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Union Spends Heavily for Obama in Primaries •
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Ohio Primary Shows What Michigan Missed
By Gordon Trowbridge
The Detroit News
Tuesday 26 February 2008
Clinton, Obama blitz state, with trade, factory jobs taking center stage.
Toledo - Call it the primary that could have been.
For the last week, Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have campaigned across Ohio, talking about questionable trade treaties, the loss of manufacturing jobs and the home foreclosure crisis. They'll spend much of the next week doing the same, beginning with tonight's nationally televised debate in Cleveland and leading up to the potentially decisive March 4 Ohio primary.
It's just the sort of campaign that could have happened six weeks ago, in the days before Michigan's Jan. 15 primary, if the candidates had shown up. Instead, the race in Ohio - whose economic troubles, by most measures, are second only to Michigan's - is an echo of what might have been in Michigan.
But it's being played out before a far different political backdrop than the campaigns would have faced in a mid-January Michigan contest.
Veteran Ohio Democratic political consultant Bill Burges says both candidates "have moved to a working, or semi-working, or used-to-be-working-class appeal" - a reference to the fact that Ohio has lost more than 224,000 manufacturing jobs, nearly a quarter of its total, since 2001.
Candidates Tussle Over Trade
Obama's stump speech at massive rallies across the state has included references to factory equipment boxed up in Ohio and shipped off to China. Clinton's is peppered with attacks on insensitive CEOs and tax cuts for the rich.
Each is an appeal aimed at voters such as Jim Kiffle, a UAW member who works at a Chrysler parts plant near Toledo. He has a one-word answer for the top issue in Ohio: "Jobs." Kiffle, a Clinton supporter, said he's drawn to the New York senator in part because she has promised to put a hold on future free-trade deals.
Trade has become perhaps the hottest topic in the Ohio race. Clinton has pledged a "timeout" on trade deals and to explore changes to the North American Free Trade Agreement, a deal finalized when her husband was president. Obama also has suggested re-opening NAFTA. Like Clinton, he supports adding labor and environmental regulations to future trade treaties.
But Obama also has sought to portray Clinton as a NAFTA supporter who only now, as a presidential candidate, is critical of the deal.
A hard-hitting flier that the Obama campaign has mailed to Ohio voters claims Clinton praised the deal in the past; the Clinton campaign has angrily denounced that claim, and independent fact-checkers such as FactCheck.org and PolitiFact.com have found it to be at least partially misleading.
Obama himself has been a less than full-throated opponent of trade deals in the past; conservative economists have generally considered him friendlier to free-trade deals than other Democratic candidates.
Working-Class Support Key
This weekend, in a speech on job creation near Cleveland, Obama told workers, "If we're honest with ourselves, we'll acknowledge that we can't stop globalization in its tracks and that some of these jobs aren't coming back."
The statement is strikingly similar to those of Republican John McCain last month, who said some of Michigan's auto jobs "aren't coming back" - statements Mitt Romney used to portray McCain as insensitive to the state's economic plight. The Democrats didn't campaign in Michigan, because it broke party rules in scheduling an early primary. Obama withdrew his name from the state's ballot.
The heat of the trade debate is the most visible sign of just how important working-class voters will be in Ohio. Union households form a key constituency in the Democratic primary, particularly in industrial northern Ohio, a region almost as rich in auto plants as Michigan.
Clinton generally has done well among blue-collar groups - those with no college education, with low or moderate incomes or from union households. In recent contests, Obama has eroded that advantage, especially in last week's Wisconsin primary.
But a Quinnipiac University poll released Monday showed Clinton leading by 23 percentage points among Ohio voters without a college degree - almost identical to her margin in a Quinnipiac poll taken just before the Wisconsin vote. Overall, Clinton led Obama by 11 points - down from a 21-point lead in mid-February.
Clinton's strength among blue-collar voters would likely have made her a favorite in Michigan, had the Jan. 15 primary been competitive - especially after her comeback victory in New Hampshire just a week before.
But now, the political dynamic is much different: Clinton is fighting to save her candidacy, with officials in both campaigns suggesting that anything short of significant wins here and in Texas, also a week from today, would make Obama the clear favorite for the Democratic nomination.
Obama outspent Clinton on TV ads in Wisconsin 5-1, and independent political consultants in Ohio say his organization in the Buckeye State is superior to Clinton's.
"They close really well because they have a formula," said Gerald Austin, a Democratic consultant who is not working for either campaign but said he admires Obama's political organization.
"They're rallying people, giving (supporters) the program they need and winning. That seems to be happening here."
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Union Spends Heavily for Obama in Primaries
By Leslie Wayne
The New York Times
Tuesday 26 February 2008
The powerful Service Employees International Union - whose local chapters helped John Edwards in the Iowa caucus - is now pouring cash and manpower into helping Senator Barack Obama in the Texas and Ohio primaries.
The union reported in federal filings that it had spent $1.4 million in the two states on Mr. Obama's behalf, an effort that immediately came under sharp attack from the campaign of his rival, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The Clinton campaign accused Mr. Obama of hypocrisy, saying he had criticized Mr. Edwards in Iowa for receiving similar support. Mr. Obama called that support "underhanded" and deserving of "further scrutiny."
Mr. Obama has denounced special-interest money and the Democrats who have taken it, a point the Clinton campaign emphasized in a conference call with reporters.
"When it was in Obama's interest to criticize Edwards over outside spending, he did so," said Howard Wolfson, a Clinton campaign spokesman. "Now when it is in his interest to remain silent, he is."
In a statement, the Obama campaign said, "Senator Obama has long said that he would prefer those who want to support him to do it directly through the campaign." It did not say whether it would ask the union to halt its effort.
Mr. Obama received the union's backing earlier this month and has long maintained ties to the group. He sought its endorsement, and its main Web page is filled with photos of him and videos of his speeches.
Over the weekend, the union reported spending the money in Texas and Ohio to pay for door-to-door canvassers, a direct-mail campaign and a phone bank. The expenses are independent and not coordinated with the Obama campaign, which would be illegal.
"S.E.I.U. members are waging an unprecedented effort to mobilize their co-workers and communities to elect Barack Obama," said Anna Burger, the union's secretary-treasurer. "We are committed to bringing all of our resources to bear to ensure he is our next president."
Besides the $1.4 million, the union can spend additional money, which does not have to be publicly reported, on pro-Obama efforts that are directed solely at its own members. The union said it had 150,000 members in the states with primaries coming up, with 30,000 in Ohio alone.
In a news release last Friday, the union said it would wage "an extensive multimillion-dollar ground and air campaign" on behalf of Mr. Obama. Its members will appear in pro-Obama television advertisements in Texas and Ohio and "thousands" of members will take time off from work or volunteer on efforts to help Mr. Obama, the union said.
The 1.9 million-member union also spent $240,000 for phone banks and get-out-the-vote efforts among union members in the final days before the Wisconsin primary, just two days after it endorsed Mr. Obama.
The union's political action committee had $31 million in cash-on-hand at the end of 2007.
In the days before the Iowa caucuses, when Mr. Obama had no support from outside groups, he criticized Mr. Edwards and Mrs. Clinton for the backing that they were getting from unions and other outside groups.
The sharpest attacks were aimed at Mr. Edwards after Alliance for a New America, a group financed in part by the service employees union and run by a former Edwards campaign aide, spent $1.5 million on television spots praising Mr. Edwards.
Besides the money spent by the service employees union, about $1 million will be spent by the United Food and Commercial Workers union for pro-Obama advertisements, according to the Clinton campaign. Mr. Obama has also received fresh support from PowerPac.org, a California group that has spent around $740,000 on a pro-Obama effort.
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