| The big reason why I and the politically knowledgeable folks I know are concerned relate to some structural problems in demographic performance. I mentioned small-town/rural voters yesterday, but in talking with several pollsters over the last 24 hours, I have come to realize that the specific demographic that is the most critical and movable demographic, especially in rural areas but also in suburban areas, is 50 years and older middle-income white women. Here’s the deal: the Obama campaign has developed a campaign that is very appealing to younger voters, black voters, and highly educated, culturally creative voters. He’ll get higher percentages and higher turnout from all those groups than Kerry did, and a higher percentage for sure (and hopefully higher turnout) among Hispanics pissed at Republicans for their bigoted language regarding immigration issues. But he’s still losing compared to Kerry among older and blue collar white voters. He’s unlikely to improve his percentage much among older white men, who are a pretty hard-core Republican group and really like McCain. But when you look at their historical voting patterns, their bouncing around in the polls over the last few months, and their numbers in the Congressional races, he’s still way underperforming among older white women. The good news is that they are likely still winnable, but the bad news is that (a) you can’t quite make a majority in most of the swing states without them, even with good turnout among our voters; and (b) Obama himself seems unlikely to be able to get them.
In our convention week, we picked up a modest bump in most demographic groups, but among older white women, we actually lost ground. And we lost quite a bit of ground in the Republican convention week. Obama’s biography and campaign message are blocking the campaign’s ability to win over this demographic. This group is still winnable, but part of what will have to win them over are groups outside the campaign- Women’s Voices Women Vote, Association for Retired Americans, Working America, etc.
Beyond this kind of specific structural analysis, though, there is another reason why so many people in Democratic politics are panicking, and it is less analytical but very real: the Obama campaign, per my glue politics piece of a few days ago, just isn’t talking to key leaders much at all. Major union leaders, other key organizational leaders, key bloggers, influential donors, other progressive leaders have all told me the same thing: this campaign is not having substantive, strategic, high-level conversations with them. When nobody knows what the campaign is thinking about its strategy, and the numbers start to sink, people start to freak. And with everybody calling, e-mailing, list-serving, Facebooking, Twittering, and text messaging each other, the panic level rises like flash flood waters. Maybe the campaign doesn’t care about all the chatter, but they should, because reporters hear it, local activists hear it, potential donors (big and small) hear it, and it has an impact, up and down the line.
So I agree with my friends in the campaign: no need to panic. Plenty of reasons why we are still well-positioned to win. Plenty of time to correct whatever needs to be corrected. But when you don’t communicate with your key supporters, the panic spreads. |
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