John Judis's deservedly much-discussed post-election analysis in The New Republic is the blueprint for understanding the demographic core of the emerging liberal majority in America, and the case he makes for 2008 as a true political realignment, the first since 1980, is cogent.
He writes: Women, too, were once disproportionately Republican--in 1960, Richard Nixon won the women's vote. But their voting patterns began to change as they entered the labor force. In 1950, only one-third of women worked; today, 60 percent of women work, making up 46 percent of the total labor force. Over 70 percent of working women have white-collar jobs, and 24 percent work as professionals--compared to 17 percent of men. In 1980, women began disproportionately backing Democrats, and the trend has continued. This year, Obama enjoyed a 13-point edge among women voters and only a one-point edge among men. He carried working women by 21 points. If you add these numbers to the Democrats' advantage among professionals and minorities, that is a good basis for winning elections.
I live in and report from deepest Appalachia, in a rural West Virginia county bordering Virginia's Shenandoah Valley.
As sales of guns and even gun safes are skyrocketing at sporting goods stores (that means hunting equipment, not Nikes), non-college-educated white women and their frequently college-educated daughters have embraced Obama with great warmth and affection.
I began hearing of wildly spiking gun sales in mid-September, when the markets crashed and it became apparent that the presidency was Obama's to lose. The NRA, of course, mounted its usual and effective fear campaign, and Obama never had a chance after that with the majority of small-town, blue-collar men.
But their female counterparts, the ones who are Democrats, anyway, have a different sense of what constitutes self-interest, but there's more to it than that. They admire his intellect and sense his kindness and say there is a nobility of purpose about him that resonates in way that makes them want to shield him in a nurturing way.
It reminds me of when I was a kid in rural West Virginia and how the folks would speak so warmly of Bobby and Jack Kennedy.
For progressives in the most deeply red parts of Appalachia or Scots-Irish-descended small-town America outside officially designated Appalachia, this is an opportunity for building grass-roots change and reform organizations and alliances that should not be missed.I note also that the PPP poll of West Virginia on Oct. 30 which showed McCain winning the state by 13 also showed Obama carrying women 44-39.