Election Strategy: How Obama Can Win, Hands Down

Barack Obama has a massive lead among young voters and among the npr-listening up-scale liberals.  However, if he is to win this election, he will have to win over a substantial number of the blue-collar, lunch-pail-carrying democrats that turned away in from him in groves, during the primaries.  These voters went to Hillary Clinton and they will determine the election-winning electoral votes in Ohio and Michigan.  

The Obama campaign strategy seems to be to win these voters by getting Senator Clinton on the campaign trail in these vital states, while Obama continues to beat the drum for hope and change.  While Clinton may indeed help, it will not be enough to win over these hard-working, rough-talking, down-to-earth democrats.  These voters don’t belong to Hillary.  She cannot deliver them on her own.  Obama will have to earn their votes himself.  He will have to find a way to reach out to them by speaking more clearly on bread-and-butter issues.  He must vividly connect with basic democratic economic issues (this is where Democrats have always won elections), by assuring them that the Democratic party is still their party (they may feel that the democratic party has been taken over by the wine-and-cheese set).  If Obama can find a way to reach them, he will carry this election in November with ease.