The audacity of whose hope?
Posted by Matt Clifford on January 15th, 2008
For five days, commentary on American politics was little more than a “Who loves Barack the most” contest (You have to love the Independent’s leader the day after New Hampshire: “Our front page yesterday may, regrettably, have given the impression that Barack Obama had beaten Hillary Clinton in Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary and was well on his way to sewing up the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination“).
Now that the pundit class has had to return to the serious business of, well, analysing politics, there has been much wringing of hands about why everyone got the New Hampshire result so wrong. That’s an interesting and important question, but it overlooks what seems to me the most important lesson of last week’s primary. Exit polls have given us the clearest view yet of who exactly is supporting whom. The results are surprising.
Anyone who doesn’t know what word sums up Obama’s campaign hasn’t been paying attention: the idea of Hope pervades everything he says, does and writes. But what’s interesting is that the people who you’d think really need hope to triumph in November - the undereducated, the poor, those who see themselves falling behind financially - all favoured Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire, by 18, 22 and 10 points respectively. Who were Obama’s biggest supporters? He had big leads among the young, the rich and those with graduate degrees.
Now, in reality, I think that both Hillary and Obama are exaggerating the differences between their platforms: far more unites them than divides them (An interesting view from Matt Yglesias is here). Nevertheless, while the polls were badly wrong, it bothers me that the question a lot of media pundits are asking boils down to, “Why did so many New Hampshire voters ignore the wonderful narrative we’d created for Barack Obama?”. The answer lies in the difference between those who love the idea of change and those who really need it.
Filed under: barackobama, election2008, hillaryclinton, mattclifford, uspolitics on January 15th, 2008
95% of those polled were white - other races were such a negligible fraction that they have no data in the “by race” poll. A big category for whom Obama can offer some “hope” doesn’t exist in New Hampshire.
It sounds horribly nihilistic to claim that, after all this, the Democrat race should be decided by a skin and a name. But, between the lines, that’s what this “hope” thing is about. Elect Obama and, literally overnight, the brand of the US Government is transformed, among its own citizens and in the wider world.
I’m not sure, Jonathan. Obviously, you’re right that there are very few black voters in NH. But remember that whatever Obama’s “Hope” is really about, it definitely not supposed to be about race (The famous, “There’s not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America”).
If it has indeed become so, that seems more evidence for what I think we’re both saying: Obama’s hope is something symbolic; a rebranding, in your words. Yet the people hoping for substantive government change in November aren’t buying it.
But what Jonathan wrote about eligible non-voters adds an interesting dimension. If very many of those hundred million who have not voted in the past are those who you claim are in need of substantive government change, then maybe that a hole in your argument. Perhaps they will not vote for Clinton, the substantive candidate, the candidate like many who’ve come and gone before her, but can only be tempted to vote, despite their real need, by that ’something symbolic’.
The race question is certainly complex and bewildering to our British eyes. What I suspect will happen is that African Americans will increasingly stop kicking their heels as to whether or not Obama really deserves their support and will instead actually go out and vote for him.
As this blogger argues, insisting on perpetual victimhood and a continuation of the civil rights movement is counterproductive. But others just won’t budge.
[...] on from yesterday’s post, the Michigan Republican exit polls also make interesting reading. However, income, class and [...]
I’m just not sure that even Obama is enough to attract those 100 million to the polls. Remember, there was a record turnout in NH, which the pundits told us would benefit Obama. Admittedly, we’ve not seen a state with a large black population yet, but if Obama really does start to look like the black candidate - indeed, if that’s what catapults him back to frontrunner status - we may well see his popularity as a uniter decline.
[...] Obama still lost. The overwhelming black support that Jonathan correctly predicted may not be enough to save Obama: Clinton beat him in Nevada in every income band and overwhelmingly [...]