As for Reagan Democrats, how Clinton was treated is not their issue. They are more concerned with how they have been treated. Since March, when I was accused of being racist for a statement I made about the influence of blacks on Obama's historic campaign, people have been stopping me to express a common sentiment: If you're white you can't open your mouth without being accused of being racist. They see Obama's playing the race card throughout the campaign and no one calling him for it as frightening. They're not upset with Obama because he's black; they're upset because they don't expect to be treated fairly because they're white. It's not racism that is driving them, it's racial resentment. And that is enforced because they don't believe he understands them and their problems. That when he said in South Carolina after his victory "Our Time Has Come" they believe he is telling them that their time has passed.
Whom he chooses for his vice president makes no difference to them. That he is pro-choice means little. Learning more about his bio doesn't do it. They don't identify with someone who has gone to Columbia and Harvard Law School and is married to a Princeton-Harvard Law graduate. His experience with an educated single mother and being raised by middle class grandparents is not something they can empathize with. They may lack a formal higher education, but they're not stupid. What they're waiting for is assurance that an Obama administration won't leave them behind.
In the span of two paragraphs, Ferraro, who was on the ticket that lost more Reagan Democrats than any other Democratic ticket before or since, makes no less than tweleve generalizations about what Reagan Democrats are concerned with, how "they" feel, what "they" believe, what "they" think, and what "they" want to see.
Isn't this kind of like getting advice on shooting free throws from Shaq? Also, isn't repeatedly generalizing about an entire group of people kind of, you know, arrogant stereotyping? Maybe it is just me, but if I read an editorial that made such an enormous amount of assumptions as to what I thought because I belonged to a specific demographic group, I would probably be inclined to not vote for that person. I wonder if there is a connection here between Ferraro's assumptions about Reagan Democrats, and her previous inability to win them.
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