It's that we-thought-we'd-taken-care-of-those-jerks problem popping up again. White men! Can't live with them, can't live without them!
Pauline Collins focuses on Pennsylvania and the efforts of both Obama and Clinton to win over a group in political decline: white men.
Reporters are spread all over the state, searching for white men to interview. American Legion halls under siege! Both campaigns engage in extensive research, which reveals that white men are very concerned about the economy. Duh.
Courting them is extremely tricky. It’s not like you can promise that under your presidency, more white men would be appointed to the Supreme Court.
The candidates’ desperation to make contact is showing. Barack Obama goes bowling in Altoona — with disastrous consequences. Hillary Clinton attempts to compare herself to Rocky Balboa, prompting many people to note that Rocky lost to a black guy. Obama, rather cruelly, points out that Rocky is a fictional character. Clinton, in turn, reveals that she owns her own bowling ball.
It’s got to be irking women and blacks.
As Collins points out, white men aren't so fixed in their predilections anymore. They can't be. Things have changed (not even counting the changes Barack wants).
Although there is nobody happier than a white guy when his daughter turns out to be a star in the Little League, change has taken away most of white men’s favorite preserves, including sports. They long ago came to grips with the fact that they weren’t going to be seeing many reflections of themselves on the basketball court anymore. (They have not, in my observation, become nearly as resigned to female sports announcers.) And it’s hard to fashion an entire identity out of fantasy football and hockey.
Is there no cave left for the white American male? Probably not.
I once tried to make a list of specifically guy things that no woman was ever going to want to trespass upon. All I came up with were “The Three Stooges” and lawn care. This is not adequate material around which to construct a presidential campaign.
