Much More than Race and Wright behind Obama’s Blue Collar Woes
Earl Ofari Hutchinson



A few days before the vote in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary, an audience member at a town hall forum in Scranton shouted at Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama “send them back.” The fellow’s blunt and grating answer cut through Obama’s thoughtful and detailed answer on how he’d deal with immigration reform. A few hours earlier at another forum Obama dealt with the prickly issue of gun control. He gave an equally, thoughtful and detailed answer that straddled the fence between defense of gun ownership and a modified gun control plan. The audience responded with polite but scattered applause. The blunt crack from the audience member on immigration and the modest applause he got from mostly working class whites on the gun issue tells much about why Obama stumbles badly with white workers.

It has little to do with race and disgust over Obama’s tie to Jeremiah Wright. Immigration and gun ownership are economic and cultural litmus test issues for many non-college educated, blue collar white males. They want plain speak not policy wonk nuanced, winded answers that conform to their beliefs and views. Obama has not learned the painful lesson that plain speak answers on their concerns translates to moral clarity on their concerns.



But it’s much more than a failure to grasp the right style and words that cause moderate and liberal Democratic presidential contenders Al Gore, John Kerry and Barack Obama to falter with white male, blue collar workers. Republicans have also played hard on the anger, frustration, and hatred that many of them harbor toward government and the blame they heap for government’s perceived failures on liberal Democrats.

The angry white male was more than a cleverly coined buzz word in the 1990s to describe the fear, frustration, and the sense that males, particularly white males, were losing ground to minorities and women in the workplace, schools, and in society. The trend toward white male poverty and alienation first surfaced in the early 1980s when nearly ten million Americans were added to the poverty rolls and more than half were from white, male-headed families. Two decades later, the number of white men in poverty or among lower income wage earners continued to expand. The estimate was that more one in five white males who voted in the presidential election in 2004 made less than $45,000 in household income.
“Liberals didn’t realize they had a whole constituency of disenfranchised people without rights who were called standard masculine men,” Harvard University social psychologist William Pollack explains. “I’m not saying that all liberal Democrats saw these men as the enemy, but they didn’t see them as the victim — but these men felt more and more victimized.”



The main culprit in the eyes of those blue collar whites that saw themselves as forgotten, and economically strapped victims was always a big, bloated federal government. It tilted unfairly in spending priorities toward social programs to the detriment of head of household male wage earners and taxpayers.

Though the tax cuts that Reagan and later Bush Jr. shoved through Congress benefited the wealthiest taxpayers, they were also the fulfillment of Reagan's promise to deliver mid-America from big government and big spending. It was more than a dream. Reagan delivered on his promise. Reagan cut inflation, boosted employment, and his tough talk on the Soviet Union (“evil empire” plain speak) and terrorism appealed to the simplicity and moral clarity that blue collar workers demanded. Bush Sr., Bush Jr. followed the Reagan script with mid-America. Bill Clinton did too. He broke the GOP White House stranglehold by masterfully hijacking Reagan’s plain speak, emphasis on middle-class pain and the disdain of many blue collar workers for liberals and big government. Hillary delivers a modified version of that message.

The sense of security and economic boost that Reagan and Clinton gave to blue collar whites stands in sharp contrast to their feeling that Democrats refuse to offer much that will make any substantial changes in their lives. And that they fail miserably to deliver even on the symbolic promises they do make to them.

During the 2004 Democratic primaries, short term Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean made a clumsy, off-the cuff quip that the Democrats must grab a bigger share of the Confederate flag-waving, pick-up truck, gun rack-displaying, white male vote to win. That brought a howl of protest from some Democrats and charges that Dean was a closet bigot from the other Democratic presidential contenders. A contrite Dean backpedaled fast, did his racial mea culpa, and promised to zip his lip on the flag and kowtowing to Southern white guys.

Dean was right. But the rage at him from other Democrats also reinforced the deep suspicion of white blue collar males that the Democratic Party is a hopeless captive of special interests, i.e. minorities, gays, and women, and that white men especially are persona non grata in the party.

So it’s much too simple to say that race and Wright are the big reasons for Obama’s blue collar woes. Gore and Kerry had the same woes. And it had nothing to do with race, let alone with Wright.
Much More than Race and Wright behind Obama’s Blue Collar Woes
Earl Ofari Hutchinson

A few days before the vote in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary, an audience member at a town hall forum in Scranton shouted at Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama “send them back.” The fellow’s blunt and grating answer cut through Obama’s thoughtful and detailed answer on how he’d deal with immigration reform. A few hours earlier at another forum Obama dealt with the prickly issue of gun control. He gave an equally, thoughtful and detailed answer that straddled the fence between defense of gun ownership and a modified gun control plan. The audience responded with polite but scattered applause. The blunt crack from the audience member on immigration and the modest applause he got from mostly working class whites on the gun issue tells much about why Obama stumbles badly with white workers.
It has little to do with race and disgust over Obama’s tie to Jeremiah Wright. Immigration and gun ownership are economic and cultural litmus test issues for many non-college educated, blue collar white males. They want plain speak not policy wonk nuanced, winded answers that conform to their beliefs and views. Obama has not learned the painful lesson that plain speak answers on their concerns translates to moral clarity on their concerns.

But it’s much more than a failure to grasp the right style and words that cause moderate and liberal Democratic presidential contenders Al Gore, John Kerry and Barack Obama to falter with white male, blue collar workers. Republicans have also played hard on the anger, frustration, and hatred that many of them harbor toward government and the blame they heap for government’s perceived failures on liberal Democrats.
The angry white male was more than a cleverly coined buzz word in the 1990s to describe the fear, frustration, and the sense that males, particularly white males, were losing ground to minorities and women in the workplace, schools, and in society. The trend toward white male poverty and alienation first surfaced in the early 1980s when nearly ten million Americans were added to the poverty rolls and more than half were from white, male-headed families. Two decades later, the number of white men in poverty or among lower income wage earners continued to expand. The estimate was that more one in five white males who voted in the presidential election in 2004 made less than $45,000 in household income.
“Liberals didn’t realize they had a whole constituency of disenfranchised people without rights who were called standard masculine men,” Harvard University social psychologist William Pollack explains. “I’m not saying that all liberal Democrats saw these men as the enemy, but they didn’t see them as the victim — but these men felt more and more victimized.”

The main culprit in the eyes of those blue collar whites that saw themselves as forgotten, and economically strapped victims was always a big, bloated federal government. It tilted unfairly in spending priorities toward social programs to the detriment of head of household male wage earners and taxpayers.
Though the tax cuts that Reagan and later Bush Jr. shoved through Congress benefited the wealthiest taxpayers, they were also the fulfillment of Reagan's promise to deliver mid-America from big government and big spending. It was more than a dream. Reagan delivered on his promise. Reagan cut inflation, boosted employment, and his tough talk on the Soviet Union (“evil empire” plain speak) and terrorism appealed to the simplicity and moral clarity that blue collar workers demanded. Bush Sr., Bush Jr. followed the Reagan script with mid-America. Bill Clinton did too. He broke the GOP White House stranglehold by masterfully hijacking Reagan’s plain speak, emphasis on middle-class pain and the disdain of many blue collar workers for liberals and big government. Hillary delivers a modified version of that message.
The sense of security and economic boost that Reagan and Clinton gave to blue collar whites stands in sharp contrast to their feeling that Democrats refuse to offer much that will make any substantial changes in their lives. And that they fail miserably to deliver even on the symbolic promises they do make to them.
During the 2004 Democratic primaries, short term Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean made a clumsy, off-the cuff quip that the Democrats must grab a bigger share of the Confederate flag-waving, pick-up truck, gun rack-displaying, white male vote to win. That brought a howl of protest from some Democrats and charges that Dean was a closet bigot from the other Democratic presidential contenders. A contrite Dean backpedaled fast, did his racial mea culpa, and promised to zip his lip on the flag and kowtowing to Southern white guys.
Dean was right. But the rage at him from other Democrats also reinforced the deep suspicion of white blue collar males that the Democratic Party is a hopeless captive of special interests, i.e. minorities, gays, and women, and that white men especially are persona non grata in the party.
So it’s much too simple to say that race and Wright are the big reasons for Obama’s blue collar woes. Gore and Kerry had the same woes. And it had nothing to do with race, let alone with Wright.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).