It’s the coffee, stupid?

Gerard Baker in today’s Times has written an excellent article on the race for the White House and the importance of whether voters choose Starbucks or Dunkin’ Donuts.

Baker argues that there are very few actual policy differences between the two Democrat challengers and that if voters were asked to identify one which separates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama they would struggle.

“The fault lines in the contest instead fall largely along differences in identity - ethnic and gender - and values. Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton have, as we have noted before, both established massive, almost identically sized coalitions of voting blocs aligned along these cleavages.

Mrs Clinton wins heavily among white women, older voters and Latinos. Where they voted in large numbers on Tuesday, she won by large margins.

Mr Obama won states where his following of younger voters, African-Americans and white men predominated.”

But there is another crucial factor: the economy and whether voters are swimming or sinking.

“Mr Obama wins disproportionately among people who may be considered the winners in the global economy: the well educated, the mobile and the financially secure. Mrs Clinton’s voters are the strugglers, the class that feels itself left behind by an increasingly unfair global economic system.”

So what does this have to do with where you get your coffee?

“Among voters whose voting choice is not based on identity politics, Mr Obama’s supporters are the latte liberals. These are the people for whom Starbucks, with its $5 cups of coffee and fancy bakeries, is not just a consumer choice but a lifestyle. They not only have the money. They share the values.

They live by all those little quotes on the side of Starbucks cups about community service and global warming. They embrace the Obama candidacy because to them he transcends traditional class and economic divides. He is a transformative political figure - potentially the first black man to be president - and is seen as the one to revive America’s faith in itself and restore America’s status in the world. For these voters the defining emotion is hope.

Mrs Clinton is the candidate of what might be called Dunkin’ Donut Democrats. They do not have money to waste on multiple-hyphenated coffee drinks - double-top, no-foam, non-fat lattes and the like. Not for them the bran muffins or the biscotti. They are the 75-cent coffee and doughnut crowd. For them caffeine choice doesn’t correlate with their values but simply represents a means of keeping them going through their challenging day.

Though they don’t doubt that global warming is important, they think it can wait. They want to make sure first they can pay the heating bills. They’re not in favour of the Iraq war but neither are they so focused on restoring America’s image in the world. They’re not necessarily racist, it’s just that they’re not especially animated by the idealism represented by the first black president. For them anxiety, not aspiration is the defining factor.”

What are the implications of this in terms of who the eventual victor will be? Go to Baker’s column to find out: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/gerard_baker/article3330288.ece