His Problem, Not Hers

From Susan Estrich:

Usually, of course, it’s when you’re losing that people demand you drop out. In Hillary’s case, it’s her winning that can be seen as the problem that demands a solution. I don’t buy that.

So long as Hillary keeps her focus on McCain, as she has done in recent speeches, and avoids giving McCain ammunition to use against Obama, she’s not affirmatively hurting Obama. All she’s doing is making clear the vulnerability that is his challenge, his problem, not hers.

Obama has a problem with one of the core groups in the Democratic base. If he has won this nomination, he has won it without them, despite them. The problem is he can’t win the White House that way.

You can talk until you’re blue in the face about the new voters Obama has brought to the process, about the enthusiasm among students and his appeal to independents, but at the end of the day, if you’re a Democrat, you don’t win the White House without winning the votes of white, working-class voters in states like Pennsylvania and Ohio and New Jersey and, yes, West Virginia.

And you can call these people every name in the book, starting with racist, as some Obama supporters are prone to do, but questioning people’s motives generally is not a very effective approach to addressing their doubts or bringing them into the fold. Insults do not turn skeptics into supporters.