Poor Communication or closed ears?

Political commentators keep on repeating that Barack Obama's weakness is his inability to connect with blue-collar, working class voters. This statement is false and is cryptic language for an underlying reality which is seen as politically incorrect to mention on TV. Obama has no problem connecting with Blue-collar, working class Blacks and Hispanics.

Blue-Collar, working class workers is code for older, non-college educated Whites, especially White males. An analysis of polling data tends to paint a fairly common picture of the identity of this sub group of White voters. According to Gallop Polling data from Aug. 1 through August 28 2008, an overwhelming number of White Republicans support McCain and an overwhelming number of White Democrats support Obama. Thus, these Blue-collar, working class Whites are Independents and Reagan Democrats. Reagan Democrats crossed party lines and voted for Reagan in 1980 and 1984 and tend to vote on the basis of traditional values such as patriotism and national defense.
A point of interest is a classic study of Reagan Democrats in the Macomb county of Michigan undertaken by Stan Greenberg. This county voted 63% for John F Kennedy in 1960 and 66% for Reagan in 1984. Greenbergs study concluded that Reagan democrats were disillusioned with the Democratic party because they felt that instead of championing their interests, the Democratic party was advancing the interests of the very poor, the unemployed and African-Americans.
If this group of democrats voted republican, partly because they felt that the democratic party was preoccupied with advancing African-American issues, would they vote for an African-American candidate?

The polling data, and the profile of these Reagan democrats would suggest that the reason why Obama's message has great difficulty permeating the wall of this group is because their ears are closed to him because of his race and not because of poor communication.

If I were advising Obama's campaign I would not give up on this group but I would place greater attention, resources and energy towards the young, and first time voters. They tend to identify as Independents too. In Iowa, 22% of the democratic Caucus votes were from people under 30 years, 57% of these votes went to Obama.
As of late 2007, nearly 2.6 million Californians in the 18- to 29-year-old range were registered, representing 16.5 percent of all voters.
In Florida, 1.8 million 18- to 29-year-olds had registered by that time, representing about 15 percent of registered voters. About a quarter that state's population falls into that age bracket.


In total, over 6.0 million voters under 30 years of age voted in primaries and caucuses this year.

Its wiser and more effective to communicate to welcoming ears than to closed ones.