McCain has the edge with white men
THE FIRST major poll of the general election by NBC News/Wall Street Journal shows Barack Obama with a surprisingly small lead over John McCain, 47 percent to 41 percent. Another poll by ABC/Washington Post has the identical margin.
The NBC/WSJ poll also reveals the mood of two large voting audiences, Hillary Clinton voters and white men.
Clinton voters aren't the problem. In the primaries, exit polls suggested that many Clinton supporters would not vote for Obama in November. But the NBC/WSJ poll shows Clinton voters, by a 3-to-1 ratio (61 percent to 19 percent), are planning to vote for Obama over McCain.
Obama's got an old Democratic problem: white men. No Democrat running for president has won the male vote since 1964. White men, about 40 percent of the electorate, prefer McCain over Obama, 55 percent to 35 percent.
The NBC/WSJ pollsters said, "Pluralities of white male voters say they don't like Senator Obama and don't relate to his background and perceived values. In contrast, by a 2-to-1 ratio, they express positive views of Senator McCain and identify with his background and values."
Why isn't Obama winning big? The pollsters point to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Obama's comments on the bitterness of rural Americans. My theory is that too many voters - especially white men - think he doesn't understand or care about them.
The devil they know. McCain leads with his personal story - being a POW in Vietnam for 5 1/2 years. Whenever he's in a jam, out comes the TV spot on his imprisonment, release, and commendations. Voters, especially men, admire this part of his biography. He's the devil they know.
Guts vs. dreams. If McCain's story is about extraordinary American courage, Obama's is an idiosyncratic version of the American dream. He's an African-American political leader not from the church or the civil rights movement. In "Dreams from my Father," he told of his youth in Hawaii and Indonesia, abandoned by his father at age 2, raised by his white grandparents, named the first black president of the Harvard Law Review, and moved to Chicago to work as a community organizer, lawyer, and politician.
Obama sells change and hope, while working-class and middle-class white men want security: job security, health security, and national security. Given a choice between guts and dreams, men will take guts every time.
Conditions favor Obama. McCain cannot win if the election is a referendum on the country's condition. If McCain really believes, as he said, "There's been great progress economically" over the past seven years, then either he's crazy or thinks we are.
Just as Clinton learned to talk about the problems of everyday people, Obama must learn to be a televised retail politician. He started doing it in Pennsylvania until his bowling scared off his campaign and bowlers in adjacent lanes.
The Soldiers' Candidate. Obama can't compete with McCain on military experience. But he can do the next best thing: pick US Senator James Webb of Virginia as his running mate. Webb was secretary of the Navy under President Reagan. He's a proud Scots-Irish son of the South with roots in Appalachia. He's written several best-selling novels and won an Emmy for his coverage of the 1983 Marine barracks bombing in Beirut for PBS. He has a son in Iraq in the Marine infantry and wore a pair of his son's combat boots while campaigning for the Senate.
He could become what Democrats have long needed: the soldiers' candidate.
The Audacity of Webb. Meeting Bush in a receiving line for new senators, Webb was asked by Bush, "How's your boy?" Webb shot back: "I'd like to get him out of Iraq."
He delivered a forceful, polished, and much-applauded response to Bush's state of the union speech in 2007. "The president took us into this war recklessly," he declared. He condemned the Republicans for the huge gap in pay between CEOs and average workers.
Webb on Webb: "It's pretty safe to say that I am the only person in the history of Virginia to be elected to statewide office with a union card, two Purple Hearts, and three tattoos." White guys like talk like that.
Dan Payne is a Boston area media consultant who has worked for Democratic candidates around the country. He does political analysis for WBUR radio.
