Excluding the Potomac Primary results which may or may not be a sign that pre-existing trends have changed, the demographics behind the support for the two candidates appears to consistently break down as follows:
Clinton
Women
Hispanic
Low income
The Elderly
Voters w/o College
Obama
African-Americans
Affluent
Educated
Young
Churchgoers
Independents
Source
Source
Source
With the exception of African-Americans do Obama's demographics look like the classic Democratic constituency?
I hadn't really looked at it this way before, but think about it.
Quote: "How can we have a nominee who can't win the votes of working-class people?" says one Clinton strategist. It's a good question.
Source
I certainly don't want to stake out positions for Nimh, blatham, and Thomas, but from what I've read of their postings, I have gotten the impression that they prefer (perhaps only slightly) Clinton over Obama, and initially I wondered why. It seemed to me that through the most objective of assessments I can muster, Obama is more liberal, leftist, progressive (whatever term you wish to employ) than Clinton, and maybe he is, but perhaps not by their sense of these terms. If he isn't appealing to the working class, how Left can he be? I even think this point is central to what they having been saying (ad nauseum) about the difference between the European and American Left. (I know, blatham is a Canadian, but I think his political sensitivities are more European that American (as in USA).
Admittedly I haven't given this notion as much though as I might, and all or anyone of them may tell me I am well off base, but it strikes me that I'm not.
In any case, if these demographics are at all accurate, and Obama goes on to win, then the turning point of his race against Clinton is very likely the Clintons' use of the race card. (Poetic justice I guess). Snood believes that Obama started seeing his support among black voters rise precipitously when he won Iowa and gave cautious African-Americans a reason to believe he was viable and could win. I disagree. I think the support surged when he became more identifiable as a black man through race based "attacks" by a white, Establishment candidate. If I am correct, then Clinton's tactic back-fired big time. The Clintons hoped that he would lose support among white voters even though he might gain support among blacks. As it seems to have turned out, he gained a lot of black support, but retained and even grew his level of white support thanks to the race card tactic, and this isn't really surprising. On balance, which demographic groups were more likely to be turned off by the use of the race card?
Hillary would be in a much better position right now if she had just ceded Obama his white support in the demographic groups he initially attracted, and did more to retain and increase her support among black voters. What a political miscalculation, and that it was based on cynicism makes it all the more sweet that it back-fired.
Unlike some of the Obama supporters on this thread I think it too early to crown Obama. Hillary is not about to give up, and someone in one of these linked articles commented, this is not the year to bank on conventional wisdom.
Even though the use of race card seems to have been a tactical mistake, perhaps another tactical mistake was to put a muzzle on Bill. Having jumped into the race card water their choice was to drag their soaked and dripping selves out or swim to the other side. They chose the former on the basis that they needed damage control, but the damage had already been done. Perhaps they should have kept on swimming. Maybe they have reached this conclusion. How else to explain this from Clinton supporter Ed Rendell in the lead-up to the crucial Pennsylvania primary
Quote:"You've got conservative whites here, and I think there are some whites who are probably not ready to vote for an African-American candidate,"
Quote:"I believe, looking at the returns in my election, that had Lynn Swann been the identical candidate that he was -- well-spoken, charismatic, good-looking -- but white instead of black, instead of winning by 22 points, I would have won by 17 or so."
