"Despite Obama’s Policies, The Rust Belt’s Revival Could Save His Campaign" by Joel Kotkin

[applegrove]

Despite Obama’s Policies, The Rust Belt’s Revival Could Save His Campaign

by Joel Kotkin at new geography

http://www.newgeography.com/content/002931-despite-obamas-policies-the-rust-belts-revival-could-save-his-campaign?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Newgeography+%28Newgeography.com+-+Economic%2C+demographic%2C+and+political+commentary+about+places%29

"SNIP.............................................

Barack Obama’s political base always has been more “creative class” than working class—and his policies have favored that base, seeming to cater to energized issue and identity constituencies including African-Americans, Hispanics, gays, and greens, often at the expense of blue-collar workers.

Yet improving conditions for those workers—particularly in the industrial heartland—could save his flagging presidency.

The industrial zone’s four key states—Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania—constitute the most critically contested territory in this year’s contest. Fifty-four electoral votes are at play here, with Pennsylvania’s 20 votes alone equaling all those at stake in the much-ballyhooed battleground of the Intermountain West (Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico).

The Midwest is also home to the two states with the biggest drops in unemployment over the past two years. Michigan leads the way with an almost five percentage point drop, while Ohio comes in second with a nearly three–point decline. Other key Great Lakes battlegrounds—Wisconsin, Indiana and arguably Missouri—have also seen two-point drops in their unemployment numbers.

.............................................SNIP"

[Rosanna Lopez]

1. The Midwest

The author makes some good points. We haven't seen much polling in Ohio and Pennsylvania lately. Presumably PA will vote D like it has since 1992, and hopefully the same goes for Michigan. There's been some weird polling out of MI lately showing Romney tying Obama. Ohio is pretty tight too, although Nate Silver of The NYT gives a small edge to Obama.

Indiana seems to be out of reach for Obama this year, and the DNC doesn't seem to be contesting Missouri even though Obama came within less than a point of winning it in 2008.

[justgamma]

2. Despite his policies??

Maybe Ohio and Michigan's unemployment dropped because of his policy of saving the auto companies and the thousands of jobs they create.

[applegrove]

4. Good catch.

[Tom Rinaldo]

3. Obama's policies have always been better for blue collar workers than the Republican alternative

This piece presents a completely false picture by arguing that blue collar workers have not been Obama's highest priority. In some cases that might be true, in others it is false. But for blue collar workers the question isn't whether Obama has been more or less favorable to them than he has been to other perceived voter blocs, the question is whether his policies have been more favorable to them than those pushed by Obama's Republican opposition would have been instead.

The 2012 Presidential race isn't between Obama and a Labor Party candidate, it is between Obama and Romney.

[applegrove]

5. And Obama has not been aloud to implement his full policy slate. He has been stopped

at every turn by the GOP.