"That’s symptomatic of a larger concern yet to be addressed: all the candidates in the Stevenson tradition have, generally speaking, ranked poorly in the black community and among the less wealthy voters in the Democratic Party. Kennedy swept the black vote against McCarthy. Ditto for Jimmy Carter against Brown, Walter Mondale against Hart, and Bill Clinton against Tsongas.
"There was talk in 2000 that Bradley might be different, since he’s more recognizable in the black community, having played for a New York Knicks championship team. But Bradley chose to run as a kind of tweedy Princeton don rather than a former All-American; as a result, he was narrowly beaten by Al Gore in New Hampshire—a state Bradley had to carry, given his profile. The rest of the campaign was a foregone conclusion.
"Thus, if Obama doesn’t change his campaign approach to focus more on the concerns of lower-income voters, history has shown us he, too, may soon run out of luck."
Stephen Stark in The Phoenix asks if Barack Obama is too intelligent for the American electorate.
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