BBC: The unions' battle for Obama

[Omaha Steve]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/us_elections_2008/7687023.stm

By Stephen Sackur
Presenter, HARDtalk, BBC World News

Not long ago, Barack Obama seemed to have a problem connecting with voters in America's industrial heartland. But a key union leader battling to bring out the Democratic vote told me the tide was turning.

Blue or white? In America the colour of your workplace collar comes with a whole lot of baggage.


In September the US economy shed jobs for the ninth month in a row


"Blue collar" conjures up images of production lines and manual labour. A physically tough, heartland America.

No airs and graces, no college education.

Barack Obama has not, it is fair to say, always had a natural rapport with this group of blue collar Americans.

His is an inspiring personal story, but not one which has put much dirt under his fingernails.

Union support

Consider the facts: a complex mixed race background; schooled in Hawaii and polished in an Ivy League university, a community activist, a lawyer, now a senator.

A man who sets white collar liberal pulses racing, the pin-up politician of the college crowd, but a campaigner who was accused by Hillary Clinton during the Democratic primaries of looking down on working people and their traditional values.

FULL story and video at link.