Obama seeks to appeal to working-class Democrats

Friday, Sept. 7, 2007 | 7:27 a.m.

Barack Obama would clean up in a Whole Foods straw poll.

"He's the got the classic 'wine track' candidate problem," said Tom Schaller, a University of Maryland political scientist who writes for The American Prospect.

Schaller was referring to the Volvo-driving wing of the Democratic Party, or what Jennifer Duffy, another political analyst, called the "idealist-romantic" wing of the party.

Unfortunately for Obama, wine candidates have a long history of failure in Democratic primaries - Gary Hart, Howard Dean, et al . - because not enough of these educated, upper-middle-class voters exist to carry the candidate.

"A union voter's vote counts just as much as Matt Damon's," Schaller quipped.

So Obama, the youthful first-term senator from Illinois with a legitimate chance to be America's first black president, came to a working-class black neighborhood in Las Vegas to win support from voters he'll need to win the Nevada caucus in January.

With the campaign entering its most intense phase, Obama must break through with working-class voters, and he's clearly begun to re tool his campaign to do so.

Obama needs to become "a more known commodity in working-class neighborhoods," Robert Gibbs, his press secretary, said in an interview.

The strength of Obama's candidacy has been his natural skill on the stump and his rhetoric about uniting the country and transforming politics. It's still in his stump speech, including lines such as, "And so we face a choice in this election. Do we continue the cynical math that says it's a winning strategy to divide our country in two, or do we find our stake in each other as Americans and unite this country around a common purpose?"

But he's also shifted his presentation in recent days, beginning with a speech in New Hampshire on Monday, to a new theme: Washington isn't working for you. He recited a litany of issues around this theme: the Iraq war, health care and wages.

Obama is most effective when he's personal. He asked people in the audience to raise their hands if they lacked health insurance. A significant number did, including some children at the event with their school class. Then he asked if they knew anyone without health insurance, or if they were facing a heavy financial burden because of high premiums. Nearly everyone raised a hand.

It's not clear whether the strategy can work. Although Obama has solidified his support among black voters, there aren't substantial numbers of black voters in the key early states, except for South Carolina, and, to a lesser extent, Nevada.

Schaller said he long believed Obama could make big inroads among Hispanics, although that hasn't borne out. Instead, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton has won their early support, Schaller said.

Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards has piled up endorsements from organized labor in recent days - including Thursday with the 200,000 members and retirees of the Transport Workers Union of America. Those unions collectively represent 2 million workers and retirees.

Clinton won the machinists' endorsement this week.

Obama, who met with workers from the Culinary Union Local 226 on Thursday, has been heavily courting organized labor, both in Nevada and nationally, and he may have his best shot with the service unions, which tend to be more racially and ethnically diverse than old-line industrial unions that have so far gone for Edwards or Clinton.

At this point, it's not entirely clear why Obama has struggled with labor and working-class voters. He spent time after college as a community activist on the south side of Chicago and has walked picket lines.

David Bernstein, a law professor at George Mason University and a conservative labor scholar, said construction trade unions' legacy of racism possibly could be hurting Obama "on the margins."

Paul Moreno, a labor scholar at Hillsdale College and author of "Black Americans and Organized Labor," disagreed, and said labor is backing Edwards because he's the most populist and liberal on trade and economic issues.

The Obama of 2007 so far has been known for his conciliatory style and distaste for hot rhetoric. But during his Las Vegas visit he attacked - by name - the insurance and pharmaceutical industries for blocking health care reform, and Exxon Mobil for taking excess profits.

Can this new strategy work? Schaller said Obama's team has developed an aggressive field operation in Iowa. And Obama is no softie. He comes from the tough ward politics of Mayor Richard Daley's Chicago.

The campaign said that of the 1,000 people who showed up Thursday at the Doolittle Community Center, 500 were without tickets, doubling the expected crowd.

But as Obama took questions at the end of his presentation, dozens of the potential caucus voters streamed out, which wasn't a great sign given the commitment required by a caucus: Voters will have to show up at a specific time and place on a Saturday in January and commit to a candidate. Soft support is all but useless.

Walter and Elaine Johnson, who left early, said they love Obama and will support him, but added they're busy and had to leave.

The campaign said those who left were on their way to casino shift changes at 3 and 4 p.m.

A Culinary Union official called that "a plausible explanation."