The Former Party of the White Working Class
Conservative blue-collar “Reagan Democrats” left the party in the 1980s for Republican President Ronald Reagan and many never came back. In 2000, Democrat Al Gore lost working-class whites by 17 points, and in 2004 John Kerry lost them by 23 points.
But wait, the Democratic party is supposed to be the party of the working man and woman! What irony.
And Obama is in really bad shape with working class whites (that bitter bunch):
In Pennsylvania, exit polls found Clinton captured two of every three white voters from families earning less than $50,000 a year and the same number of those without college degrees, extending the dominance she showed in other big-state showdowns from Ohio to New Jersey and California.
I suppose that the only white working class voters that Democrats can hang on to in the general election are union workers. Kerry beat Bush by 59-40 in union households in 2004. Union workers strongly support Democratic politicians because they strongly favor using government power to force businesses to accept union contracts. (Otherwise, no business would ever sign a union contract.) This allows union members to receive above market wages and benefits. Unionism is a branch of the welfare state where employers are required to pay extra due to government coercion. So government forces companies to pay more to union workers rather than government subsidizing the workers directly.
Along with union workers, blacks and Hispanics vote strongly Democratic. Why? For one thing, there is much desire to expand the welfare state (jobs programs, more education spending, training programs, more tax credits and subsidies, expanded government-mandated health care, housing subsides, etc.).
This leaves upper middle class white liberals as the remaining whites that vote Democratic. Why? Well, for one thing, while the welfare state benefits them less, they believe so strongly in the value of an expansive welfare state that they naturally vote Democratic. It is like religious faith. Unions are wonderful, we need to give them more power. Every anti-poverty program is wonderful, they can do no harm - we need more. More social spending is needed on all fronts - we should be more like Sweden. Plus Democratic politicians are so right on those paramount issues of our time - like allowing abortions, stopping global warming, and getting out of Iraq immediately even if the place collapses.
I’d say the Democrats are in much worse shape to win the White House than they were a few months ago. I just wish McCain was better on the issues.
