More on Class & Democratic Primaries

Let me make a less snarky point about why it's not a problem that Hillary Clinton tends to win working-class voters, while Barack Obama fares better among middle-upper-middle class voters with college degrees who "don't need a President but feel like they need change".

It's always like this. In Democratic primaries, the anti-establishment candidate always has a political coalition that starts from the top of the income & education ladder, then works its way down. Always. Gene McCarthy in '68, Mo Udall and Jerry Brown in '76, Ted Kennedy in '80, Gary Hart in '84, Paul Tsongas and Jerry Brown in '92, Bill Bradley in '00, and Howard Dean in '04, all tended to fare better among more affluent, more schooled voters than with downscale voters. The more an insurgent is able to expand his coalition to include voters in the bottom two quintiles of the income scale, the more successful he or she is. It's the nature of the beast, for any number of reasons. Labor unions are less likely to rock the boat. Working-class voters have better things to do with their time than watch CNN or read three newspapers and a magazine every day. It seems that white voters are less likely to support the establishment, and this disparity manifests itself in the income/education distribution as well.

The exceptions to this rule are the candidates who had some intrinsic ability to appeal to working class voters, usually people of color. Bobby Kennedy used the loyalty that African-Americans and poor rural whites had to the Kennedy brand name to expand his coalition, then campaigned heavily among Latinos and Native Americans. Jesse Jackson campaigned in a similar fashion to similar results (though he did worse among whites). And of course, Barack Obama continues to rack up 80-20 margins among African-Americans. There's nothing surprising about any of this; Obama will be successful as long as he can expand his success to the middle and lower levels of the income & education distribution.

Comments

[low-tech cyclist]

There's nothing surprising about any of this; Obama will be successful as long as he can expand his success to the middle and lower levels of the income & education distribution.

Well, it would be at least a little bit surprising, if he pulls it off: none of these guys

Gene McCarthy in '68, Mo Udall and Jerry Brown in '76, Ted Kennedy in '80, Gary Hart in '84, Paul Tsongas and Jerry Brown in '92, Bill Bradley in '00, and Howard Dean in '04

won, after all.

[Joe]

Well, Bobby Kennedy probably would have won in '68 -- and I think his coalition is the closest match to Obama's (RFK did better among poor whites and Hispanics, but Obama does better among African-Americans and professionals).

McGovern in '72 is another example of a successful insurgent-type candidate.

[weboy]

...except, that's not how McGovern's appeal worked - he was liked across class.

Low Tech Cyclist beat me to it, but yeah - it might help your case more if even one of these guys (guys) made it.

[low-tech cyclist]

I'd say the closest thing to a successful insurgent the Dems have had was Jimmy Carter in 1976.

OK, he wasn't exactly an insurgent, but he wasn't the establishment candidate either - his relations with the D.C. establishment were famously bad. Of course, there really wasn't an establishment candidate that year.

I don't recall whether Carter's appeal started off with the educated elites and worked its way down.

[Sir Charles]

Carter's appeal was to a strange coalition I think -- evangelicals (believe it or not), good government types, blacks, and moderate white southerners. This was before the evangelical vote moved hard core into the Republican column and before the politics of abortion were really settled into their familiar pattern. Carter was never really strong with the historical heart and soul of the party in the northeast and industrial midwest. But that segment of the vote was divided in about every direction possible -- you had Sccop Jackson, Hubert Humphrey, Mo Udall, Birch Bayh, and Frank Church, among others, all competing for that vote.

McGovern had serious problems with white working class Americans who deserted the party in droves during the general election, largely due to cultural and backlash issues. The AFL-CIO basically sat on its hands as a result. It was a disaster all the way around.

[Nicholas Beaudrot]

Erm. The fact that the egghead Democratic coalition lost is not the point. The fact that the insurgent coalition always starts with the eggheads is. Like Gary Hart, and to a lesser extent Bobby, Obama's appeal goes beyond the eggheads, which separates these three from Dean/Tsongas/Brown/Bradley/McCarthy types.

Carter is sort of an odd duck; let's set him aside. McGovern ... I don't know how that worked out either. I just sort of assumed the AFL-CIO sitting out the election meant his coalition to the nomination involved upscale Ds. But of course he didn't really have much of a coalition. As always there's an issue of sample size, but the insurgency has never explicitly focused on downscale white voters, except for George Wallace '68/'72.

[ikl]

In retrospect, only Obama had a decent chance to beat Clinton - it is hard to see any other Dem that could have put together an equal or bigger coalition of indepedents + wine track Dems / high-information liberals + African-Americans. Other Dems such as John Edwards might have been able to get a large amount of Obama's middle class white liberal support (plus some more conservative white southerners), but in a two way race, Clinton would have beaten Edwards by substantial margins among both Latinos and African-Americans which would have made it very difficult for Edwards to beat Clinton in a two way race (imagine how badly he would have lost in NY and NJ). Outside the south, Edwards never showed any particular strength among working class whites either - his support was if anything tilted slightly toward wealthier voters. Biden or Dodd would have been like Edwards but without the support of southern whites (in other words even weaker than Edwards in a two way race). I don't really see Richardson as a plausible wine track candidate, though he might have been able to beat Clinton all over the southwest.

[Sir Charles]

Nick,

There's another point I forgot to make about 1976, which really was the most fragmented Democratic electorate that I ever remember. Wallace ran too that year and was a factor. I believe that he finished second in the Massacusetts primary with about 20% of the vote(yes, true) due to a big anti-busing backlash in Boston. Scoop Jackson won I think, but with something like 23% of the vote, largely delivered by union voters is my guess. As a 16 year old I supported Bayh, Udall, Jackson, Church and Jerry Brown in succession before reconciling myself to Carter.

(I am doing this all from distant memory, so forgive me if the Google says I'm a bit off in these numbers.)

But I think Carter's appeal to many Dems that year was that he was the anti-Wallace, a white southerner with no history of racism and significaant support in the black community.

[Jasper]

Erm. The fact that the egghead Democratic coalition lost is not the point.

Nick: it may not be your point. But it is the point of those of us who feel that Obama's much vaunted electability may be significantly overrated.

[weboy]

Just to add to the pile-on - again - the fact that the egghead coalition lost is not the point. The fact that it's lost every time you identify it is. You may want to identify Obama's actual strengths, rather than something which plays to his flaw.

[yoyo]

You know what i really hate? how "downscale" is the new euphamism for "poor." i really hate that.

[yoyo]

Also, theres no prospective way to tell Kerry apart from any of the wine-drinking clowns mentioned. Its just that he ended up winning, so noone notices it. Gephardt and Edwards were at least as lagery as kerry was.

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/primaries/pages/epolls/IA/

[ikl]

The "non-egghead" Democrats have not exactly been doing so well in the general election since 1968. I must have missed President Mondale, President Humphrey, President Gore and President Kerry (definately the "beer-track" candidate in NH anyway). I'm not sure if Clinton was exactly a beer track Dem in 1992, but that seems like the only plausible counterexample. I don't think that Carter really maps on to either side, but it is worth noting that he very nearly lost to Ford despite Watergate.

The bottom line is that the Democrats have been doing really poorly in Presidential elections since 1968.

[ikl]

This isn't exactly a shock since, (contrary to some nonsensical memes out there) upper-income people tend to vote Republican. All things being equal, cutting into the other side's base is a better strategy than playing to your base (more precisely, if you can keep your based satisfied and go on offense, that is ideal).