Obama Gains, McCain Slides Among Working-Class Whites

In losing 7 of the last 10 presidential elections, elite Democrats have expressed frustration with a group that they feel is voting "against their own interests." This group is working-class whites, who first came to be known during the 1980s as Reagan Democrats.

Things appear to be changing, which is a prime reason for Barack Obama surging ahead of John McCain in the presidential polls.

An Associated Press report from Kittanning, Pennsylvania, explores the feelings of folks in the struggling steel-and-coal small towns that surround Pittsburgh.

Ruth Ann Michel, 64, told a reporter that her vote for Obama on Nov. 4 will mark the first time in her life that she has voted for a Democrat. She doesn't particularly like Obama. She simply has grown tired of Republican economics, which she perceives work in favor of corporate executives and wealthy individuals.

According to the AP report, Reagan Democrats became Bush Democrats. George W. Bush won by 17 percentage points in the 2000 among white voters who lacked a college education, and boosted that margin to 23 percentage points in 2004. Elite Democrats cringe when they see these numbers, as if to say, "Those people are so stupid, they are voting against themselves."

John McCain had a 26-point lead in this same category as recently as September, but now it's down to 7 percentage points. This accounts for most of McCain's slide in the opinion polls.

Keep in mind, these are the same working-class whites who favored Hillary Clinton -- that prissy "liberal" Hillary Clinton, of all people -- by a 2-to-1 ratio over Obama last spring.

For his part, Obama has hammered away at the usual Republican charges regarding Democrats and higher taxes. Anyone who has not yet memorized Obama's 95 percent line, regarding the percentage of families that would gain tax relief, is paying scant attention.

The Associated Press, with Yahoo News and Stanford University, studied the impact of racial attitudes on the election. Surveys showed that whites without a college education were much more likely to hold negative views of blacks, compared to their white peers with diplomas.

So why are more people in this group suddenly coming to Obama's table? Ed Rendell, the Democratic Pennsylvania governor who first backed Clinton, offers an explanation. Rendell repeats the old parable about a drowning man who could care less about the color of a rescuer who tosses a life preserver. That's trite but it also could prove to be true, if the October polls hold up on Nov. 4.

SOURCES

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5j4OJ-sk9KxZorzn0FxIi9dAkHXgAD93NME480