YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio - For Tom Buffenbarger, the choice in the Democratic primary is simple: a man with a dream and a woman with a plan. And to him, Barack Obama's lofty vision doesn't answer the nuts-and-bolts questions working-class America has for its next president.
"What do you want? The editor of the Harvard Law Review or a fighter for working families?" Buffenbarger, president of the International Association of Machinists, bellowed at an Ohio rally for Clinton on Tuesday night, just after Obama was declared the winner of the Wisconsin primary.
At campaign events, Buffenbarger said, Obama "cocks his head and lifts his nose up" as he talks about changing the tone of American politics. "Hope? Change? 'Yes, we can?' Give me a break!" the union leader mocked, drawing boisterous hoots from the crowd.
They are Clinton's firewall: the working-class voters who say they don't want to hear fancy words about changing Washington; they want to know exactly how the next president is going to bring jobs to their struggling communities and make sure their children have healthcare.
Obama has been steadily gaining support from lower-income voters, beating Clinton among voters in households with incomes of under $50,000 a year by 24 percentage points in Maryland, by 26 points in Virginia, and by 10 points in Wisconsin, according to CNN exit polls.
With the Illinois senator edging closer in the polls in Ohio, Clinton is counting on working-class and lower-middle-class voters to help salvage her campaign after losses in 11 straight primaries and caucuses. In a state where people are focused on job losses, "economy" voters are Clinton's biggest strength, favoring her by a 52 percent-to-37 percent margin over Obama, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll released Thursday, which gave her a lead of 50 percent to 43 percent overall. Many voters say they were weary of decades of unfulfilled promises from presidential candidates pledging to help communities suffering in a post- industrial economy.
Bill Clinton acknowledged this week that his wife has to win in Ohio and Texas on March 4 to keep her campaign alive.
Obama's personal and professional background would seem, at first glance, to give him a foothold among economically struggling voters, analysts say. He was raised by a single mother, and was a community organizer in Chicago before getting into politics. Clinton, by contrast, grew up in a middle-class Illinois suburb and made partner in an Arkansas law firm before becoming first lady in 1993 and in 2001, a US senator from New York.
But in most states, Clinton has enjoyed a strong advantage among working-class voters, a trend voters and political specialists say can be attributed to nostalgia for the Clinton administration and a sense that Hillary Clinton is more authentic to lower-income voters. "She comes down to the level of working-class people," Eileen Szitas, a 52-year-old school janitor in Warren, Ohio, said in an interview. Obama is "sort of modern, cool," but Clinton's experience means "I have more faith in her," Szitas said.
And while Obama's speeches calling for change and a new America have been inspiring huge crowds filled with young and first-time voters, Clinton's pragmatic message resonates among low-income voters looking for specific proposals to address their economic troubles.
Voters are "not into high- falutin rhetoric. They're into real solutions to real problems," said Richard Gephardt, a former House Democratic leader who is stumping for Clinton in Ohio.
Interviews with working-class voters reveal an undercurrent of skepticism about Obama, whom many Clinton supporters described as elitist and not as battle-hardened as Clinton. Gephardt, while praising Obama's speaking style, described the 46-year-old first-term senator as "a fine young man," and many working-class voters questioned his preparedness for the White House.
"She's for the working class, which is what I am. She's not for the rich," said Ike Schisler, a 70-year-old retired auto worker in Youngstown. Obama "talks the talk," but "is too young" and hasn't proved himself, Schisler said.
Some also described Obama as sympathetic to moneyed interests, despite the fact that his average campaign contribution is smaller than Clinton's and that the two candidates have similar economic proposals aimed at working people. Both want to amend the North American Free Trade Agreement, which was passed during the Clinton administration and which many Ohio voters blame for manufacturing-job losses, and both want to end the policy that allows businesses to avoid US taxes by locating operations - and jobs - offshore.
"Senator Obama, he's supported artificially by people of wealth trying to protect the tax cuts they haven't earned," said Jose Santiago, a 61-year-old machine builder who came to see Clinton speak in Parma. Obama, in fact, has joined Clinton in vociferously calling for a rollback of the tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans to help pay for expanding healthcare and other programs.
US Representative Richard E. Neal, a Springfield Democrat supporting Clinton, said working-class voters - such as the ones in his district - don't believe that Obama's hopeful message means that he's ready to dilute the power of the wealthy. "People at the top have had it pretty good. They're doing fine. They're staying with Obama," Neal said.
Indeed, while Obama's compelling speaking style has won over numerous voters and helped propel him to the lead in delegates, many working-class voters say they don't believe he is speaking to them and their problems. And Obama's popularity among college students has further identified him with what working-class voters see as a latte-drinking intellectual crowd, said Ken Heineman, an Ohio University history professor and specialist on labor and politics.
"There really is a deep-seated ambivalence toward higher education" among lower-income voters, who see college as an avenue to get a job, rather than a place to pursue academics for its own sake, Heineman said. "They cannot relate to the idea of a leafy, green campus. Obama's a symbol of that."
While Clinton, like Obama, has an Ivy League law degree, "she's not as poetic, smooth, and naturally at ease" as Obama, Heineman said, making her appear more accessible to less-educated and nonprofessional voters.
In his campaign in Ohio, Obama has been striking a working-class tone. A radio ad airing frequently promotes Obama's work as a community organizer, helping people displaced after the closing of a steel plant. In speeches, he attacks NAFTA, and mentions that it was Bill Clinton who promoted the trade agreement so hated in Ohio. He also has begun emphasizing the disparity between worker and chief executive officer earnings. Obama has been drawing large crowds in Ohio, but it is not clear that he is winning over low-income voters. At a Monday rally at Youngstown State University, Obama attracted more than 6,000 people, but the crowd appeared to be overwhelmingly young.
Obama's campaign manager, David Plouffe, said Obama has been making steady strides among low-income voters as his momentum grows. Plouffe argued that those voters - including Latinos who helped deliver key wins to Clinton in California and elsewhere - will be more likely to support Obama once they see and hear him. He plans events today in Akron and Cleveland, and tomorrow in Toledo.
"Part of it is just a remnant of the Clinton administration, and some warm feelings towards those years," Plouffe said. But "we really think in Texas and Ohio, where we have more time on the ground, we can improve."
Susan Milligan can be reached at s_milligan@globe.com.
