White working class Democrats....

[hcallega]

There are several factors at play here:

1-The Democratic Party has largely moved away from the concerns of the white working class. In the days of Roosevelt, Truman, and Kennedy the party was defined by its support of labor unions and the New Deal. It's message was based around economic opportunity and relief for the poor and less fortunate. This appealed to white working class voters to a tee, and they strongly supported the Democratic Party. But starting in the mid-1960s, the message of the party began to change. The Great Society, War on Poverty, and Civil Rights legislation were all seen as beneficial primarily to the poor and to racial minorities. The white working class was now challenged economically by African-Americans and many weren't happy about that. They saw the Democrats as no longer focused on addressing their economic needs, and grew disaffected. The liberal shift of the party in 1970s further cemented the WWC's distrust of the Democrats, as did the Presidency of Jimmy Carter. It wasn't until 1992, when the Democrat's nominated the highly personable Bill Clinton (who hailed from a white working class background and appeared to be "one of them") that the Democrats began to make inroads into that group. Even then, many preferred the populist, anti-big government message of Ross Perot. Over the past decade, the Democrats have moved in a new ideological direction. Instead of trying to win back the white working class voters, they have shifted their focus to winning younger, suburban whites, women, and minorities. These demographics are growing and are turned off by the socially conservative, radical anti-government message of today's Republicans. Their strategy is more predicated on winning and making in-roads in the Southwest and Sunbelt in general than on fighting the same old fights in the Rust Belt. Even their electoral campaigns in states like Pennsylvania are focused around appealing to suburban voters in areas like Bucks Country.

2-The Republican strategy has shifted over the past 40 years. Prior to 1964, the GOP could be broadly divided into two main factions: the Northeastern Rockefeller Republicans and the Midwestern Taft Republicans. Rockefeller Republicans tended to be affluent, Protestant, socially liberal, and internationalist. In many respects they were similar to the UK's Conservative Party (post-WWII) in that they operated within the same governing realities as the Democrats. In contrast, the Taft Republicans were mostly conservative, isolationist, anti-union, and anti-New Deal. Neither of these factions did a good job of appealing to the white working class, unless they nominated someone with immense personal popularity like Eisenhower. This changed in the years between 1964 and 1966 when the Republicans began to target white working class voters dissatisfied with the New Left, the Great Society, Civil Rights, etc (visible evidence of this is the hard hat riots). Richard Nixon and his strategists, namely Pat Buchanan and Roger Ailes, began to aggressively court these voters by minimizing the GOP's anti-labor, anti-New Deal rhetoric. Instead, they emphasized cultural and foreign policy issues to great affect. Reagan, Gingrich, and their successors have built on this legacy and have made the white working class (and middle class) a cornerstone of the Republican Party's electoral strategy.

3-The white working class in America is much different than the white working class in Europe. For starters, factory workers in the United States in the years after World War Two were solidly in the middle class. They benefited from highly favorable union contracts and a lack of international competition. Since the 1970s, with an increase in globalization, the lack of improvement in public education, and a decrease in levels of unionization have eroded the economic stability in the white working class. Many aspire to return to those days of plenty, and therefore aren't necessarily anti-capitalism or anti-establishment. Unlike many European working class voters, they don't see socialism as a better alternative. Another important factor here is religion. White working class voters tend to be quite regular in their religious practices, and many are pro-life and anti-gay marriage. The combination of these factors makes them an inherently "conservative" group that isn't looking for dramatic change of the current economic system.

For further reasons, read Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg's writings on the subject.

[hcallega]

I think a liberal like Ed Schultz could bring back the white working class into the Democratic party while still being a liberal. His rhetoric message of fighting for the working class was what brought these people into the party in the first place, so trying to bring them back in would be another nice fit for the Democratic coalition.

I think it's easy to say that the Democrats need to become the populist party if they want to win back the Rust Belt and the white working class. Personally, I disagree. Being the party of the economic past isn't going to work. Voters can generally see through that. They know that we can't go back to the 1950s. What the Democratic Party needs to do is embrace a forward thinking economic message, and then clearly and succinctly present it to the American heartland.  Bill Clinton did that in 1992 and 1996. He didn't retreat to the platitudes of the New Deal. He did it by talking about job creation and investment in growing areas of the economy. I think that white working class voters don't want to be pandered to. They want to see candidates that genuinely care about their economic situation, and present solutions that address their concerns. Obama can do that, and there are already many Democrats who are (Mark Warner and Bob Casey are good examples).

[hcallega]

If Obama can do that, then why is he performing worse than ever with whites? Is it because he's black?

It's mostly the state of the economy and trouble getting his message across. His numbers will probably improve by Election Day.