From the Plane: Obama Fields Working Class Voter Question « The Washington Independent

TAYLOR, Mich. — While traveling from Michigan to Washington, Sen. Barack Obama walked to the back of the plane where he fielded questions. When we asked him about how he planned on winning over white-working class men that his competitor Hillary Rodham Clinton had successfully won over, he responded by saying:

"You guys are the pundits and you do the political analysis, but I would just like to make a couple of points based on what I’ve heard over the past few days. There’s been suggestions that, ‘Well, he’s losing among white men.’ Well it turns out I’m doing better among white men than John Kerry did in the last election. And I would note that it’s been awhile since the Democrats won white men overall. So this is not some problem that’s unique to me. People have suggested, ‘Well he’s got a Latino problem.’ Except it turns out right now I have a 35-point lead among Latinos. People have suggested, ‘Well he’s going to have to figure out how to attract women’ despite the fact that I have a healthy lead among women, including white women and certainly among white working-class women. Rather than try to, as I said before, slice and dice all these demographic groups, what I’ve tried to do is present an agenda that I think will be good for all Americans–black, white, male, female, Hispanic, non-Hispanic and I think that will work."

Stay tuned for more posts from the each of the candidate’s planes as we continue to travel with both campaigns, thus alienating our friends, ignoring chores around the house and missing the horror show that is the 2008 Cincinnati Reds season.