to portray every Democratic nominee--except the two winners, Carter and Clinton--as egg-headed elitists. Indeed, conservative cultural populism, originating with Nixon's "silent majority," has arguably been the dominant political force during this time. For a politician like Obama--who, unlike Bill Clinton, lacks both a Southern accent and a willingness to demagogue cultural issues--there's only one recourse.
To be sure, Obama's race doesn't help him among this voting bloc, but it need not be decisive. Race ain't what it used to be. To cite just one precedent, Deval Patrick did well among white working class voters in South Boston. Increasingly white working class voters are willing to vote for candidates regardless of race provided the candidates look after their economic interests.
I don't expect Obama to turn into William Jennings Bryan: that's not who he is. Yet the positions he's already taken could for the basis for a strong populist push. It's a matter of emphasis.
Last summer Obama introduced along with Sherrod Brown and Dick Durbin an excellent bill called the Patriot Corporation Act, described here by the Nation's William Grieder:
Now here is a Patriot Act everyone can get behind. It's called the Patriot Corporation of America Act and it rewards the companies that don't screw their employees and weaken the country by moving the jobs to China and elsewhere.
In these troubled times, doesn't that sound like common sense? Government policy presently works in opposite ways. It literally assists and subsidizes the disloyal free riders who boost their profits by dumping their obligations to the home country. It's called globalization. Establishment wisdom says there is nothing politicians can do about it.
But the bills introduced Thursday by three senators and seven representatives, all Democrats, can begin to reverse this political perversity. Don't expect a roll call anytime soon, but I think the governing principle is pivotally important.
This bill gives Obama not only a specific set of populist proposals to promote but also a means of arguing for progressive patriotism, which can be used to counter bullshit attacks on his own patriotism.
And he needs to heighten his focus on trade. I wish he were a stronger fair trader, but he didn't vote for NAFTA and didn't hire union-buster Mark Penn. It's astounding that Hillary has managed to repackage herself as a fair trader. Obama needs to continue to hit her on her support for NAFTA and to hold her accountable for Mark Penn, who does more damage before breakfast than Jeremiah Wright has done in his entire career.
Trade should be one of Obama's key issues against McCain, who is already facing difficulty in Ohio because of his fealty to corporate free trade. In 2004, free trader John Kerry lost to Bush in Ohio while fair trader Sherrod Brown outperformed Kerry in small towns by double digits and beat Mike Dewine.
(Speaking of Sherrod Brown, as a VP candidate he would help Obama among white working class voters, as would Jim Webb, an original Reagan Democrat. Corporatist Bill Richardson, a champion of NAFTA, wouldn't.)
As the recession deepens, Obama needs to highlight his opposition to Bush's tax cuts for the rich, the economic impact of the war he opposed from the outset, and hissupport for re-regulation, which he needs to elaborate with specifics. In general, to win white working class voters and beat McCain, Obama needs to de-emphasize his post-partisan, unifying rhetoric in favor of populist positions he already holds.
This strategy comes with a risk: to move left on the economy is to invite the opposition of the corporate media and Wall Street. But he doesn't have a choice. It's the right thing to do, and the smart thing.
According to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, only 13 percent of registered voters think Obama would pursue polices that favor the rich over other citizens; 53 percent think McCain would do so. What Obama needs to do is convince the swing voters that this difference will have a significant impact on their lives. If he can do that, he will do well in Pennsylvania, and will most likely become the 44th President of the United States.
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