I Love College

In January of 2008, I stood in a packed high school gymnasium in Nashua, New Hampshire waiting to see presidential candidate Barack Obama speak following that state's Democratic presidential primary. As thousands of others and I waited for what would eventually become known as the "Yes We Can" speech, we anxiously watched the results come in on the large projection screen in the corner. As Hilary Clinton gathered momentum, the fleeting hope that remained was "they haven't called the college towns."

Attending college is a privilege. I consider myself lucky for the educational opportunities that I have been afforded and recognize the power of a college degree in today's society. I have also recognized the correlation between level of education and political preferences.

In recent elections, the tendency of college-educated voters to cast more liberal ballots has been apparent. In the 2008 election, Gallup reported that those with a high-school education voted for McCain 53-47 while college educated voters preferred Obama 55-45 with a staggering 65-35 percent of voters who had completed post-graduate work voting in the same fashion. In last week's special election in Massachusetts, exit polls compiled by Hart Research indicated that Democrat Martha Coakley won the vote of college educated voters 50-46, while those without a college degree voted overwhelmingly for Republican Scott Brown, 57-37.

Dan Payne, the author of the Boston Globe piece highlighting these recent statistics, referred to this as a "working-class revolt."

"The most troubling message that Democrats should take from the data was this: 'The Massachusetts election signaled a working-class revolt, and reveals the danger to Democrats if workers’ economic concerns are not addressed.'"

While the use of the term ironically induces the ideas of a Marxist proletariat revolution (given that demographic's criticisms of the Obama government as Marxist or Socialist), the statistics remain confusing. Why would the working and middle class so strongly support the candidate of a party who has long aimed to provide tax breaks for the wealthiest 2% and has been supported and influenced by Wall Street corporations?

Maybe that's why.

Brown's attempts to appeal to a populist base didn't stop there. The Boston Globe recently put together a photo report about Brown's "everyman's" barn jacket that he was seen wearing throughout the campaign. Although the coat reportedly goes for around $600, the public's perception of Brown as an everyday, working-man's candidate likely is what determined the election.

Populism has been the aim of the recent conservative movement. The aim of the Tea Party movement has been to capitalize on a base of "average Americans" who aim to take back the country for the people. The populist anger, which has been fueled by incendiary media, translated into a Brown victory in one of the nation's most liberal states.

The common denominator is level of education. The economic crisis has taken a toll on everyone. However, it is the working class, and generally those without college degrees, who are likely to be influenced the most by the conservative revolt against big government and regulations. Regardless of the Obama administration's goal of cutting taxes for 95% of middle and lower class families, plans to create hundreds of thousands of jobs, and attempts to make health insurance more affordable for almost all Americans, the United States' less-educated working class has expressed its discontent.

As the conservative media hammers its anti-Obama sentiments home, the "working class revolt" continues. As the middle and lower classes continue to hear venomous attacks from the right, the more deeply entrenched their beliefs become, regardless of whether the controversial issues at hand will affect them or not.

Sadly, without voter education, the schism between the left and the right is likely to widen. Additionally, the right will continue to capitalize on the populist anger of the working class unless the left can determine a way to reach these voters and let them know contrary to what Fox News says, they are actually there to help.