Presidential hopeful tries to widen appeal with working-class voters

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WASHINGTON - There's no question Barack Obama has been having trouble with a wide swath of voters lately -- especially blue-collar workers.

Analysts say it's debatable whether the same struggle in the Democratic nomination fight against Hillary Clinton would plague him in the presidential race this fall.

But it's a potential pitfall that Obama is already trying to head off.

A day after he was walloped by white, working-class voters in West Virginia, Obama was in a Detroit auto-making suburb to announce a new manufacturing fund to help keep jobs in the United States.

It was a blatant appeal to the so-called Reagan Democrats who swung to Ronald Reagan in 1980 and are seen as a crucial bloc in beating Republican John McCain to the White House.

McCain, said Obama, was right when he once remarked that many of the lost jobs would not come back. "But where he's wrong is in suggesting that there's nothing we can do to replace those jobs or create new ones."

There will many more of those kind of forays as Obama turns his sights on the general election.

While Clinton has excelled in states like Pennsylvania and Ohio by becoming the champion of the average Joe, some say many of those Democrats will likely swing to Obama as the official nominee

Some recent polls suggest Obama performs just slightly worse than Clinton among those voters in matchups against McCain. Others show Obama doing better among the group than Democrats have in the past.

And many point out that the political climate is squarely against Republicans this year after two terms of the immensely unpopular President George W. Bush.

The party has lost three congressional seats in traditional strongholds to Democrats this spring, including one on Tuesday in Mississippi -- a clear sign of dissatisfaction with the status quo.

But exit polls from West Virginia also pointed to a disturbing trend of voters factoring in Obama's race.

The number of white voters who said race had influenced their choice was among the highest recorded in voter surveys -- two in 10 said it was important and more than eight in 10 of those backed Clinton.

In other states like Pennsylvania and New Jersey, about 10 per cent of Clinton voters said race was a factor.

It was clear, too, that Obama still has work to do to put the controversy of his ex-pastor behind him.