Ballot Boo-Boo, Obama’s Southern Gain from Whites, & an Authentic Coalition

Big ballot boo-boo from Troy, NY: Osama for president?

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s last name is spelled “Osama” on some 300 absentee ballots mailed out this week to voters in Rensselaer County hilltowns.

Everyone’s embarrassed and they decided to issue new ballots.

Facing South reports on a study finding Obama’s gains in the South are from white voters:

The conventional wisdom is that Barack Obama is doing so well this year due to the likelihood of increased turnout and support from black voters and young voters. Those things are certainly important, but a strong majority of Obama’s gains relative to Democratic performance in 2004, even in the South, can be attributed to increased support from white voters.

Ezra Klein complicates that picture:

One of the realities that’s a bit too treacherous to get into before the election but will surely feature into a lot of post-election analyses is the fact that John McCain is probably going to win whites and lose the presidency. Even now, 10 points down in the polls, McCain has a seven point lead among white voters. But white voters are not the only voters. Rather, they’re 68 percent or so of the populace (though probably somewhat more of the electorate).

You can lose them by a couple points and still win the election handily. The question will be how that win is understood. I’ve been struggling for awhile to put this into words, but there’s definitely a odd demographic weighting among DC pundit types wherein white voters — particularly white working class voters, and even more particularly older white working class voters, and even more particularly older white working class voters who live in between California and New York and in sparsely populated cities — are somehow a more “authentic” foundation on which to build an electoral majority. And this is true among liberals as surely as among conservatives. [READ ON]