Word: blue-collar
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...standing on a stage before a packed auditorium of hundreds and being broadcast to millions. But considering the fallout he has had to endure since his notorious "bitter" comments about small-town America were revealed, and the fact that Obama has already had a hard time connecting with blue-collar voters during much of the campaign, it's an especially tall order...
...surprising that they get bitter," Obama told a group of wealthy Californian donors at a closed San Francisco fund raiser, referring to rural blue-collar workers who have been hard hit by outsourcing and declining wages. "They cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations...
Obama has spent the last month courting Pennsylvania's blue-collar workers to mixed results. His six-day bus tour across the state, meant to showcase his approachability, was a series of awkward photo-ops. And another soaring speech, like the one he delivered in Philadelphia last month to address the race issue, might only underline an intellectual prowess that some perceive as elitist...
Pennsylvania is a swing state not because of a moderate disposition (it's no Iowa or New Mexico) but because it encompasses the incongruities of American society, from the bluest of blue-blooded aristocrats on Philadelphia's Main Line to the bluest of blue-collar guys in the bars of Aliquippa. It's urban; it's rural. It's the Mellon Bank; it's the United Mine Workers. It's Swarthmore; it's South Philly. It's Andy Warhol; it's Joe Paterno. In the Republic's early days, someone dubbed Pennsylvania the Keystone State because it was the place...
...most basic level, Obama is telling Pennyslvanians what they don't want to hear, while Clinton tells them exactly what they want to hear. (In many ways their conflicting messages mirror John McCain and Mitt Romney's blue-collar jobs debate in the run-up to the Michigan primary earlier this year.) Then, in the next breath, the hedging starts. Obama informs his audiences that some jobs can certainly be brought back, while Clinton cautions that, of course, not all jobs can be recreated. From that point on, their riffs run parallel. The two support cutting subsidies to companies that...