The "Cracker Ass Cracker" Vote

Though I love Eugene Robinson's and Bob Herbert's commentaries, I didn't agree with them so much on Hillary's regurgitation of the AP stats which showed that white, working class whites were not feeling Obama. I think they took it someplace it didn't need to go and someplace that wasn't her intention. I tend to agree with
DeWayne Wickham.

It was the political equivalent of a roundhouse punch — a blow that was easy to see coming, but one that its intended target knew would do great damage if it landed.

During an interview with this newspaper last week, Hillary Clinton uttered the unspeakable. In explaining why she continues to campaign for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination when it appears that Barack Obama has an insurmountable lead, Clinton said his support among white voters is weak.

"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," she said. Clinton cited a recent Associated Press poll that found 53% of whites who have not completed college have an unfavorable view of Obama, who is on the verge of becoming the first black to win the presidential nomination of a major political party.

That's exactly the kind of talk Obama supporters and Democratic Party officials don't want to hear — at least not publicly. But while Clinton was accused of playing the race card for what she said, she actually exposed the soft underbelly of Obama's masterful White House campaign.

The whole witch burning that ensued and Hillary being called racist was just stupid. She didn't make up the numbers. I heard them, ad nauseum , every morning and every night on every cable news program. The Obama campaign needs to pay attention to this core group of democrats who seem to have been forgotten with all of the focus on the 90+ percent of blacks who support him along with the whites who make more than 50K/yr. Having grown up in Chicago, I am quite familiar with the white, working class types who take issue with Obama and most other people who don't look like them. The late Mayor Daley was about as staunch of a democrat as you could get but he hated Martin Luther King with a passion. I have vivid memories, stories and experiences reflecting what happened to people who ventured into their neighborhoods with more than a summer tan.

Yet, the "cracker ass cracker" vote is still pivotal. I'm not sure how Obama can win them over or even if people like John Edwards can help change hearts and minds. It's going to be a challenge for sure but now that he is the apparent nominee, we're going to have to figure something out or we will end up with four more years of the mess that Bush made.

Ironically, if Obama weren't the eloquent and ultra educated black man that he is, he wouldn't be where he is. Yet, that education and presence seems to be his biggest obstacle with these people - racial undertones or not.