In Pennsylvania, Democrats casting for white men, state's prize

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Democrats casting for white men, state's prize
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
By Timothy McNulty, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

PHILADELPHIA -- The biggest prey this primary season, discussed in countless political dispatches and talk shows, is hiding in plain sight. The species is described -- depending on who's talking -- as either traditional or old-fashioned, proud or angry, straight-talking or racist/sexist. It is rough-hewn. It is gritty. It is a walking, talking cliche.

It is Pennsylvania's voting-age white male and he may be none of the above, but rather as varied and hard to pin down as all 3.86 million of them statewide.

One is Ron Smith, a 63-year-old mechanical repairman at U.S. Steel's Clairton Works, whose biggest worries in this election are the economy and the war. He supports the soldiers in Iraq but wonders why they are there, and worries about paying for health care when he retires in two years. And like many other white male voters in the state, according to polls, the Democrat from Youngwood is leaning toward Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton over Sen. Barack Obama in the April 22 primary. "You want some change, but don't want wild and crazy change. It needs to be tweaked -- not all at one time," Mr. Smith said.

Mrs. Clinton went after a treasure trove of white male workers yesterday in a speech to the Pennsylvania convention of the AFL-CIO. Mr. Obama speaks to the same group today, while Mrs. Clinton travels to Pittsburgh for a closed-door economic summit at a union hall on the South Side.

Mr. Obama beat Mrs. Clinton among white men, often among huge margins, in the primaries in Wisconsin, Virginia, California and Maryland, but next-door in Ohio, whose demographics are often seen as similar to Pennsylvania's, Mrs. Clinton turned the tables, taking 58 percent of the white males to Mr. Obama's 37 percent, according to MSNBC exit polls. Pre-primary polling in Pennsylvania has shown she has similar leads among white males here.

With white female Democrats going toward Mrs. Clinton and black voters to Mr. Obama, the movement of the white male voter either way could decide this primary and possibly the nomination....

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08093/869727-457.stm

exposed she is.