Their is a very human need to give order to the Universe. In the Bible the first thing God does is draw lines, set catagories. We see a collection of unkowns and the first thing we do is arrange it into boxes. That leads to Aristotelian logic, which I was taught is a more effective form of intellectual engineering than the wooley holistic Platonic approach.

In another place I was just attempting to how come the Obama campaign is performing as a cross between a rickety bus losing its wheels and a asthmatic doing a belly flop. The anology I came up with is the Frankenstein Horse.

The Democratic coalition has six main legs reaching back to the New Deal. One other leg that is more recent can be added.
1. Labor and associated white ethnic groups.
2. Jews and associated intellectuals.
3. Media, film and successor industries.
4. Homosexuals and other disaffected social identities, including women.
5. Black Americans.
6. The Old Left Socialists and their New Left children.
7. Recent immigrants, especially Latin but also Asian.

The interests of these groups are frequently mutually exclusive which has made managing the coalition difficult. For example old labor competes with new immigrants and blacks can see themselves in competition with Jews or immigrants and socially unsympathetic to homosexuals. On the other hand to some extent the groups can support each other with identities bleeding over to more than one pillar.

Hillary had established ties with 6 legs of the Democrats Frankenstein horse. She may have thought she also had the Old Left 6 on board or that she could ignore them.

Obama has managed to offend members or leaders in most of these key groups. It appears to me that he has largely alienated groups 1, 2 and 4 has no deep connection with 7 and has a tenuous connection with the old guard in 5. That leaves him only the Media in 3, the hard core revolutionaries in 6 and the street soldiers of the Black community.