Listen to the media elite and you'll hear a continuing refrain: Blue collar whites are racist because they voted for Hillary Clinton in Tuesday's Pennsylvania primary.

As The New York Times opined in a news report today titled, "For Obama, a struggle to win over key blocs [1]." The article, also carried on the front page of today's Denver Post, was written by Times reporter Adam Nagourney and led with the following question: "Why has [Obama] been unable to win enough working-class and white voters to wrap up the Democratic nomination?" Nagourney suggests that "lurking behind that question is another: Is the Democratic Party hesitating about race as it moves to the brink of nominating an African-American to be president?"

Such questions — more polemic than fact-based — serve to remind Democrats that they better nominate Obama, ordained as the favorite of America's liberal media and Hollywood elite, or they will risk branding our entire nation as racist. But while the article's lead suggests racism, Nagourney's own analysis fails to prove such a thesis. He concedes that "it has historically proved challenging to measure how racial attitudes factor into voter decisions."

It's difficult indeed, especially given the fact that Obama is not black. As we all know by now, he was born to a white mother and a black father, which makes him just one of an exploding number of Americans who cannot fit nicely into outdated race boxes. According to the 2000 census, the first year that the government allowed citizens to identify as multi-racial, nearly 7 million of us self-identified as being part of more than one racial group.

But even if we assume that Obama is black, Nagourney is also forced to concede that the Illinois Senator has won in "very white states," including Iowa and Wyoming.

The fact of the matter is that Obama's campaign has lost steam because we are beginning to see him as the elitist he is.

Nagourney only gets to this potential factor in the twelfth paragraph of his report. Obama's remark at a private fundraiser in San Francisco says everything about his views on America. While he has since tried to distance himself [2] from his belief that blue-collar workers are bitter and thus cling to guns, religion and bigotry, such efforts have proven impossible.

Obama believes that any American not actively seeking government intervention or assistance in his or her life has just given up on the idea that government can be effective in such efforts. Sorry, but he's wrong. Most of us just want bureaucrats to stop telling us how we should live our lives. And we don't need presidential candidates to diagnosis the psychological motivations behind our votes.

[2]Jessica Peck Corry is a public policy analyst with the Independence Institute in Golden, Colo.

This is not to suggest that Hillary Clinton is not also an elitist. There have been few scenes more awkward than watching the continuous late night cable replay of her doing a whisky shot [3] at a bar with union voters. And while Nagourney wants us to believe that Democrats are "hesitating about race," maybe they are just hesitating about the fact that regardless of which candidate prevails in the Democratic primary, they are on the verge of nominating an elitist candidate out of touch with most middle class Americans. They are fearing Part II of the Kerry-Edwards debacle.

But for the sake of continuing Nagourney's debate, let's assume that Obama had pulled off a victory Tuesday. Would we then have to assume that Pennsylvania is sexist? Would voters then be discriminating against Clinton because she is older? If November's election sees the Democratic nominee prevail over Republican John McCain, a former war prisoner, are we then anti-war veteran? With so much bigotry wrapped up in each of us, Nagourney must be amazed that we can find any candidate worthy of our vote.

While it's unfair to blindly portray blue collar workers or any pro-gun, pro-religion American as racist, it's fair to say they are bitter. They are bitter because Barack Obama sold them a false bill of progressive goods. He promises "change we can believe in [4]," but the truth is that he's the one who needs to change.

Editor’s note: Jessica Peck Corry's weekly blogs are part of a feature on PoliticsWest called "Diary of a Mad Voter." The group blog, published in partnership with NewWest.Net/Politics [5], is intended to give a glimpse into the hearts and minds of several independent-minded voters and thinkers in the Rocky Mountain West in the 2008 election year.