Two years ago, President Obama made headlines by meeting with Cambridge cop James Crowley in the Rose Garden. The "beer summit" seemed stiff, unnatural, and cold. Forty-four years ago, President Johnson made headlines by meeting with San Francisco longshoreman Eric Hoffer on the South Lawn. The pair hit it off like brothers from different mothers. The ability of the Democratic presidents to socialize with the common man approximates their party's appeal to the working class. So news of the Obama campaign's decision to bypass competing for the votes of blue-collar whites seems to merely affirm the direction the Democrats have taken in recent decades. Read my column @ Human Events on how the phrase "blue-collar Democrat" has gone from almost a redundancy to almost an oxymoron.

Interesting article. I enjoy Hoffer's writings (I've got all his [reissued] books -- off Amazon, of course). Having said that, I do have to point out that despite all the debate over the "white
working class," the rich do still prefer Republicans over Democrats. Voters > $250k came back to the Republicans in 2010.

The complicating issue here is the proper definition of "working class." If lack of a college degree were the basis, then Bill Gates, Rush Limbaugh and the late Steve Jobs would all be "white working class." Outliers to be sure, but as the data continue to show (see Andrew Gelman, et. al's, "Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State" for a good summary), even when controlling for race, poorer people still prefer Democrats. The "blue states" are only blue because the rich there only sort of support Republicans (maybe due to social issues) whereas in the "red states" they overwhelmingly do.

Anyway, I'm at the book store Tuesday to buy the book!