You have narrowed the definition of "blue collar voter" to be the Northern urban Catholic, the kind who left the cities for the suburbs generations ago. Blue collar voter also means the Southern evangelical who was a William Jennings Bryan voter three generations ago and a New Deal Democrat for the past two generations. It means that half of the American work force that is not college educated.
A lot of that demographic is single mothers who are under tremendous socio economic and cultural pressure. A national health plan would go halfway to resolving her most pressing problems.
And it is the reality of her life that she cannot spend as much time with her children as she would like. You may find this unusual but she has to work to support them. Her power to shelter them from the world around them, from the ceaseless economic insecurity of their lives is very limited. She can't fight Viacom for the souls of her children singlehanded. So she supports the GOP against a culture that wants to teach her children MTV values.
I limited my definition of "blue collar voter" to northern Catholics because in the context of this topic that's really what is being discussed. Southern voters are largely GOP voters for cultural reasons and will likely remain so (which explains why Democratic presidential candidates barely even campaign in the South these days), but it's the urbanized northern states that have become the true swing states in recent decades -- states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and even New Jersey to a certain extent.
A lot of that demographic is single mothers who are under tremendous socio economic and cultural pressure. A national health plan would go halfway to resolving her most pressing problems.
Why stop there? A $10,000 cash payment every month would go even further toward resolving her most pressing problems, if that is what you are defining as her most pressing problem. As far as I'm concerned, a government is incapable of addressing a single mother's most pressing problem without resorting to utterly unacceptable totalitarian measures.
There was a time when charitable religious organizations were perfectly willing and able to address the needs of people like single mothers who -- for reasons completely outside their control -- found themselves in severe economic distress. It's no coincidence that "single motherhood" became more of a problem once government institutions replaced religious organizations as the primary means of dealing with this kind of problem.
And it is the reality of her life that she cannot spend as much time with her children as she would like. You may find this unusual but she has to work to support them. Her power to shelter them from the world around them, from the ceaseless economic insecurity of their lives is very limited. She can't fight Viacom for the souls of her children singlehanded. So she supports the GOP against a culture that wants to teach her children MTV values.
That's a heroic mother indeed, but you'd have to provide me with some solid evidence that this cohort of voters is actually supporting the GOP. I think it's actually the opposite, and that people like Bill Clinton and Al Gore got a lot of support from this type of voter.
Most "single" mothers receive free health care, better benefits, and so much government cheese that there is a real and increasing economic incentive not to marry the father (or any of the fathers) of the children. It is very common to have the mother state that she is "single and alone" when the father is living in the same residence, but is holding a legal residence in a different area. As anyone who works in the child support area. Most single moms want to remain single moms because they would loose to many benefits if they get married!
Politicians can't help there. The whole "Ministry of Culture" thing has been tried, and the nations that tried it are either out of business outright (USSR), transitioning to CINO regimes (China) or quaint little pockets that the world has passed by (Cuba, North Korea).