Alert reader E notes that Thomas Edsall’s piece–on Obama abandoning the white working class–seems important and wonders, “Is all we’re going to hear from you on it a shot at Weigel? Answer: No! It’s discussed in an exciting, just-released bloggingheads. The one point I make is that the shift Edsall describes is not an unmixed blesssing for Republicans, who are now stuck with a lot of white working class people in their coalition who aren’t really that conservative, economically (or even on “social issues,” really–they seem mainly culturally disgusted with Democrats). …
P.S.: Reader E emails several thoughts of his own [with my comments in brackets] …
1. Does the new D coalition give a crap about Medicare? Especially given that I assume that the white working class skews old. [It’s not like the Dems are suddenly abandoning Medicare … oh wait]
2. Where are white teachers/cops/firemen/bureaucrats voting? The intelligentsia hates their unions. Isn’t that split a Republican opening?
3. If you’re the R’s looking to get a majority, do you go Rove and try and lop off the Latinos? I would have thought not–you try and get the affluent social liberals, a la Mitch Daniels or Schwarzenegger (maybe using the anti-union strategy above). But Huntsman may be showing that that’s not possible. [It’s maybe not possible in the primaries, but seems possible in the general. An amnesty-pander to Latinos is likewise difficult to smuggle past the GOP primary electorate–though Gingrich and Romney are succeeding. (Romney is preserving some room to pander in the general.) Nor does Huntsman seem like a fair test of a ‘capture the yuppies’ approach. Anyway, GOPs may not need to add any new group to get a majority this time. Teixeira’s effort at describing a Dem “coalition of the ascendant” has taken on a whistling-past-the-graveyard quality. He’s in effect saying ‘OK, scratch that Emerging Democratic Majority. Would you believe this Emerging Democratic Majority?’ Edsall calls him on this.]