Prometheus 6

Now, consider the argument that a Democrat needs these states. In 2000, George Bush won West Virginia 52 to 46 percent. Four years later, he’d increased his margin to 56-43.

In Kentucky, Bush won 57-41 in 2000, and padded that to 60-40 four years later....

On to Oregon, where Obama won by double digits. A bunch of chai tea sipping elitists, with zero body fat, living in hip lofts while working at Nike, yes? No. Well, they do like running, and tea. Oregon is one of the nation’s whitest states – just under 2 percent of residents are black – but rich it is not. The state is below the national average in both per capita income and median household income.

This suggests that Obama doesn’t have a white working class problem so much as a regional problem, in a place where Democrats won’t win anyway.

White On White

She’s got her white voters. He’s got his. Her whites go to church every week. His whites are more secular. Her whites have dirt under their fingernails. His are more likely to be changing ink cartridges in the office. Her whites like the hard stuff. His whites will choose Oregon pinot.

It makes you want to scream: enough with the hierarchal rankings of white Democratic voters. [P6: not that I don't appreciate the article, but welcome to my world...]

But what Tuesday’s stumble-to-the-finish-line vote showed is that this sort of regional race trumpeting is largely meaningless — unless put in the correct context for the general election.

Consider the media shorthand for both Kentucky and West Virginia, where Hillary Clinton beat Barack Obama by huge margins. These are hard-working, real Americans, the Clinton camp says, and a Democrat can’t win without them.

In fact, both West Virginia and Kentucky have gone against the national tide of the last 8 years and have been trending Republican. Also – and this needs to be said – a significant percentage of the voters in both those states have now indicated that they may not vote for a fellow Democrat simply because he’s black.

Pollsters know that people lie about race; voters rarely come out and say they will not vote for someone because he’s black. Instead, they say things like we’re hearing from West Virginia and Kentucky – that “race is a factor.”

In Kentucky, over 25 percent of Clinton supporters said race was a factor in their vote – about five times the national average for such a question. Clinton, if she really wanted to do something lasting, could ask her supporters why the color of a fellow Democrat’s skin is so important to their vote.