Why Democrats favor Hillary
Noam Scheiber has a theory:
In fact, it's pretty clear that working-class voters favor Hillary over Obama largely because they value experience. But it's the reason they value experience that's so interesting: Working-class Democrats, and particularly unionized Democrats, tend to see seniority as the only acceptable way of divvying up sought-after work. (And what is the presidency if not the most sought-after job on the planet?) For them, the problem with an inexperienced candidate isn't that he or she is unprepared to be president. It's that such a candidacy flies in the face of their basic sense of fairness.
Is it really that clear? Noam spends the rest of the article generalizing about one arbitrarily selected cohort of Hillary supporters (working class Democrats without college degrees) versus the countervailing cohort of Obama supporters (highly educated professionals). The former, Noam says, are animated by the sense that experience should be the path to success while the latter are meritocrats who believe Obama has a sexy intellect.
I don't know. Maybe there's a component of this at play. But to me there's much more explanatory power in the argument that Hillary is popular because she has incredibly high name recognition, especially with uneducated workers, while Obama's charisma and his greater liberalism appeal to his white-collar base. Parse the polls more closely: You find that, in Iowa, it's neither Obama nor Clinton winning with the white working class, but rather John Edwards, who--in that state--enjoys high name recognition and the support of organized labor.
And, for that matter, I'm not sure why Noam attributes Obama's support amongst meritocrats to their actual meritocratic tendencies and not to, say, their deeper understanding of politics in general. It's unclear to me why people who "shudder [at] the thought of having the sharpest insight or the best proposal and yet still having to cool their heels while their less able, less creative elders plod ahead" would for any reason conceive of Hillary Clinton as "less able" and "less creative" than the younger, less experienced, unspecific Obama. It's seems more likely that they favor Obama for the demonstrably true reasons that Hillary Clinton is both less electable and less liberal than he is. Or am I missing something?
Comments
Noam would do well at the National Review, since it appears he's mastered the evidence-free speculation that reinforces stereotypes and casts someone you don't like in as bad a light as possible. (You can tell Noam's attitude to Hillary by the reference to the Senator from Punjab.)
Supposed facts deployed: (1) In one poll, high-school-only folks like Hillary a lot; (2) Hillary is rated overwhelmingly (in another poll, as having the best experience.
Then, Noam delivers a pronounment that is a complete non-sequitur: These two details are not unrelated. How are they related. Because Noam says so.
Then he says: In fact, it's pretty clear that working-class voters favor Hillary over Obama largely because they value experience. Clear to whom? Where is the connection? Cause and effect, or unconnected correlation?
Watch this feat of platform diving: But it's the reason they value experience that's so interesting: Working-class Democrats, and particularly unionized Democrats, tend to see seniority as the only acceptable way of divvying up sought-after work. Cite? Nah, Noam knows this must be true, somehow. Because its fits his story? This is NRO-level (or LGF-like) thinking at its best.
Then this gem of Noamian analysis: Of course, it's possible that voters think experience is substantively, as opposed to just symbolically, important. But I doubt it. He doubts it because of his vast, person to person contact with millions of people spread across the country doing working class jobs - just like his background, right?
Then he riffs on Obama supporters: Even among educated voters (as opposed to voters in general), it's not hard to pick out the Obama supporters. They're the charter-school entrepreneurs as opposed to the public-school teachers; the management consultants rather than the government lawyers; the hot-shot hedge-fund managers rather than the stodgy CEOs. Once again, Noam really knows. He's interviewed at least a reasonable-margin-of-error national sample of Obama watchers to verify that each of the named 'opposed groups' are neatly fitted into the Hillary and Obama camps. NOT.
Then this mega non-sequitur: If you want a feel for how all this might play out in the Democratic primaries, you could do worse than to read Illinois Senator Donne Trotter's pronouncement on the matter this past weekend. In the entire article, ONE person's not-very-clarifying opinion is offered as supporting evidence for Scheiber's made-up-to-fit voodoo politics - and that cited person is a elected politician of unknown and undocumented educational and real-life work background.
Jonah Goldberg surely must be proud of Noam Scheiber, with this journalistic hackery disguised as self-evident analysis.
Brian, your scepticism about Noam's analysis and your alternate reading that name-recognition or policy preference potentially explains the poll-data just as well, seems spot-on to me, although no real data appears to exist to come closer to understanding the poll results.
Scheiber's article should be considered a hit piece typical of TNR - just like their destruction of Hillary's health care proposal in 93-94 by another hack.
Damn, this TNR flakey stuff frosts my jaws.
Opinions are like noses...
Yours is more attractive than Noams.
What happened to evidence based reporting? Or at least differentiating speculation from fact?
You should see my nose. It's pretty awesome.
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