Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, Archie Bunker and George Jefferson

Barack Obama's defeat in Ohio can be blamed on its high population of Archie Bunker-types.

If you're white and you're a blue-collar worker, you just might be a bigot.

March 5 (Bloomberg) -- Barack Obama has an Archie Bunker problem.

The white, blue-collar voters personified by the 1970s fictional television character cost Obama yesterday. His rival for the Democratic nomination, Senator Hillary Clinton of New York, beat him 54 percent to 44 percent in industrial Ohio, and 58 percent to 40 percent in heavily Catholic Rhode Island.

In Ohio's 10th district of Cuyahoga County, a suburban enclave on Cleveland's west side that includes a large population of Polish-Americans, Clinton trounced Obama 61 percent to 37 percent, according to exit polls. In the state's Belmont County, an economically depressed Appalachian border area that is predominantly white, she had a 50-point lead over Obama, the first black candidate to have a shot at the White House.

``Race played a significant factor in Ohio,'' said Cuyahoga County Commissioner Timothy Hagan, who supported Obama. ``These people are not necessarily bigots, but the image they see every day of black America is drugs, crime, guns and violence.''

...The weak showing among the white working class in Ohio and Rhode Island represents a wider problem for Obama, said Joe Trippi, a former senior strategist for John Edwards, who had broad appeal among those voters until he dropped out of the Democratic race last month.

Obama, 46, has ``had a problem with lower-income, downscale, blue-collar Democrats from the beginning,'' Trippi said. ``He typically appeals to better educated, upscale Democrats.''

...[T]he next states to hold contests, Wyoming and Mississippi, are likely to increase his margin. Wyoming on March 8 holds a caucus, a type of contest in which Obama has generally prevailed. Mississippi, which holds a primary on March 11, has a heavy concentration of black voters. Neither state has big populations of white ethnic voters.

Yet Obama will need to do better with the white ethnic working class in places like Pennsylvania and to build a majority in a general election if he is the nominee.

I find it very troubling the way issues of race are being addressed during this primary season.

Personally, I think it's horrifying that anyone would cast a vote based on race.

Black voters automatically supporting Barack Obama simply because his father was black are bigots.

Whites who wouldn't consider voting Obama solely because his father was black are bigots.

It's the whites, however, who are being singled out as the bigots, the Archie Bunkers. They're uneducated, blue-collar, close-minded oafs.

The bigotry of the blacks isn't an issue. It should be.

Have you seen any article or heard any discussion like this?

Hillary Clinton has a George Jefferson problem.

I haven't.

There's a problem with people who focus on something as superficial as skin color.

They are bigoted, whether they are an Archie Bunker or a George Jefferson.

It shouldn't be OK to assume that blacks will vote for Obama because of his race, yet that assumption is prevalent.

Blacks don't always vote for blacks. Michael Steele is an example. Steele is a Republican. I would like to think that blacks in 2008 America base their votes on a candidate's qualifications, not the color of his or her skin.

Blacks aren't ridiculed when they vote for Obama, yet whites are being ridiculed when they don't vote for Obama.

Why aren't blacks ridiculed when they don't vote for Hillary?

The challenges he faces with these groups are evident in his hometown of Chicago, where voters know him and he is popular. Still, he faces resistance in working class, white ethnic neighborhoods.

``I can't support him,'' said Richard Dorsch, a 53-year-old paramedic fire chief from Chicago's Edison Park. Dorsch, who said his kids liken him to Archie Bunker, voted for Clinton in the primary, though he plans to support Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona if Obama wins the nomination.

..."When he talks to you, it's like he's talking down to you,'' Dorsch said. ``He doesn't have the experience to talk like that.''

Dorsch's 41st Ward, which gave Clinton, 60, a six- percentage-point advantage, is 90 percent white, dominated by German, Polish and Irish ethnic police officers, teachers and city workers.

...Chicago's 41st Ward is a classic white working-class neighborhood of bungalows, modest two-flats and Dutch colonials that shuts down on Pulaski Day, the March holiday celebrating Casimir Pulaski, a Pole who fought in the Revolutionary War.

An informal survey of employees at a local bank, gym, library, and neighborhood restaurant turned up no Obama supporters. Some residents said they were concerned that he might not take into account the concerns of whites.

``If Obama gets in, it's going to be a black thing and it's going to be all blacks for blacks,'' Victoria Mikulski, a 63- year-old clerk in Edison Park. ``Everything's got to be equal.''

This pisses me off.

Not all Polish-Americans are bigots or blue-collar or fearful of a black becoming president.

I'm fearful of Obama becoming president, but I'm not uneducated and I'm not blue-collar, and I'm not a bigot.

It has nothing to do with his race.

I don't approve of the direction Obama wants to take the country, on domestic matters as well as foreign policy. I don't think he has enough experience. I question his ethics and his judgment.
_____________________

Eugene Kane weighs in on the issue.

This article suggests one of the reasons Barack Obama lost Ohio is because of Archie Bunker voters who are still resistant to cast a vote for an African-American for president.

If that's true - if some people still hold Obama's race against him as opposed to his credentials or qualifications - that's a disturbing sign about 2008 America.

Obama and Hillary Clinton are in a pitched battle for the Democratic nomination. Voters should decide which one wins based on their campaign statements and their respective plans for the future. It shouldn't be, as one person in this story complains, because they are afraid `If Obama gets in, it's going to be a black thing and it's going to be all blacks for blacks."

I wonder if this guy felt the same way about all the white presidents in history. (By the way, that would be ALL of them.)

Looks like we still have a ways to go before reaching Martin Luther King's promised land, huh?

I agree that it's disturbing when race and gender are held against someone in 2008 America.

(Note to Eugene: The person you quoted from the story, the one you refer to as "this guy," is named Victoria Mikulski. I can't be certain, but I think "this guy" is a woman.)