Obama’s problem

Why the Democratic nominee is struggling in the polls

The subtext of Hillary Clinton’s speech at the Pepsi Center in Denver yesterday was that she is able to put her bruising encounter in the primaries with Barack Obama behind her, and thus won’t be remembered as the loser who harboured a grudge if she decides to make another run in 2012 if Obama loses this time round.

The supposed demonstration of support and appeal for unity in the mile high city may not be enough to pull in the Clintonistas – polls before yesterday’s speech suggested that the number of voters who backed her in the primaries planning to vote for Obama is falling.

But the truth is that Obama’s problem rests more with the candidate himself than what Clinton can do for him.

In an article arguing that Obama’s race is not a major issue, Gerard Baker in The Times writes:

‘…majorities of white, working-class voters have not voted for previous Democratic candidates for decades. Since Ronald Reagan swung blue-collar voters behind him in 1980, no Democrat has won a majority of the white, working-class vote.

In fact, Mr Obama is faring exactly the same among white voters without a college education as John Kerry did in 2004 — with 38 per cent of that vote, according to the latest poll average.

Of course, he should — given the changes in the relative strength of the two parties in the past four years — be doing somewhat better. So why isn’t he?

Part of the answer is provided in a fascinating new study of voters in one of the most closely scrutinised places in the US. Stanley Greenberg is the Democratic pollster who broke new ground in the study of voting behaviour with an analysis of the so-called Reagan Democrats in Macomb County, Michigan, in the 1980s. White, blue-collar voters in this Detroit suburb voted 2-1 for Reagan in 1984.

In his landmark analysis, based on focus groups with former Democratic voters, Greenberg found that race was indeed a significant factor among those white, working-class voters. They interpreted Democratic calls for economic fairness in the 1980s as a veiled plan to channel government spending to African-Americans and they strongly disapproved. Greenberg was influential later in crafting Bill Clinton’s “New Democratic” message of personal responsibility alongside economic fairness, which won over the Reagan Democrats.

Last month Greenberg returned to Macomb County to gauge opinions about Mr Obama. He found high levels of dissatisfaction with the state of the country but also a surprising degree of doubt about the Democratic nominee. He was winning the support of only half those who said they thought the country was on the wrong track.

Race clearly played a part with some voters. But, according to Greenberg, if anything, colour seems to be less of an issue than it was back in the 1980s.

“Macomb voters do not seem to be voting predominantly on race,” the study concluded. Instead, Mr Obama faces two problems. The first is his failure to connect with voters on their economic anxieties. This seems to be a direct result of his decision to campaign on the loftier goals of change and renewal, and not on unemployment and falling real incomes.

The other concern was a widespread doubt about Mr Obama’s suitability to be commander-in-chief. Macomb voters are much more focused today on national security than they were 25 years ago, and they worry about Mr Obama’s inexperience. They also express doubts about his patriotism, often citing the incendiary antiAmerican remarks of his mentor in Chicago, the Rev Jeremiah Wright.

In short, Mr Obama’s biggest problems lie in his own perceived political weaknesses, not in the colour of his skin.’