Zombie narrative death spike: No "Appalachian Problem" for Obama

Short hand (4.00 / 1)

You are technically correct on the geography merits.  I think Appalachian was convenient, if deeply flawed, short hand for poor white rural southern-ish.

I feel gratified that here in WV Obama did no worse overall than Kerry in percentage of white vote received (42%), and it may well be true that he would have done better had he personally campaigned here.  I really think the "fear" card works well for repugs here, and race was only one component in their "fear" arsenal.  I have no doubt that WVinians are among those crowding the gun shop counters buying before they "lose their opportunity."

If Obama does well, and I have reason to suspect he won't, the fear angle will be much harder to sell in four years.  In which case Nate's closing paragraph may prove true:

"This also has some interesting implications for 2012, in that by virtue of having become President, Obama will have spent four years in the living room of every American. That doesn't mean that Obama is going to win, say, Alabama. But it might mean that if he has a successful presidency, he can become -- well -- everybody's imaginary hip black friend, at least up to a point.  I hope I'm not being too optimistic by suggesting that our country will be a bit less racist four years from now than it is today. If so, then states like Georgia and West Virginia should be given careful attention once Obama begins to plot out his 2012 strategy."

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by: wvng @ Tue Nov 18, 2008 at 14:28:03 PM UTC

Charlie Cook (4.00 / 1)

Here's Charlie Cook's take, from the subscription only National Journal.

Learn Or Languish
By Charlie Cook
National Journal
November 18, 2008

What did we learn from this election? The results certainly confirmed that Republicans are demoralized. President-elect Obama's vote total -- 66 million -- was about 4 million higher than President Bush's total of four years ago. Sen. John McCain's 58 million tally was about 1 million votes fewer than Sen. John Kerry garnered last time. As expected, overall turnout went up, but much of the gain among Democratic voters was offset by a decline among Republicans.

Although young people turned out in higher numbers than they did four years ago, the increase was proportionate with the electorate as a whole. Most non-Republican voters turned out in higher numbers this year than in 2004. One key to Barack Obama's victory, however, was his overwhelming support among voters ages 18 to 29, whom he won by 34 points, 66 percent to 32 percent; and his support among those ages 30 to 44, whom he carried by 6 points, 52 percent to 46 percent. Those numbers are ominous for Republicans looking to 2010 and beyond.

Moreover, this election reminded us yet again that organization matters. Where the huge Obama machine was at work, Democrats tended to do very well. In states that his campaign didn't target, his party fared less well. Democrats looked quite strong in some parts of the country but much less so in others, flipping five state legislative chambers into their column while losing four others. Where Obama was an asset, he really was, and where he was a liability, he really was that, too.

We also learned that there are two Souths. There is a "New South," which includes Virginia, North Carolina, and, to a lesser extent, Georgia. In this South, which has lots of suburbs, transplants, and younger college graduates, Obama and other Democrats won or ran well above the norm for their party. In the older South, which has more small-town and rural voters, fewer transplants, and a more downscale electorate, Obama actually performed worse than Kerry.

In general, in the higher-growth segments of our country, Republicans lost ground, prevailing only in small towns and rural areas. When Democrats win the suburbs, Republicans are in trouble.

Republicans have lost an enormous amount of support among upscale voters, basically just breaking even among those with household incomes above $50,000 a year, a traditional GOP stronghold. Similarly, McCain's losing to Obama among college graduates and voters who have attended some college underscores how much the GOP franchise is in trouble. My hunch is that the Republican Party's focus on social, cultural, and religious issues -- most notably, fights over embryonic-stem-cell research and Terri Schiavo -- cost its candidates dearly among upscale voters.

The question now is whether Republicans will quickly learn from their mistakes -- retooling and rebranding their party soon, putting themselves in a position to capitalize on the missteps of the Obama administration and the rest of the Democratic Party -- or will languish, reduced to waiting for the Democrats to collapse and for GOP candidates to win simply because they aren't Democrats.

Those who write off the 2008 election by saying that Republican candidates weren't conservative enough are in denial. They are political ostriches, refusing to acknowledge that the country and the electorate are changing and that old recipes don't work any more.

Obama's message and agenda were a far cry from those of the Democratic Party of a generation or two ago, but the Republican Party's message and agenda haven't changed much other than becoming even more fixated on cultural issues and tax cuts. A top Republican pollster remarked privately to me after the election that he couldn't think of a single new idea generated on the Republican side during the 2008 campaign.

The dialogue about what the Republican Party is and where it should go will be driven over the next couple of years not by Republican members of Congress or governors or the party apparatus, but by the GOP's presidential contenders for 2012, who will be fanning out across the country before the month is over. The question is whether the party's leaders and members will be listening. Will they be open to new approaches to dealing with a dramatically changed country? Or will they simply say, "Back to the Future"?

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by: wvng @ Tue Nov 18, 2008 at 14:30:37 PM UTC

This is too rich (0.00 / 0)

My response here.

When a man embarks upon a crime, he is morally guilty of any other crime which may spring from it. Sherlock Holmes.

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by: Carnacki @ Tue Nov 18, 2008 at 17:06:33 PM UTC

Paul J. Nyden at the Gazette has a relevant and revealing review (0.00 / 0)

at this link.

In it, he quotes from two books by two separate experts, saying, in part,

Bartels dispels the common notion that less affluent white voters are so captivated by "wedge" issues - birth control, gay marriage and gun control - that they have moved away from voting Democratic.

Just the opposite is true, Bartels shows.

Between 1976 and 2004, 51 percent of white voters in the bottom third income level favored Democratic presidential candidates. But only 44 percent of white voters in the middle-third, and 32 percent of voters in the upper-third, voted Democratic.

Nationally, Republican gains have not come from low-income groups.

And, Bartels points out, "the net decline of Democratic identification among poor whites over the past half century is entirely attributable to the demise of the Solid South as a bastion of Democratic influence."

Al Gore and John Kerry did better among low-income whites in 2000 and 2004 than John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey did in the close elections of 1960 and 1968.

Over the past 50 years, losses in Democratic support "have been entirely concentrated among relatively affluent white voters - and they have been partially offset by increasing support for Democratic candidates among poorer white voters."

Nyden ends his review by stating,

Bartels is more difficult to read than Kuttner. But his statistical analyses provide invaluable information countering increasingly popular political myths.

"Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age"

By Larry M. Bartels.

Princeton University Press

325 pages.

Hardcover, $29.95.

_____

"Obama's Challenge: America's Economic

Crisis and the Power of a Transformative Presidency"

By Robert Kuttner.

Chelsea Green Publishing

213 pages.

Paperback, $14.95.

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by: One Citizen @ Tue Nov 18, 2008 at 17:09:07 PM UTC