Saturday, May 10, 2008

Another Political Myth Exploded

From the urban legend department: Obama cannot win white working class voters. Submitted for your consideration are the final results in Indiana and Ohio, two states smack dab in the middle of the blue collar purgatory known as the rust belt. Clinton won Indiana by only 11,152 votes which is less than 1% of the total. And now that Ohio is finally finished counting votes including provisional ballots, it appears Clinton won Ohio by only 8.8% and not the double digit blowout trumpeted for two months by the corporate mass media (CMM). Ohio and Pennsylvania are both bastions of fifties and sixties "white flight" that are suffering economic hard times in post-industrial America. The recent reality of the campaign has been that Clinton, in sharp contrast to her previous incarnation as a northeastern liberal representing a racially diverse constituency, managed to morph into a conservative populist willing to engage bigotry so she could win two large states by less than 10% margins. Not a very convincing performance by a Democratic candidate who must appeal across economic and racial divides in the general election. By now automatic delegates surely must be taking note of the true contours of Clinton's "electability" claims.