The Times had a piece yesterday...

...about voter suppression, not by the Republicans in Florida or Pennsylvania, but by ... the Obama campaign. Huh? 

From the piece (my emphasis): 

[President Obama] is running a two-track campaign. One track of his re-election drive seeks to boost turnout among core liberal groups; the other aims to suppress turnout and minimize his margin of defeat in the most hostile segment of the electorate, whites without college degrees. 
 ___ 

A central goal of the anti-Romney commercials is to cross-pressure these whites. Persuading more than 28 percent of them to vote for Obama is a tough sell, but the Obama campaign can try to make the alternative, voting for Romney, equally unacceptable. Conflicted voters, especially those holding negative views of both candidates, are likely to skip voting altogether. 

Then, this morning I read this from John Heilemann: 

The Obamans counter that their polling and focus-grouping show that perceptions of Romney as an out-of-touch plutocrat who doesn’t share the values or understand the struggles of ordinary ­voters—and, worse, as an evasive shape-shifter with something to hide—are sinking in and hardening in a way that will be difficult for their rival to shake come the fall. 

And I thought back to my experience knocking on doors for the Obama campaign in Iowa last weekend. I was struck by how many whites without college degrees (which I determined by the number of tattoos they had) answered the door by saying something like, "I don't like either of them." 

It didn't hit me at the time, but after reading these two pieces, I wonder if the Obama campaign is having its desired effect: persuading whites without college degrees that a Mitt Romney presidency wouldn't be any better than a Barack Obama one.