And White men jumped ...

02.20.08 -- 2:43 AM

By Zim Sidney

Obama appears to be solidifying his support among White men. Slate's John Dickerson has the goods ...

Hillary Clinton has been calling Barack Obama a plagiarist. Now she can call him a thief. Obama won the Wisconsin primary by stealing support from blue-collar workers, previously a key Clinton bloc.

If Clinton was to survive the string of February losses, it was going to be by holding on to what her chief strategist, Mark Penn, has called her "durable coalition." White women, Latinos, and older voters would be unmoved by Obama's flash. No group was more crucial to the Penn argument than blue-collar voters. Clinton aides argued that not only were bedrock Democratic voters for Clinton, but they had an aversion to Obama. "How can the Democratic nominee win without working people?" asked a top Clinton adviser recently.

In Wisconsin, according to exit polls, Obama placed ahead of Clinton among those who make less than $50,000 a year and among those with less than a college education. He has now won working-class white men in Wisconsin, Missouri, New Hampshire, California, Maryland, and Virginia. Obama also ate into Clinton's usual margin with white women voters. (Even if exit polls are tweaked in the coming hours and Clinton winds up with a narrow edge among these groups, Obama will still have won sizable support in areas where Clinton was supposed to be strongest.) And his double-digit victory came without the help of a sizable number of black votes, which Clinton allies had previously cited as a caveat to his victories in other states.

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