Road map for the general election campaign

Paul Waldman over at the Prospect has exactly the right take on what's going to happen in the general election matchup between McCain and Obama.

He writes:

Consider the smears of Obama that have slithered around the internet and over the airwaves in recent months: He's a secret Muslim. He attended a fundamentalist madrassah as a child in Indonesia. He's tight with Louis Farrakhan. He takes advice from a cabal of Israel-hating anti-Semites. He doesn't put his hand over his heart when he says the Pledge of Allegiance. He took his oath of office on a Koran, not a Bible. He doesn't wear an American flag pin. And most of all, his middle name is Hussein, two syllables of menace revealing him, the conservatives hope voters will conclude, as everything those voters are not—not white, not Christian, not a foe of terrorism, not American.

It isn't enough ... to reject the Democrat; he must be feared and despised. But unlike previous nominees, Obama will be cast not as the cowardly, effeminate traitor, standing weakly aside as our enemies gather strength, sapping our collective manhood. No, Obama will be the barbarian from outside, the foreigner pounding on the walls of our homeland, half-crazed with bloodlust and ready to do us in. Above all, the message will be: He's not one of us. He's one of them.

That'll be the plan! I'd be shocked if McCain doesn't go this route. If you can't identify with Obama, you'll be much less likely to vote for him. Lower-class voters haven't been voting for Obama--they're voting for Clinton--and there the ones who can be targeted with this approach.

McCain did better with less-educated voters in California, but also better with higher-income voters. He did better with both less-educated and lower-income voters in New York (with the exception of the "some postgraduate work" category, those voters choosing McCain). This same pattern on education repeated itself in South Carolina, and on income, he lost support as voters earned more (with the exception of the top income category, of $200,000+ a year). The same exact pattern happened in Florida. In Missouri he tended to loose support as voters had more education, but gain it as they got more income.

In sum, McCain has a real opening with lower-class voters who might be suspicious that Obama is not "one of them." Hillary does not have such a liability. Does this mean she would be more electable than Obama? Nope, because people don't like her.