So what\u2019s the problem for the Obama campaign?<\/p>\n
The problem is the dog that isn\u2019t barking.<\/p>\n
Talk for more than a few minutes with an Obama supporter in a white middle-class or working-class area and you\u2019ll hear about a friend or relative or co-worker who has a real problem with the candidate. When Jack Davis\u2019s wife, Joan, who also plans to vote for Senator Obama, was asked about Democrats that she knew who would not vote for him, she replied:<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mother! She\u2019s 85 years old. I\u2019m sorry to say, but she will not vote for him.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
Joseph Costigan, a regional political director for the union, Unite Here, spoke candidly about the tension between the economic distress of working men and women and the persistent, though hard-to-quantify, resistance to Barack Obama\u2019s candidacy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been talking with staff in different parts of the Midwest,\u201d\u009d he said, \u201cand we\u2019re all struggling to some extent with the problem of white workers who will not vote for Obama because of his color. There is no question about it. It\u2019s a very powerful thing to get over for some folks.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
Mr. Costigan believes \u201d\u201d and hopes \u201d\u201d that the number of people holding such views is relatively small, and that Mr. Obama, now with the help of Senator Biden, can surmount that obstacle.<\/p>\n