Senator Barack Obama is having trouble with Archie Bunker. The white, blue-collar voters personified by the 1970s fictional television character cost Obama this week. Senator Hillary Clinton beat him 54 percent to 44 percent in industrial Ohio. In Ohio's 10th district of Cuyahoga County, a suburban area on Cleveland's west side that includes a large population of Polish-Americans, Clinton trounced Obama 61 percent to 37 percent, according to exit polls. In the state's Belmont County, an economically depressed Appalachian (White ghetto) border area that is predominantly White, she had a 50-point lead over Obama.
The weak showing among the white working class in Ohio reflects a larger vulnerability for Obama, said Joe Trippi, a former senior strategist for John Edwards, who had broad appeal among those voters until he dropped out of the Democratic race last month. Senator Obama has ``had a problem with lower-income, downscale, blue-collar (White) Democrats from the beginning,'' Trippi said. ``He typically appeals to better educated, upscale Democrats.'' Ohio exit polls show white Democrats voted for Clinton 70 percent to 27 percent, while Black Democrats voted for Obama 88 percent to 12 percent. Clinton beat Obama 58 to 40 percent among those with no college degree and 56 percent to 42 percent among those who earn less than $50,000 a year in Ohio. In Rhode Island, she won those with no college degree 61 percent to 38 percent, and those earning less than $50,000 by 59 percent to 39 percent. Obama's chief strategist, David Axelrod, said he doesn't think race would hurt Obama in a general election because the Illinois Senator has done well in other states with large White working-class populations.
I look at it like a basketball game. One team has the lead and then the other team makes a run, gets a dunk and a couple of three-pointers and the crowd get excited and it looks like the second team has a new life and make a comeback, and then you look up at the scoreboard and it still basically the same margin. Senator Clinton's March 4 victories in contests in Texas, Rhode Island and Ohio -- and just one defeat, in Vermont -- pumped new life into her candidacy after 11 consecutive losses to Senator Obama. The media says she now has renewed momentum heading into the next big test on April 22 in Pennsylvania, where the electorate looks much like Ohio. But in reality Senator Obama is still the Democratic front-runner and has shown strength attracting independents and younger voters. While this week's results were welcome in the Clinton camp, she barely cut into Obama's overall lead of about 150 pledged delegates. In addition, the next states to hold contests, Wyoming and Mississippi, are likely to increase his margin. Wyoming on March 8 holds a caucus, a type of contest in which Obama has generally prevailed. Mississippi, which holds a primary on March 11, has a heavy concentration of Black voters. And neither state has big populations of White ethnic voters.
Yet Obama will need to do better with the White ethnic working class in places like Pennsylvania and to build a majority in a general election if he is the nominee. Some die-hard Archie Bunker clone even say they would vote for John McCain if Obama wins the Democratic nomination. Senator Obama has had problems with similar types of voters in Chicago since he began running for public office, though he has made some progress. He beat his White Democratic rivals in the 2004 Senate primary in places like the 41st Ward, which populated by Polish-American, Irish-American, and other ethnic Whites who think like one resident who said “if Obama gets in, it’s going to be a Black thing and it’s going to be all Blacks for Blacks. Everything’s got to be equal.” Some residents still harbor resentment from 35 years ago, when a growing Black population on the city's west side pushed whites north into Edison Park and Norwood Park, said Mary O'Connor, who owns a local bakery. Brian Doherty, the 41st Ward alderman, said he was ``shocked'' by Obama's success in the 2004 Senate primary. O'Connor, a Democrat who voted for Senator Obama and recently won a seat as ward councilwoman, said a new generation that is less concerned with racial politics and history is taking over. There is hope in the next generation.
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