The Reagan Democrats in Ferraro's head

Geraldine Ferraro listens to imaginary voices and concludes that the same voters who didn't vote for her and Mondale's ticket won't vote for Barack because...ahem...he's an elitist black activist.

Whom he chooses for his vice president makes no difference to them. That he is pro-choice means little. Learning more about his bio doesn't do it. They don't identify with someone who has gone to Columbia and Harvard Law School and is married to a Princeton-Harvard Law graduate. His experience with an educated single mother and being raised by middle class grandparents is not something they can empathize with. They may lack a formal higher education, but they're not stupid. What they're waiting for is assurance that an Obama administration won't leave them behind.

Wow. Hizoy responds.

Though Ferraro says that Reagan Democrats want assurance that Obama understands their problems, apparently this isn't enough. Nor is the fact that Obama has gone out of his way to have an inclusive message, to reach out to all kinds of people, and to try to treat everyone with respect.

But if neither his positions, the things he says, his biography, or quite explicit assurances can reach the Reagan Democrats Ferraro imagines, then what could reach them? Frankly, it's hard to imagine.

And what is it about Obama that makes it impossible for him to reassure Reagan Democrats, whatever he says, whatever he does, and whatever positions he holds? Ferraro says this: "They don't identify with someone who has gone to Columbia and Harvard Law School and is married to a Princeton-Harvard Law graduate." But that can't be right: surely Reagan Democrats don't have such a finely-grained view of the distinctions[...] between Ivy League law schools that while Obama qualifies as an elitist, someone who went to Wellesley and Yale Law School and is married to a Georgetown-Yale Law grad counts as the salt of the earth.

It's very hard to avoid the conclusion that Obama cannot reach the Reagan Democrats in Geraldine Ferraro's head, that they don't think he will treat them fairly or understand them or their problems, because he is black.

Hilzoy's entire post is worth a read. In the last few weeks it's been clear that Clinton's last best gambit -- in her and her advisors' minds -- is to persuade the remaining few uncommitted delegates and super delegates that she is the more bankable candidate in the general election. Not because she ran a better campaign for the nomination. Not because the polls show her beating McCain and Obama not. She's been a little more artful than Ferraro and hasn't gone so far as to point out hostility to "reverse racism" as the reason to support her. But it's clear she's been trying to seed in the delegates' minds that he can't win because he's black.

This primary has seen its share of highs and lows, the sublime and the ridiculous. But to see party leaders opine on the validity of voters' supposed racism has been sad and dispiriting. Ferraro's a crank. I had thought better of Hillary Clinton. But her turn to the right on this, like her turns to the right when she made her judgments on Iraq, the invasion, and other national security issues, illustrate why she lost a nomination that all but seemed inevitable six months ago.

UPDATE: Oh, and Jesse's back.