Obama promises to bring an unlikely, unproven coalition tonight
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By Sasha Issenberg
Boston Globe Staff
January 3, 2008
DAVENPORT, Iowa - Barack Obama was just beginning to explain to a crowd of hundreds why he thought it would be possible to repair the country's "divided and broken politics" when a small chorus of affirmation weighed in from the front rows.
"That's right," one woman cried out. "Uh-huh," exclaimed another.
The sudden emergence of the African-American call-andresponse tradition in an overwhelmingly white state, where crowds tend to show approval with nods and applause, may be only the first of many disruptions Obama brings to the caucuses.
The Illinois senator has promised to arrive at tonight's vote with an unlikely and unproven coalition of white liberals, non-Democrats, and black voters - groups that include large numbers of inexperienced caucus-goers.
"People are always talking about the kids, but it's not just the youth vote. It's independents, Republicans, and minorities," said Gordon Fischer, a former state party chairman supporting Obama. "He's bringing in a lot of new people."
A victory for Obama would offer proof not only of his electoral viability, but demonstrate a constituency for his calls of national unity and validate his optimism that the partisan environment of American politics can be successfully challenged.
"If he's able to win with that coalition, he could make the case that he is able to sell something that's very difficult to sell in these times with such deep ideological divisions," said Ronald Walters, a professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland. "He's selling a vision of America beyond the divisions."
Obama's sales pitch in the closing days has been a tightly argued case that the main problem with politics is that it has become too politicized. The solution, he suggests, is "a new majority of not just Democrats, but independents and Republicans who've lost faith in their Washington leaders but want to believe again - who desperately want something new."
Indeed, a Des Moines Register poll released Tuesday indicated that Obama was building a new plurality in Iowa. He led Senator Hillary Clinton by seven points and John Edwards by eight, thanks to overwhelming support from independents and Republicans. In the poll, Clinton leads among Democrats. Backing from non-Democrats appears to represent a significant share of the 72 percent of Obama supporters who have never previously attended a caucus, compared with 58 percent for Clinton and 45 percent for Edwards. Obama ran strongest in Iowa's urban areas, and among its youngest, most affluent, and most educated voters.
Obama's opponents criticized the survey, saying it relied heavily on non-Democrats for a majority of its respondents, far more than in past elections, suggesting that the results were skewed in Obama's favor by including voters unlikely to turn out tonight.
The Register's pollster, however, defended the results, saying that her methods of screening those likely to caucus - which proved remarkably reliable four years ago - remained consistent and that the data reflected much heightened interest in Obama's campaign from those who have never participated before. "We don't decide ahead of time what the first-time caucusgoer looks like," said pollster Ann Selzer.
Indeed, in the closing days of a primary campaign - where some candidates revert to rallying their party's base through partisan appeals - Obama boasts of widespread acceptability. He jokes that Republicans come up to him and offer their support - in whispers.
"We're attracting more support from independents and Republicans than any other candidate," Obama said in Des Moines last week. "That's how we'll win in November, and that's how we'll change this country over the next four years."
Even though he offers doctrinaire liberal views on most issues, Obama is wary of criticizing Republican positions as wrong. The closest Obama comes to partisan name-calling - "Scooter' Libby justice and 'Brownie' incompetence and Karl Rove politics" - focuses less on ideology than methods.
While Obama's idealistic message has not changed over his 10 months as a candidate, his new speeches are less inspirational, more deliberate, and at times even defensive. The abstractions that rolled off Obama's tongue most of the year now come with definitions.
"The argument is not just about the meaning of 'change,' but also about the meaning of 'hope,' " Obama has said. "Hope is not blind optimism."
The candidate who lampoons the superficiality of cable television coverage turns pundit by asserting that "polls show that I do best against the Republicans." He also provides documentary evidence, a copy of a Zogby survey, at the sign-in tables to his rallies.
"He sees it as the unfolding of an argument," said David Axelrod, Obama's chief strategist. "That's the way his mind works. He has an analytical mind."
Obama's sweeping references to "a coalition for change and progress" belie the organizational rigor that appears to have sustained the candidate's well-financed outreach in Iowa, including unprecedented efforts to mobilize Iowa's 60,000 black residents - concentrated in the cities of Davenport, Des Moines, Waterloo, and Ottumwa - too small a group for pollsters to track.
But Obama is counting on them to show up at today's caucuses, and to bring some friends. |
