Dick Morris' Bitter Cling Argument

Dick Morris writes the following about why Clinton won Pennsylvania:

Older voters are flocking to Clinton as fears mount of what Obama might do as president mount. But those under 45 - less focused, perhaps, on race - are moving toward Obama. Here, that split helped her.

Of the 50 states, only Florida has a higher over-65 proportion of its population. But there's a key difference: Florida's elderly moved there - Pennsylvania's are the folks that are left after the young people moved away.

Pennsylvania Democrats, in other words, suffer from future shock. They welcome old, established ways and embrace dynasties happily because they are so familiar. (Look at the Bob Caseys - dad was governor, the son is senator.)

What Morris is trying to say, without actually saying it, is that race played a role in Tuesday's vote. That's no doubt true to a certain degree - even Ed Rendell bluntly admitted in the weeks leading up to the primary that a certain percentage of white voters in Pennsylvania would not vote for a black person for president.

But Morris' unwillingness to say this directly, coupled with the tone he takes in painting all older white voters in Pennsylvania as folks who've been left behind and who are unable or unwilling to face the future strikes me as every bit as elitist and condescending as Barack Obama's remarks. Morris might just as well have written that older white voters in Pennsylvania are bitter and "cling" to the past and to racist attitudes.



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