In Voting, White Men Don't Jump

The final days find male Caucasians in the spotlight as John McCain pushes his white hope, Joe the Plumber and David Brooks focuses on Patio Man.

In a time of unprecedented fear and worry, traditional male breadwinners seem to be the Republicans' best target, but the question arises: Will they make enough difference?

One striking answer can be found in a study of the American electorate over 20 years by the National Journal, which shows:

"Over the past five elections, no Democratic nominee has carried even a plurality of white voters, although Bill Clinton came close in 1992 and 1996 when Ross Perot siphoned a substantial number of them away to his independent candidacy.

"White men have been particularly cool to Democrats. Only once since 1988 has the Republican nominee amassed less than a double-digit lead among white men. (That was in 1992, when Perot reached his high point.) And in both 2000 and 2004, white men provided George W. Bush with crushing margins of about 25 percentage points over his Democratic opponents."

The dominance cuts across class lines with the five most recent Democratic nominees averaging 36.6 percent of the vote among white men with less than a college education (blue-collar workers) and 36 percent among white men with a college education.

For whatever reasons, when it comes to voting for a president, white men don't jump party lines and, in concentrating on them, are John McCain and Sarah Palin wasting their time preaching to a very convinced choir?

Cracked Republican Coalition

As the McCain-Palin campaign veers Wild Westward, the GOP Eastern elite is dropping off the wagon train.

CNN reports a "conservative backlash" to McCain's mortgage proposal with the National Review deriding the plan as "creating a level of moral hazard that is unacceptable."

George Will says "the McCain-Palin campaign's attempt to get Americans to focus on Obama's Chicago associations seems surreal--or, as a British politician once said about criticism he was receiving, 'like being savaged by a dead sheep.'"

Peggy Noonan issues "a warning" to Republicans: "When your crowds go from 'I love you' to 'I hate the other guy,' you are in trouble, you are on a losing strain. Winning campaigns are built on love."

David Brooks observes that "no American politician plays the class-warfare card as constantly as Palin. Nobody so relentlessly divides the world between the 'normal Joe Sixpack American' and the coastal elite. She is another step in the Republican change of personality."

David Gergen goes from his CNN gig to the Colbert Report to repeat his warnings about Palin's stirring of racial hatred.

As the best Republican brains desert the McCain cause, he is in danger of being isolated among the yahoos and crackpots.

Bill Touts McCain, Palin, Hillary and...

"Slimy elder statesman" is the apt description for the former President's latest foray into this year's election as he calls John McCain "a great man," Sarah Palin an "instinctively effective candidate" and says that Hillary Clinton is offering "the most detailed position" on what to do about the financial crisis.

And the other guys? "I've never concealed my admiration and affection for Sen. McCain. I think he's a great man. But, I think, on the issues that matter to our future, the Obama-Biden team is, is more right. And I believe they're gonna win. But, I think that it will be competitive until the end."

This represents a bit of slippage from Clinton's convention speech only three weeks ago:

"Clearly, the job of the next president is to rebuild the American dream and to restore American leadership in the world...Everything I learned in my eight years as president, and in the work I have done since in America and across the globe, has convinced me that Barack Obama is the man for this job...

"Barack Obama is ready to honor the oath, to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. Barack Obama is ready to be president of the United States...

"Republicans said I was too young and too inexperienced to be commander-in-chief. Sound familiar? It didn't work in 1992, because we were on the right side of history. And it will not work in 2008, because Barack Obama is on the right side of history."

Does Bill Clinton really want Obama to win? His interview with CNBC's Maria Bartiromo sounds more like pundit pillow talk than an effort by the last Democratic president to help his party's candidate get to the White House.

Asked about Hillary in 2012, Clinton waxed philosophical: "I hope we're both active till we're 90 and healthy. But, I think that her focus will now be on what she can do in her present positions to try to help her deal with all these things that threw her into the presidential race in the first place...She's out there workin' hard for Senator Obama. She, like me, believe he's gonna win. And no matter who wins, we've got to put our, our own personal politics aside for the next couple of years and get after these problems."

Uh-huh.