The big (as the Clintons and the media would have you believe) primary results in WV are in and the expected happened. Hillary trounced Obama. In my previous two posts I stated how Obama needs to address the charge of elitism, and by extension, his problem with reaching culturally conservative voters – the exact same kind of voters who sent him to great defeat in WV.
Instead, Obama basically ignored WV. This has done irreparable harm. Now these same voters, who naturally should vote Democrat but have not for decades, think Obama does not care about them. Obama, knowing he would lose WV, chose not to focus on the state and instead start his transition to the general election.
He should have taken the week and talked to as many working class families in WV as possible. Not preaching to them or campaigning them, but listening to them. Find out why they think and vote as they do; find out what problems they face and what makes them tick. Learn about their lifestyle and beliefs.
This would have given him the opportunity to make him seem more approachable and human, not so out of touch. And it would show that he cares about their problems and values.
Doing that would be a general election strategy as well. He knew he was not going to win the state, but he has to start a conversation with this demographic in order to win the general election. Now the window has all but closed. He can try to mend this wound in KY this week, but he has to run up his vote total in OR too, so he simply cannot spend the time he needs to make it worth his while.
Moreover, letting Hillary win by 40 points instead of 30 gives her much more credibility to claim she can win key working class states like OH, PA, WV and that Obama is out of touch with everyday working Americans struggling with things like gas prices.
So now, whether or not he is out of touch or elitist, he is seen as such. Whether he can win blue collar worker or not, he is seen as incapable of doing so. And as I have said before, perception is everything in politics, and right now Obama is losing this battle against the elitism charge and the idea that he cannot win working class voters.
Obama is losing his ability to control the narrative. I think this particular narrative – that he is out of touch and elitist, is pretty much set. He will either have to spend most of the rest of the election fighting it off, or he will just have to ignore it and hope people will vote on more serious issues.
The latter could very well happen, but it is a dangerous strategy given that swing voters generally vote on values and character instead of issues.
All in all a very big strategic mistake by Obama.