Nestled in the Los Angeles Times' recap of Hillary Clinton's big West Virginia win last night is more evidence that the Clinton campaign is pivoting away from an argument based on electoral math to one that emphasizes her purported appeal to white voters:
But Clinton is no longer resting her candidacy on the delegate count. She hopes to persuade party leaders, who hold the balance of power, that she would be the more electable candidate against McCain, based on her support among white, blue-collar voters who have not embraced Obama's candidacy in the same way as black, more affluent and better-educated voters.
"The White House is won in the swing states, and I am winning the swing states," Clinton said Tuesday night.
However, Talking Point Memo's Greg Sargent flags a new Quinnipiac poll that undermines Clinton's argument that Obama's relative lack of support from working class white voters will be a fatal flaw in the general election. The survey finds that both Hillary and Barack trail John McCain by an identical seven-point margin among white voters with no college experience.
As Daily Kos' DHinMI has convincingly argued, Obama struggles in Appalachia -- not among the white populace at large. In fact, Obama and Clinton trail McCain among all white voters by seven points as well, which would be an improvement over recent Democratic nominees. Josh laid out those figures in a recent post:
In 2000, Gore lost to Bush among white voters by 13 percent. In 2004, Kerry lost among this demographic by 17 percent. Bill Clinton also lost the overall white vote in his successfull 1992 and 1996 campaigns, but by much slimmer margins. However, he didn't really attract a greater share of the white electorate than his Democratic successors; rather, George H.W. Bush and Bob Dole won a lesser percentage, thanks to Ross Perot.
If you combine those numbers with the probable rise in turnout among black voters and young voters of all races, Obama doesn't look nearly as vulnerable as the Clinton campaign would have us believe.
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