POLITICS

His Roots Are Showing

The big issue hanging over the Obama campaign may not be race but class.

by William Schneider

Sat. Apr. 19, 2008


READING, Pa.—Bitter? Well, yes. Teamsters President James Hoffa led a truck convoy across Pennsylvania last week, through such places as Reading, where the Hershey Co. is closing its York Peppermint Pattie factory and moving more than 250 jobs to Mexico. “There is a despair out there that we can’t change things,” Hoffa said. “We’ve been beaten down. We can’t stop the $3 gasoline prices. We can’t stop our jobs going to China and Mexico.”

Hoffa was in Pennsylvania to campaign for Barack Obama, his union’s endorsed presidential candidate. “I believe in Barack Obama, and I believe that we can change this country,” Hoffa told the factory workers, nearly all of whom are white. The issue hanging over the Obama campaign was supposed to be race. Would white workers support an African-American candidate? “The race issue has not come up,” Hoffa said.

Actually, the big issue hanging over the Obama campaign may not be race but class. Obama is the latest in a long line of “new politics” Democrats—dating back to Eugene McCarthy, George McGovern, Gary Hart, Michael Dukakis, Paul Tsongas, Bill Bradley, and Howard Dean. They all drew their strongest support from educated, upper-middle-class voters. None of them got many black votes—until Obama.

Obama’s class roots suddenly became evident last week. Talking about blue-collar workers in Pennsylvania’s small towns, Obama told California supporters, “It’s not surprising … they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” The problem was the causal connection. Obama seemed to be saying that workers turn to religion and guns and criticize trade and illegal immigration because they are bitter and frustrated. The implication is that their values and lifestyle are irrational.

Obama’s remarks drew a storm of protest from voters who felt that they showed a lack of respect for rural and working-class values. “Americans who believe in the Second Amendment believe it’s a matter of constitutional right,” Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton said in Indianapolis. “Americans who believe in God believe it’s a matter of personal faith. Americans who believe in protecting good American jobs believe it’s a matter of the American Dream.”

When a former chairman of the North Carolina Democratic Party, Tom Hendrickson, introduced Clinton at a rally, he said, “My message to Senator Obama is, ‘We are not frustrated. We are not bitter. We turn to our faith because we believe. Amen! We hunt and fish because it’s a part of our culture, and we enjoy it.’ ”

Obama quickly moved to break the connection. “Now, I didn’t say it as well as I should have, because the truth is that these traditions that are passed on from generation to generation—those are important. That’s what sustains us,” he said at a town hall meeting in Muncie, Ind.

Conservative bloggers had a field day, writing such headlines as “The McGovernization of Obama.” Conservatives are eager to have another “values” election à la 2004; they believe they can win those.

The controversy may not have a big impact in the Democratic primaries, particularly if Obama shows the same skill in explaining himself on class as he did on race. But Republicans will try to make the values issue a big deal in the general election if Obama wins the nomination. “This is a perfect example of why Democrats lose elections,” a Democratic strategist told The New York Times.

Clinton said in Scranton, Pa., “We have been working very hard to make it clear that we have millions of Democrats who are churchgoing and gun-owning. And we are tired of having Republicans or, frankly, our own Democrats give any ammunition to Republicans, because what happens then is Republicans take advantage of the situation.”

Clinton is trying to convince the superdelegates that the party will be taking a big risk if it goes with Obama. It’s not the risk that Democrats expected—race—but one they didn’t—class. On the other hand, the superdelegates may feel that it’s even riskier to reverse the choice of the primary-season voters and go with Clinton, especially if the “bitter” controversy doesn’t linger.