McCain’s Hidden Advantage

It is not just Obama's race that matters, but also his racial associations. "White Americans are, on balance, racially moderate to conservative," notes Hutchings. To the extent Obama appears to be something other than that, he loses white votes. That reality makes it all but inevitable that Republican strategists will attempt to resurrect the controversy surrounding Obama's former pastor as a way of removing Obama from the American mainstream and alienating him from those whites (working class and older voters among them) who have not been particularly enthusiastic about his candidacy to begin with.

Ed Sarpolus, a pollster who works for the Michigan Educational Association, says he believes Obama's difficulties with working-class whites may have little to do with race. "I don't think we are at a point where we can measure the racial impact," he says. The more pressing potential issue, as Sarpolus sees it, is that Obama lacks a compelling "working-class message."

At this stage, despite increased voter turnout, most Americans are not paying much attention to political messages. The average voter is simply "not tuned in to primaries," observes Hutchings. Also, as Clinton and Obama both acknowledge, their messages are not so very different. Given that, it's hardly remarkable that demographics are paramount. Other than the candidates' posturing, squabbling and supposed gaffes, there is little else for even serious-minded voters to focus on.

That will not be so in the fall. At that point (whoever the Democratic nominee turns out to be), voters will face a choice between fundamentally different approaches to some of the most difficult challenges, both domestic and international, that America has faced in a generation. That election is too important to be decided primarily on the basis of (inherently superficial) demographic factors—not that they will ever cease to matter. "Demographics are always a backdrop in American politics," Hutchings points out. But one thing that has made this season so exciting is the possibility of change. For even as the primaries have confirmed the truth of Hutchings's observation, they have also fueled the hope that we are capable of embracing a not-so-distant future where that need not be the case. To lose that hope would be tragic, not just for Obama, but for America.

© 2008