can this priest become a warrior too?

Some good advice for Obama in a WaPo article about his efforts to court a critical constituency: white men.

"It's going to take a real heavy emphasis on an agenda so that people see he's going to go to sleep at night and wake up every morning thinking about rebuilding the industrial base and kitchen-table economics," said the strategist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to candidly assess Obama's campaign.

Stern said Obama needs to talk more about his experience as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago, where he worked with dislocated steelworkers and their families, and his own life experience.

"He needs to introduce himself not just in the broadest sense as a change agent and who is obviously very smart, but who has lived the life of a single parent, who had to take loans to go to college, who lived in communities in Chicago with steelworkers who lost their jobs," Stern said. "He has incredible credentials. He's walked more than a day in workers' shoes. But it's enormously important that he make that introduction."

More broadly, this is the big challenge of Obama's candidacy, and has been ever since he declared himself a contender. Can he persuade working-class voters - who are less susceptible to 'inspirational' narratives of change - that he's looking out for them?

In a brilliant piece from March last year Ron Brownstein puts it this way:

It's not much of an oversimplification to say that the blue-collar Democrats tend to see elections as an arena for defending their interests, and the upscale voters see them as an opportunity to affirm their values.

This is why, says Brownstein, Democratic nomination races often pit 'a warrior against a priest': a battle-scarred fighter focused on immediate solutions versus a lofty, inspirational visionary (think Mondale vs Hart).

Hillary Clinton is most definitely a warrior, and Obama fits the profile of a priest. But priests usually lose, because there are still more steelworkers and bus-drivers than there are latte-drinking graphic designers in the Democratic Party.

If Obama is going to win (and this applies to the general election, when his opponent will be the ultimate Warrior, as much as it does to the nomination battle), he needs to combine both archetypes. The last candidate to do that? Bill Clinton, 1992.

 

Comments

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This is an interesting notion. I wonder if there might be factors that weren't mentioned that change the dynamic you describe.

Yes, Bill Clinton does speak in a way people of all sorts respond to. But Bill Clinton used his talent to lie, and everyone knows he did. The press says Democrats still love Bill, but as an ordinary in the trenches Democrat, I don't buy it. He's still charming as hell, but would anyone in their right mind buy his used car?

And even if he hadn't lied, Hillary Clinton is no Bill Clinton. Few ordinary people ever found Hillary as compelling as Bill. How many working class people are willing to face four or more years observing and defending continuing political infighting? What does the currently abysmal approval rating of Congress say about that?

And even if you disregard the baggage, Hillary more accurately fits the archetype of "amazon" rather than "warrior", doesn't she? Will an amazon appeal to working class white guys the same way a warrior would? And while women of a certain age might admire her, they still know that Hillary didn't get where she is without having directly benefited from the ol' boy power network that has kept so many other equally talented women shut out. And what about all the many women who have been stabbed in the back by a striving (richer, prettier, younger, better-connected) "sister" who freely stabbed them in the back to get ahead? Will older white female Clinton continue to support a privileged rich white political insider just to make a feminist statement? Who knows.

George Bush won his first term, in part, because he was able to persuade working class voters to trust him. Now it's clear that his (and now McCain's) policies hurt working class people the most. The past decade has provided plenty of evidence that working class folks have been screwed by big corporate interests with the help of political elites. Will they figure that ordinary people's concerns will be thrown under that "business bus" again if their new Prez is beholden to big money corporate interests? Clearly Clinton and McCain have those ties. Clearly, Clinton and McCain have demonstrated by their own behavior that trusting them is a calculated risk. Obama? I'd say less of one. Rezko and Wright, when looked at honestly, don't amount to much.

Finally, relating to your warrior priest metaphor specifically: which describes the warrior most likely to protect ordinary folk; one who is scarred from years of relentless skirmishing but who (admirably) still keeps throwing that "kitchen sink"? Or one who has fought fewer bloody battles because he's also used diplomacy to avoid bloodshed and focused on winning hearts and minds instead of making every effort a contest...while steadily keeping his eyes on the prize and accomplishing strategic advantage? In other words, which warrior offers the best protection for ordinary folk...a valiant tactical scrapper or a visionary strategist who knows that winning some battles can means risking losing the war.

Frankly I think Obama has *already* demonstrated that he is both a smart warrior AND an inspiring priest.

The bigger concern, I think, is that the media requires blood and circuses to stay in business. And pundits merely provide the band music and sell the show. So what ordinary people really think remains unknown because no one bothers to do more than ask simple yes/no questions about complex ideas.