Does Obama need the Democrats? (part 2)

Last month, on 24 March, I posted an article called Does Obama need the Democrats? Perhaps, after Hillary Clinton's Pennsylvania win, it deserves another airing.

The article proposed that if the Democratic party superdelegates decided in due course to overrule the pledged delegates and prefer Clinton as the presidential candidate, the Democrats might find that Obama responded by declaring himself the moral victor and running for president as an independent. Obama has far fewer ties to the Democrats than the Clintons, and has consistently decried the polarisation into "red" and "blue" states. His reasons for running as an independent would therefore be highly consistent with his previous statements and policies.

In other words the Democrats, by choosing Clinton, might unleash circumstances in which their own candidate faced not one but two formidable opponents. More than this, they might do so under circumstances in which Obama would take from Clinton a considerable proportion of the Democratic vote. If this were so, choosing Clinton over Obama, far from increasing the chances of the Democrats winning the presidency, might be the equivalent of jumping from the frying pan into the fire.

Meanwhile, Clinton's camp is arguing that the Pennsylvania result demonstrates that Obama cannot win the white working class vote which they believe will be essential to a successful campaign for the presidency. It's an unusually good argument from a candidate who until recently has been mainly clutching at straws. However, perhaps we should hold back our judgement for the time being on whether Hillary Clinton's argument is correct. An alternative explanation of Obama's lack of success in Pennsylvania is that not that the white working class is inherently biased against Obama, but that amongst the various electoral groupings it is simply the most "conservative" with a small "c". This could mean that it is likely to be slower than the other groups, such as middle class and educated whites, blacks and latinos, to arrive in numbers at the Obama banner. It will be interesting to see whether Indiana, which contains another large white working class population, continues to hold out so steadfastly against Obama.

Against this, there is little doubt that Obama created significant difficulties for himself in suggesting that the poorer sections of the working class were often embittered and turned for consolation to guns, religion, and prejudice against others. There is surely an element of truth in assertions from the Clinton camp that he is something of a liberal elitist (even though it applies perhaps more to Clinton). As liberal elitists go, however, he is a very fine one -- preternaturally lucid, graceful in argument, incisive of mind.

This blog is interested in Obama for a number of reasons, not least for what it shows about shifting public opinion in America. Joe Klein, whose novel Primary Colours was a brilliant evocation and satire of a presidential candidate closely resembling Bill Clinton, asks on the cover of Obama's autobiography Dreams from my Father whether it is not the finest ever autobiography from a politician. Taking that as a cue, it this blog's view at any rate that Obama represents the most gifted intellect to approach the presidential elections since the Enlightenment. That does not, of course, mean that he will win, or indeed that these are the same talents that make a fine president. Meanwhile, it is certainly interesting to watch his progress through the minefields of the Democratic nomination, whose startling shifts and transformations surely make it one of the most complex, exasperating and fascinating political contests of all time.