Reply #98: I agree with most of your post

[jonestonesusa]

but it still leaves out African American voters as a core constituency for Obama. I agree that the election of one African Americans necessarily a blow against racism, though the symbolic significance of the Presidency is greater than that of the Supreme Court or other offices, particularly if that person has a progressive or liberal sensibility. Plus, Obama has experience in neighborhood, local, and state governance, for which you must maintain close relationships to people who are not "elites." So, I hesitate to associate Obama with that term any way.

More broadly, I'm personally defensive about calling Obama's constituency "elite" is because it is a common strategy against all Democrats, a strategy perfected by Republican multimillionaires to help them pretend to be populists. The term in itself doesn't distinguish between the status of "elite" due to education versus income, either, in that many well educated people in our society with "cultivated taste," so to speak, are not wealthy. Working at a smaller state university, I also find that many of the white students that I work with support Obama and have an opportunity for higher education, but I certainly would not call them "elite" or even "professional" until they gain employment and a decent income, and living in this community, I constantly see the challenges to them reaching the professional class. Many of them struggle to pay for college and struggle to make a living afterward. So I just do not think it is clarifying to use the term "elite" in an unqualified way; the term is divisive and plays into the stereotypical characterization of Obama supporters as latte-drinking, entitled, out of touch people.