After Barack Obama holds a Facebook town hall in California today, he will fly to New York to speak before Al Sharpton's National Action Network.
There could not be more perfect symbols of what Obama represents than these two events.
The events are bi-coastal (Bay Area, California and New York, New York) and ignores flyover country.
Facebook and the Bay Area symbolize rich, white liberal urban elites while Sharpton's group is representative of minorities who deal in ethnic politics. Facebook also seems to represent the past (2008) while Twitter seems more so to represent the future (2012).
In many ways, America's first half-White, half-Black President can better be described as half-Ivy League/half-South Side of Chicago, by which I mean Obama himself embodies his coalition of rich, liberal white elites and inner city minorities.
It is also fitting that Washington D.C.'s First inhabitant also personifies the demographics of D.C. - as D.C. continues to gentrify, it is becoming more of a stark mix between urban, highly-educated, elite (and White) liberals and poor minorities (Blacks), which is essentially the Obama coalition as previously mentioned.
Election 2012, though, will be won in the exurbs in swing states like Colorado, Virginia, and Florida, and the more Obama identifies with the Bay Area and Sharpton, the more he turns off voters in exurbia.
Jacksonian independent voters in exurbia do not like intellectual elitism and elitist institutions, and they do not like anything associated with ethnic and racial politics. The more Obama and his events, policies, and statements identify him with these optics, the harder it will be for him to win over exurban voters in 2012.
