Is Obama Gary Hart?

I've wondered repeatedly whether Obama can break through to become a true majority candidate in the party. A reader at the great Talkingpointsmemo.com raises the point, albeit in that ranting way that typing at 2:00 AM can bring:

"He loses the brown vote in every state 2:1 while pulling in the black vote 4:1 and he manages to sway wealthy white people and young white people. That's it. The base of the dem party is union workers, working class people and grandma. He has no traction at all with these groups. It's written large in every race. The guy just doesn't have what it takes to build a majority...."

I don't know about that. He pulled off Missouri which was a primary and not a caucus...Caucuses are obviously Obama's strength. They favor the activists and he owns them. iN retrospect, Clinton eked out Nevada because she'd been on the ground for a year. In states like Nebraska, Louisiana and Washington which are coming up this week, Obama looks very strong.

Still I Will be very curious if he can show more of a breakout around the country with the groups that have eluded him, white women and older voters. If you look at Obama's win in GA, for instance, he won a lot of rural, white counties in the North and elsewhere. I think he can break through into the working class, especially with men. But I think the women-brown combo is still good for Hillary in the long run, especially if you look at Texas, the second most populous state. Clinton crushed Obama in California's central valley but lost to him in affluent spots like Marin county. In New York, Obama did best in heavily black areas and with the affluent, almost upsetting Clinton in her home county of Westchester. My spouse, as I always note, works for Clinton

In 1984, Hart made it to the convention after winning over 1000 delegates and multiple primaries. But he couldn't overthrow the party establishment and the labor-back Mondale. Obama is in better shape because of his African-American support, youth surge, and money but he's still needs, as that reader said, the working class and grandma.

On an unrelated note, Romney showed some interesting suburban appeal, winning Cobb county near Atlanta and some of the surrounding suburbs of Nashville. (I bet Bel Meade went for him.) He's got some of the wealthy suburbanites with him, but he got trounced in Fairfield County, Connecticut and in Marin County, California. The rich, it seems, are abandonning one of their own except in those sunbelt counties where his wealth and conservatism combine well. If he stays in it, watch him carry River Oaks and the area around The Houstonian.

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