Obama and Romney Have the Same Weaknesses with White Folks

Mitt Romney and President Obama have the same personality weaknesses -- cool, uninterested in making new friends, impatient with small talk -- that can limit their effectiveness with lawmakers. But they also have the same electoral weaknesses: blue-collar workers and college-educated whites.

RELATED: The Simple, Easy, Pleasant First Day of the Romney Administration

According to Politico's Alexander Burns, both candidates have struggled to win the votes of lower-income white people, Obama in the 2008 election and Romney in the Republican primary this year. And both did better among college-educated whites, who polls show are split evenly between the two men. Burns calls these two groups the "persuadables" -- the people the campaigns think they can actually win over with the right message. One thing that's striking about this analysis, however: downscale whites plus upscale whites -- doesn't that just add up to all whites?

RELATED: GOP Voters Think Gingrich Has a Better Shot at Beating Obama

Politico says the fight for these two white subgroups is "symmetrical warfare." Among poorer whites, Obama is weak because they never liked him much to begin with, and they've been hit harder by the economy, while Romney is weak because he's not very likable and says dumb things about being rich. As for wealthier whites, per Burns:

A new poll, The New York Times' Jeff Zeleny and Allison Kopicki report, shows how the candidates can make the economic case to those voters. While Obama is helped by the feeling that the economy is getting better, Romney is helped by the fact that some people don't think the improvement has helped them yet. The poll finds a majority of voters think wealthier people should pay higher taxes -- hence Obama's "Buffett Rule" -- but Romney does well with voters who think the country's going in the wrong direction.

RELATED: No One Knows Who's Leading in Florida Right Now

And who thinks the country's going in the wrong direction? Not just white people. A poll from the right-leaning group Libre Initiative showed this month that a majority of Latinos think the country's on the wrong track, and 51 percent think it's harder to open a business now than it was four years ago, McClatchy's Marc Caputo reports. After so much Republican hand-wringing the last couple years over the party's need to reach out to Latinos, have Republicans already given up on them? On Tuesday, Politico's Mike Allen reported this number crunching from a Democratic strategist:

In one sense, those numbers are misleading -- not all of those scenarios are equally likely to happen. But it shows Romney has to win Florida, where, sure, upscale whites and downscale whites matter, but upscale Latinos and downscale Latinos do, too.