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Politics : The Next President 2008 -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hope Praytochange who wrote (2234)	2/9/2008 1:48:40 PM
From: Tadsamillionaire	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3215

Blue-collar vote tough for Obama Even when Sen. Barack Obama was the presidential candidate of the open collar, he was never the blue-collar one. And these days, now that he rarely appears in public without a suit and tie, Obama is coming to grips with an undeniable trend: People with college degrees and higher incomes tend to choose him, while working-class voters, at least white ones, are more likely to favor Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York. This is by no means a new divide within the Democratic Party, whose economically diverse population includes Hollywood glitterati, union workers and every pay grade in between. (Think Kendall-Jackson meets Anheuser-Busch.) But the preferences are emerging in such stark terms lately that even the Obama team may be accepting it as a difficult reality. In a memo leaked last week, Obama campaign staffers projected they were likely to lose in a handful of states—which just happen to be heavy with blue-collar workers. The beer-wine dynamic is not as significant as the gender divide, which is sending many female voters to Clinton's side. Still, it's an important factor as the race moves into the most competitive phase yet, in which any sliver of the electorate that sticks together might make the difference. "His support tends to be stronger in suburban areas where you have white-collar professionals," said Brad Coker, managing director of Mason-Dixon Polling & Research. "There has always been a division among the Democratic Party among its limousine liberals and its blue-collar workers." The party has a history of producing candidates who mesmerize better-educated, wealthier voters, from Adlai Stevenson to Bill Bradley to Paul Tsongas. But Obama has gone well beyond them in terms of generating excitement and winning states, even among a healthy chunk of lower-income voters. chicagotribune.com