A day after extending his winning streak to eight contests, Senator Barack Obama hopped in an electric tram and toured a
They could be better. General Motors this week reported losing $38.7 billion in 2007, the largest annual loss ever for an automaker.
McCain enhances standing with Republicans on Capitol Hill. A10.
But that was precisely the backdrop Obama was going for: His appearance at the plant, where he delivered a wide-ranging economic policy address and laid out a $210 billion, 10-year plan to create millions of construction and "green energy" jobs, was part of the Illinois senator's deliberate emphasis on bread-and-butter domestic issues as he tries to continue peeling white, working-class voters away from Senator Hillary Clinton and secure the Democratic nomination.
Obama's shift to a more policy-oriented, economy-focused message - which aides say is also designed to position him for a possible general election matchup against Senator John McCain, who has accused Obama of offering "platitudes" but few specifics - is not a glaring departure. His campaign notes that he has been addressing tax disparities, healthcare, and the mortgage-lending crisis for months.
But Obama's new focus was evident in yesterday's address at the GM plant, where he told workers: "Today I want to take it down a notch. This is going to be a speech that's a little more detailed. It's going to be a little bit longer, not as many applause lines."
Clinton, who must hold onto working-class voters to catch Obama in the delegate race, responded by stepping up her attacks on him as more style than substance.
"I am in the solutions business," she told supporters at a fairgrounds rally in Robstown, Texas. "My opponent is in the promises business."
Clinton also started a new TV ad in Wisconsin, which votes Tuesday, attacking Obama for refusing to debate in the state. "Maybe he'd prefer to give speeches than have to answer questions," the ad says. Obama has agreed to debates in Texas and Ohio before March 4.
The back-and-forth, coming at a crucial juncture in the nomination fight, underscores the fierce contest for lunch-bucket Democrats that may define the homestretch as Clinton and Obama battle for Wisconsin, and for Ohio and Texas, two delegate-rich, heavily blue-collar states that vote March 4. Some top Clinton supporters acknowledge she must win both Ohio and Texas to remain in the hunt, then be victorious in Pennsylvania on April 22.
Obama's fresh emphasis was also clear in his detailed remarks on economic fairness Tuesday night in Madison, Wis., and in his recent TV and radio advertising.
Nearly all the ads Obama ran in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia before their primaries on Tuesday focused more on jobs, healthcare, and the economy than on the more intangible aspects of his candidacy, such as his promises of hope and change.
Before South Carolina's primary last month, Obama ran radio ads emphasizing his biography and the historic nature of his candidacy, but voters in Washington, D.C., this month heard a radio spot touting his plan for middle-class tax cuts, his promise to cut healthcare costs for families by $2,500 a year, and his plan to make college more affordable.
"Barack Obama understands the strains we're facing," says the narrator of the ad, which aides say will run in Wisconsin and Ohio.
David Axelrod, Obama's chief strategist, said the campaign would continue to target its message to struggling families.
"These economic issues are important in every state of the country," Axelrod said. But, he added, "They are particularly important in places that have borne the brunt of the economic switches over the last 10 years, and certainly Wisconsin and Ohio are among them."
Clinton has long claimed the economy as her area of expertise, and she and her campaign worked furiously yesterday to keep Obama from stealing the spotlight. Her aides accused Obama with copying proposals on infrastructure and "green-collar" jobs that Clinton had already made - allegations the Obama camp denied. And Clinton argued that Obama's economic plan makes little sense, because, in her estimation, his healthcare plan would not cover all Americans. "I don't know how you have an economic plan . . . if you don't have a universal healthcare plan," she said, according to the Associated Press.
Exit polls from Virginia and Maryland suggest that Obama has cut into Clinton's advantages among older voters, white voters, lower-income voters, and voters concerned about the economy. In contrast to the Super Tuesday states, where Clinton often beat Obama among voters who listed the economy as their top issue, Obama won those voters by more than 20 percentage points in Maryland and Virginia.
"What it says to us is that our message is spreading, our coalition is growing," Axelrod said. "We think we're on the right path."
Clinton yesterday acknowledged her lopsided losses Tuesday, telling reporters, "Some weeks one of us is up, and the other's down, and then we reverse it."
With Obama increasing his significant lead in pledged delegates - those won from primaries and caucuses - the two campaigns continue to spar over the duty of superdelegates, the nearly 800 Democratic Party elders who are all but certain to determine who wins the nomination.
Obama's campaign says superdelegates should anoint the candidate who emerges from the primaries and caucuses with the most pledged delegates. But Clinton aides are signaling that they are prepared to claim victory on superdelegates - even if Obama ends up with more delegates determined by the popular vote.
"We are interested in acquiring delegates, period," Clinton's communications director, Howard Wolfson, told reporters yesterday.
Overall, according to an Associated Press tally that includes a survey of superdelegates, Obama leads 1,275 delegates to 1,220.
Even as the Clinton-Obama duel remains competitive, Obama and McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, are increasingly engaging one other.
Tuesday night in Madison, Obama altered a standard stump speech line about "Bush-Cheney Republicans" to read "Bush-McCain Republicans." President Bush may not be on the ballot in November, Obama argued, but Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy and Bush's Iraq war will be - represented by McCain.
In his victory speech Tuesday night, McCain fired a clear shot at Obama: "To encourage a country with only rhetoric rather than sound and proven ideas that trust in the strength and courage of free people is not a promise of hope. It is a platitude."
The Arizona senator continued that line of attack yesterday, telling reporters at a Capitol Hill news conference, "I've not observed every speech he's given, obviously, but they are singularly lacking in specifics."
Obama later returned the favor at a town hall meeting in Waukesha, Wis., saying economics were not McCain's "strong suit," something the Arizona senator acknowledged before Florida's GOP primary last month.
"If John McCain wants to debate the specifics of how well the economy has worked for ordinary families over the last seven years, that is a debate that I am happy to have," Obama said, according to his campaign. "Because the American people know that Bush's policies have not worked for ordinary Americans."
Sasha Issenberg and Susan Milligan of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Scott Helman can be reached at shelman@globe.com.
