Stupid white men for the G.O.P.? New York Times White House reporters Jackie Calmes and Mark Landler teamed up for Friday's front-page campaign preview, 'Obama Charts A New Route to Re-election [1].' In a change from the paper's standard politically correct approach to race and class, the reporters crudely emphasized that 'less-educated, low-income whites' tend to support Republicans. (What happened to "the party of the rich"?)
With his support among blue-collar white voters far weaker than among white-collar independents, President Obama is charting an alternative course to re-election should he be unable to win Ohio and other industrial states traditionally essential to Democratic presidential victories.
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With growing cities and suburbs, they are populated by increasing numbers of educated and higher-income independents, young voters, Hispanics and African-Americans, many of them alienated by Republicans' Tea Party agenda.
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Terry Nelson, a campaign adviser to George W. Bush, John McCain and, this year, the former candidate Tim Pawlenty, said he was 'pretty optimistic' for 2012, partly because Mr. Obama's support among lower-income, less-educated white voters, never high, has dropped enough that Republicans see good prospects for winning industrial-belt states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin.
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Except for Indiana, a long shot, Obama advisers say the president will be favored or competitive everywhere he won before, including Ohio. But polls underscore how tough a task he will have with independents in the industrial belt, where income and education levels are below the national average, compared with states like Colorado and Virginia with higher-income, better-educated independents.
The latest nationwide New York Times/CBS News poll this month showed that 51 percent of independents with household incomes below $50,000 disapproved of Mr. Obama's performance, as did 57 percent of those with incomes of $50,000 to $100,000. But independents with household incomes above $100,000 approved of his job performance by 50 percent to 43 percent.