Obama's OTHER Forgotten Demographic : Older Voters

By p lukasiak, Section Diaries
Posted on Fri May 09, 2008 at 03:11:45 AM EST
Tags: 2008 election (all tags)

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While the Obama campaign and its surrogate have been trumpeting the fact that it is bringing "new voters", it seems to have forgotten a key component of the "old Democratic coalition" that it disparages.

"Old" voters. Literally.

The Clinton campaign consistently includes Hillary Clinton's appeal to seniors when it discusses why she is the better choice to face off against John McCain - but the media seldom mentions older voters, choosing instead to concentrate on Clinton's appeal to "white working class" voters to hype the race angle in the campaign.

The Obama campaign's use of talking points involving "new voters" and a "new coalition" is sending a message to older voters - that "old" is worth a lot less to them than "new", that young voters are more important than older voters, and that the "new coalition" means that the concerns of the "old coalition" members are no longer critical to the Party.

And all this is going on when the Republican Party will have a 71 year old as its nominee

THE NUMBERS

Charts One and Two show just how appallingly bad Obama's numbers are among voters 60 years old and older. In the twelve states that have chosen their delegates since Super Tuesday for which exit polling is available, Obama has not only lost the "older" vote to Clinton by an average of 13 points (Clinton 55%, Obama 42%), his support among older voter is 11 points below his overall support. (Obama support among all voters - 53%, Obama support among older voters--42%).

Data for Obama's Forgotten Demographic--Older voters Chart 1

    % of

voters 60

& older HRC     BHO

IN    25%    65%    35%

NC    30%    53%    44%

PA    32%    62%    38%

OH    23%    69%    28%

MS    29%    52%    47%

RI    33%    67%    33%

TX    22%    62%    35%

WI    29%    54%    45%

VT    26%    41%    58%

MD&nb