Pittsburgh, Pa -- Barack Obama isn't just attacking Hillary Clinton for trying to look all working-class -- talking guns like Annie Oakley, or drinking a shot and a beer. He's also trying to remind those blue-collar workers that he feels their pain.
At a manufacturing summit here this morning, Obama tried to show his own working-class credentials, elaborating on his work as a community organizer in the shadow of shuttered steel mills in mid-1980s Chicago.
In his remarks, he recalled seeing a closed plant for the first time.
"I saw a plant that was empty and rusty. And behind a chain-link fence, I saw weeds sprouting up through the concrete, and an old mangy cat running around," he said. "And I thought about all the good jobs it used to provide, and all the kids who used to work there in the summer to make some extra money for college."
He added that he helped turn the communities around, by giving "job-training to the jobless and hope to the hopeless."
None of the seven sponsoring union groups, which include Alliance for American Manufacturing and United Steelworkers, have made endorsements. And if applause is any measure, the several hundred union members who attended seemed split in their support.
Obama and Clinton are both crisscrossing Pennsylvania, courting blue collar voters, talking up fair trade and attacking each other.
Clinton, who is down by about 130 delegates, seemed to get an opening — at least among superdelegates—with Obama's "bitter" comments and is intensifying her argument about Obama's electability.
Pennsylvania's primary is April 22, and the next major contests are in Indiana and North Carolina on May 6. Clinton is expected to win Pennsylvania, Obama is up by double digits in North Carolina, and Indiana could be the tie-breaker.
Nia-Malika Henderson in Pittsburgh
Comments (1)
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