{"id":12724,"date":"2012-01-20T12:21:29","date_gmt":"2012-01-20T17:21:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=12724"},"modified":"2012-01-20T12:21:29","modified_gmt":"2012-01-20T17:21:29","slug":"obama%e2%80%99s-keystone-xl-folly-puts-swing-states-in-the-mix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/12724\/obama%e2%80%99s-keystone-xl-folly-puts-swing-states-in-the-mix\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama\u2019s Keystone XL Folly Puts Swing States in the Mix"},"content":{"rendered":"

From BusinessWeek<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

President Barack Obama\u2019s rejection of TransCanada Corp.\u2019s Keystone XL pipeline permit exposed a split in a core Democratic constituency and handed Republicans a new line of election-year attack.<\/p>\n

Unions representing construction workers condemned the move while labor groups including the United Steel Workers, the United Auto Workers and the Service Employees International Union joined with environmental advocates in saying they support Obama\u2019s decision. It also triggered swift criticism from congressional Republicans and the party\u2019s presidential candidates.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Expect Republicans to run ads targeting blue collar workers in Rust Belt swing states like Pennsylvania and Ohio where ties to manufacturing jobs run deep.\u00a0 When Obama ran against Hillary Clinton in 2008 he consistently lost the white working class vote for stances like picking sky-is-falling environmentalists over John and Jane hardhat.<\/p>\n

Dissatisfaction<\/a> among traditionally Democratic blue collar voters toward Obama has been building for months<\/a> due to political decisions that \u2013 as discussed in my column this week<\/a> \u2013 kill unionized jobs in coal and oil, but interestingly not natural gas<\/a>.\u00a0 Obama\u2019s turn away from blue collar voters has been met with a renewed emphasis on ginning up votes among other core Democratic constituencies like recent college graduates (hello, Occupiers!) and other gentry liberals.<\/p>\n

But the strategy of maximizing votes in liberal enclaves like college towns and deep blue coastal states that Obama would win anyway doesn\u2019t quite add up for one simple reason: the Electoral College \u2013 not the popular vote \u2013 elects the President.\u00a0 Even if Obama gets a larger share of liberals in blue states like California he still nets only 54 electoral votes.\u00a0 But if he fails to connect with everyday Democrats in swing states in Ohio and Pennsylvania that see their President willfully killing jobs they\u2019d otherwise have, he\u2019ll move entire states into the Republican column.<\/p>\n

This kind of divide-and-conquer strategy looks like a recipe for defeat.\u00a0 Then again, from my perspective, I couldn\u2019t ask for a better campaign strategy.\u00a0 (Unless, of course, this scenario<\/a> occurs.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From BusinessWeek: President Barack Obama\u2019s rejection of TransCanada Corp.\u2019s Keystone XL pipeline permit exposed a split in a core Democratic constituency and handed Republicans a new line of election-year attack. Unions representing construction workers condemned the move while labor groups including the United Steel Workers, the United Auto Workers and the Service Employees International Union […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2033,143,3169,1193,2115,195,3293,1216,3291,3292],"class_list":["post-12724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-2033","tag-barack-obama","tag-blue-collar","tag-campaign","tag-coal","tag-energy","tag-keystone-xl","tag-oil","tag-swing-state","tag-working-class"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12724"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12731,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12724\/revisions\/12731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}