I'm a huge fan of Paul Krugman and I can't count the number of times that I defended him in the face of criticism from Obama supporters. Indeed, my first ever recommended diary at Daily Kos consisted of a string of Paul Krugman columns extolling the virtues of John Edwards. (I was a vigorous Edwards supporter until he dropped out of the campaign.)
But as much of a positive voice as Paul Krugman has been for the left, his recent musings on the 2008 campaign have become increasingly useless. His column yesterday ("Think about November") was especially stupid. I don't use that term lightly -- I'd never want to go toe-to-toe with Krugman on any sort of intellectual horsepower competition. But this particular column was dumb, short-sighted, and way beneath his standards.
Specifically, this passage is the one setting me off:
Ironically, much of Mr. Obama’s initial appeal was the hope that he could transcend these divisions. At first, voting patterns seemed consistent with this hope. In February, for example, he received the support of half of Virginia’s white voters as well as that of a huge majority of African-Americans.
But this week, Mr. Obama, while continuing to win huge African-American majorities, lost North Carolina whites by 23 points, Indiana whites by 22 points. Mr. Obama’s white support continues to be concentrated among the highly educated; there was little in Tuesday’s results to suggest that his problems with working-class whites have significantly diminished.
Discussions of how and why Mr. Obama’s support narrowed over time have a Rashomon-like quality: different observers see very different truths. But at this point it doesn’t matter whose fault it was. What does matter is that Mr. Obama appears to have won the nomination with a deep but narrow base consisting of African-Americans and highly educated whites. And now he needs to bring Democrats who opposed him back into the fold.
Krugman's entire thesis depends on a theory of "white flight" from Obama as the campaign has progressed. As evidence for that theory, Krugman offers three datapoints (Virginia, Indiana, and North Carolina).
It doesn't take an economist (or even a New York Times columnist) to know that three datapoints isn't nearly enough to prove his case, which turns out to be flimsy.
One way -- perhaps the most important way -- in which his case is flimsy is the fact that in the past six months, Barack Obama has gone from trailing Hillary Clinton by 25% in national polls to where he is now -- the Democratic nominee. That would not have been possible without building a multi-racial coalition.
But even within the context of the campaign itself, Krugman is wrong. The mistake he makes is not breaking down the contests by region and not taking into account the Republican cross-over voters who plan to vote for John McCain in the fall election.
Taking those voters into account and weighting by voter turnout here are the three regions which had contests in both February and March-May:
From this data, it's pretty obvious that to the extent Obama has a problem it is in the Industrial Midwest. Obama won white voters in both Illinois (his home state) and Wisconsin. In Missouri, he received 39% -- much closer to his performance in Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.
What's striking is that in Ohio -- before Jeremiah Wright -- Obama won just 35% of the white vote (after factoring out pro-McCain voters). Then in Pennsylvania he won 37%. And Indiana he won 42%.
Just to be clear: Ohio 35%. Pennsylvania 37%. Indiana 42%. That's a positive trend.
And that trend came at the same time that Obama was under a heavily racialized assault from Clinton, the right-wing media, and the Republican party.
Moreover, during that time Obama chose not to go negative on Clinton in ways that would have hurt her standing with blue-collar white voters. (For example, he did not do much if any advertising that included her flip-flop on NAFTA, the questions raised by her $109 million in income, or her husband's role in closing plants like Magnequench.)
Yet his support still climbed, even after the Jeremiah Wright controversy that broke in March, the renewed focus on it after the Pennsylvania debate, and the flareup in the week before Indiana.
Still, the fact remains that Hillary Clinton has won more support from white voters than Barack Obama.
This is not proof of a massive race chasm, however. Much of Clinton's edge among white voters is attributable to her popularity with white women. These women are not for Hillary because they are against Obama, quite the opposite -- they are for Hillary. Some credit ought to be given to her for building such a solid base of support with these voters. Her popularity needn't been seen as a negative against Obama.
This is all a long way of rejecting Krugman's core thesis, that somehow Barack Obama is bleeding away his support from whites. No -- the opposite is in fact true. He's gaining ground.
But even if the reverse were true, it's not clear to me how it would prove the core point that Krugman is making, which goes to general election electability.
Krugman seems to believe that there is a connection between Hillary Clinton's support from white voters and John McCain's eventual performance in the fall. This makes no sense to me. In a primary, voters are choosing between two candidates from the same party. It's a fundamentally different choice than the general election choice.
Take, for example, this recent Pew survey which tests Obama vs. McCain and Clinton vs. McCain. If Krugman's article had any merit, you'd expect Clinton to be doing markedly better among white voters than Barack Obama. Except she isn't -- both receive 45% to McCain's 50%.
To put 45% in perspective, the best Bill Clinton ever did among white voters was 43%, in 1996. Kerry won 41% in 2004. If Obama wins 45% of white voters, he'll easily win the election.
So even if Krugman's analysis about trends with white voters were right, it wouldn't have meant a damn thing. What matters is how people vote in November. And looking at how they voted in a primary in February doesn't tell you anything about what will happen in the fall.
Paul Krugman clearly doesn't get that fact. But he's smart enough to figure it out. And I hope he will, and soon, because we need him back on our side -- he can be a powerful voice for change.
© Jed Lewison