No, I don't think he does, at least not inherently. This is an analysis of an article that appeared on the front page of the Sunday edition of the Chicago Tribune specifically, so if this argument has been made elsewhere, I'd be interested to read it.
I've brought up the issue of class disparity in voting before, in a honestly curious way--looking exclusively (to avoid apples and oranges) at CNN's exit polls, there was some evidence that Barack Obama consistently performed worse among "blue collar" or working class voters, defined by educational attainment (up to "some college") and income (I'd say below $50,000 assuming they mean households, although even this is high; $42,000 is the better cut off).
The Tribune article says:
"His support tends to be stronger in suburban areas where you have white-collar professionals," said Brad Coker, managing director of Mason-Dixon Polling & Research. "There has always been a division among the Democratic Party among its limousine liberals and its blue-collar workers."
The party has a history of producing candidates who mesmerize better-educated, wealthier voters, from Adlai Stevenson to Bill Bradley to Paul Tsongas. But Obama has gone well beyond them in terms of generating excitement and winning states, even among a healthy chunk of lower-income voters.
Clinton might not seem to have a natural appeal to working-class Democrats, but her husband's enduring popularity adds to her image as a fighter for ordinary people in contrast to Obama's sometimes professorial image.
Notice that the pollster from Mason-Dixon is likely referring to his polling crosstabs--in other words, there is more professed support for him in these white collar suburbs. Election returns don't hold to the idea that the suburbs are Mr Obama's base--the urban vote seems to split back-and-forth between the candidates.
If we look at Missouri, a state Mr Obama won, but which was close, we find that the general pattern holds that Ms Clinton wins voters with the least education (no HS degree and HS degree she wins with 55% and 53% respectively), and his largest margin is at the top--he wins college grads and postgradutes with 63% and 67%. Ms Clinton won the lower-income voters again. I also chose Missouri because it has a sizable African-American population, and a big city.
Now, it is more or less not arguable whether or not Mr Obama is "losing" these voters in the literal sense (a majority of them are voting for someone else), the problem is the "narrative" tendency to attribute this to some ethereal thing:
Clinton might not seem to have a natural appeal to working-class Democrats, but her husband's enduring popularity adds to her image as a fighter for ordinary people in contrast to Obama's sometimes professorial image.
The reporter is right to point out that Ms Clinton appeal to working class voters is counter-intuitive on some level--because of NAFTA, the Wal-Mart connection, and welfare reform--but attributing her appeal to them should not revert to "Obama's a snob". The "professorial image" may be what appeals him to more educated voters, but we shouldn't assume that means working class voters don't like him. Both candidates have policies that in the narrow sense are pro-"working family" though neither is a New Deal Democrat.
The Adlai Stevenson comparison ("egghead") was made before on Slate.com, and its an interesting comparison--there were criticisms of him in Illinois that he could occasionally be a little too aloof--but ultimately, it's just that. An interesting historical comparison,with no predictive qualities.
Mr Obama made perhaps the best argument regarding why he seems to be losing the working class voters:
"With a lot of blue-collar workers, they're busy with their lives and, you know, aren't spending a lot of time reading" news reports, he said.
Ignoring the queasiness you may have felt to read a quote from your candidate saying that working class voters don't read (his meaning was "follow the races closely" obviously), his argument here is eminently reasonable: working-class voters, by definition lower-education voters, also work more hours--hours away from computers, too. Since he is the new name, the rational choice when you have less information is to go with a name you know, particularly one that has good associations for you.
This seems to indicate that if Mr Obama just needs more time to retail politic in these states and show who he is and reach out to them, to at least make his argument. Besides; although he consistently loses white and Latino working class voters, it isn't by overwhelming margins. It would seem local debates with Ms Clinton would serve this aim.
There is one sticking point; this:
Clinton speaks of hardship and struggle, and of specific things she would do to make life better for working people, said Nancy Heath, a massage therapist in Virginia who describes her work as "manual labor" and herself as "a working-class gal."
"[Obama] talks about grand ideological aspirations," said Heath, "but he doesn't know the reality. ... He talks to this higher level. She talks about the day-to-day level."
This is an echo of the "leader v. manager of a bureaucracy" theme that followed the second round of debates. Notice, too, that the Republican side had a similar debate--McCain saying he could "hire managers", Romney saying he could do the managing himself. These two messages are built into the campaigns. Mr Obama's public message, particularly his election-night speeches, is light on discussing specific problems, or even emphasizing them. In any case, he personally emphatically came down on the side of "leader" during the Las Vegas, and subsequent, debates.
If this is a general trend among working class voters--if they come down, in other words, on the "manager" side of the contrast, then the Obama campaign should consider tuning their message as they go into large-scale states like Pennsylvania Ohio, and even Texas. Of course, this is just an anecdote; selected just as likely because it matched the general narrative as that it was commonly heard.
The fact of the matter is, if we are talking about the need for popular support, we should keep in mind that the candidates are evenly matched. In terms of gross totals of voters, even with the weekend's result, there is a virtual dead heat, only tens of thousands of votes between the two. And even knowing this, we should keep in mind that these voters are by definition Democratic voters--there will be more than a 100,000,000 more voters in November.
This report on Mr Obama's polling among white and Latino working class voters raises some interesting points, but it glosses over the substantive stuff--policy stuff--and also indulges in a bit of "horserace" or narrative-writing ("the professor") that frankly isn't useful but which we will probably never shake.
So there is no inherent problem, it doesn't seem; it seems that "time", or better exposure, may be the most important factor. Given I'd be interested to read more theories.
I would suggest to Obama supporters that they keep an eye on the trend, as well as lazy efforts to attribute it to Mr Obama's diction or "carriage". I would imagine Clinton supporters would want to investigate the issue, too, to figure out what is working and whether it is a positive message, or just a lack of enough information.