Ore. divide parallels that of Democrats

Rural, blue-collar east, urban west of state to offer a primary lesson

Despite long odds and very little time, Sara Gelser, an Oregon state legislator, is working hard to help Hillary Clinton win the Oregon primary tomorrow. (Basil Childers for the boston globe)

SALEM, Ore. - Sara Gelser, a 34-year-old state lawmaker, has the profile of a model Barack Obama backer: a young, self-described "progressive" Democrat who represents a district encompassing the city of Corvallis, a college town, and its working-class enclaves. Her description of how she unifies her disparate constituency - and how to reconcile her state's rural eastern and high-tech western halves - could have come from the Obama campaign's unity-themed talking points.

"The farmers and ranchers in the east are as important as the high-tech centers in the west," she said, adding that the rough-hewn Easterners and affluent, white-collar Westerners are interdependent and crucial to Oregon's future. "There's more that unites us than divides us."

Gelser, however, is working hard to help Hillary Clinton succeed in tomorrow's primary, despite long odds and very little time. Obama, expected to win Oregon handily, is poised to declare that the Beaver State has helped him clinch the majority of pledged delegates, and that the Democratic nomination is his outright.

As the largest and most competitive of those states yet to vote in the 2008 presidential primaries, however, Oregon is Clinton's only chance to change that scenario. But analysts say the contest could be an important barometer on the latest issue in the political slam dance between Obama and Clinton: the conflict between blue-collar and white-collar Democrats.

Like Gelser, Democrats here have long struggled to bridge the division between voters in its upscale, urban, and progressive western half with the more rural, sparsely-populated east, where most residents still earn their living from the land.

Even as he closes in on the nomination, however, Obama has had difficulty connecting with working class whites whose support he will need to win in November and whose votes presumptive Republican nominee John McCain will target. More significantly, because Oregon is a battleground state for the fall, a good showing among blue-collar voters would help Obama demonstrate he can bring them into his coalition, said Bill Lunch, chairman of the political science department at Oregon State University.

In notching big primary wins in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, Clinton has cast herself as the candidate of the working class, highlighting her middle-class roots, downplaying her role as first lady, and ignoring her million-dollar bank account.

Her TV ads in Oregon play on those themes, and on analysts' perceptions that she has virtually no chance of winning the primary or the presidential nomination. In one ad, Clinton urges her supporters to ignore the media and vote for her because while those in Washington focus on who's up and who's down, people in Oregon "care about what's right and what's wrong."

Lunch said that Clinton's woman-of-the-people message, coupled with President Bill Clinton's campaign stops in dusty, east Oregon towns whose residents haven't seen a major politician in decades, will resonate with the state's blue-collar Democrats. But the economic shift away from manufacturing, logging, and salmon fishing, and toward high-tech industries like those in the western third of the state, means that Clinton needs other voters to carry her past Obama, who has led by double digits in most polls.

"What Hillary and Bill are doing makes sense, but that constituency has been shrinking" in Oregon and across the nation, Lunch said. "Their numbers keep getting smaller and smaller. If we could get the Clinton campaign and put it in a time machine and take it back 10 years, it might work. But not now."

Clinton is expected to do better in more rural, blue-collar Kentucky, which also holds its primary tomorrow and where she campaigned this past weekend.

Julie Edwards, Clinton's communications director in Oregon, acknowledges she faces long odds against Obama, who is also spending more money. Edwards said the Clinton campaign is competing statewide, not just in Oregon's rural and blue-collar areas.

Settled in the mid-1800s by fishermen, traders, frontiersmen, and egalitarian New England migrants, Oregon has long been viewed as the liberal beacon of the Pacific Northwest. It was the first state to establish workplace rights for women as well as men, is still the only state to legalize physician-assisted suicide, and it blazed the trail on environmental conservation laws.

Yet that reputation comes principally from the western third of Oregon - the population base and the state's economic powerhouse. That region, which encompasses Portland and Eugene, is home to Nike, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, and the state's three largest universities and has a substantial number of white-collar suburban dwellers.

Such political and economic clout, with Interstate 5 as the dividing line, has overshadowed Oregon's vast eastern region, where the high plains landscape - and the conservative political climate - more closely resemble neighboring Idaho. The small towns there, Lunch said, are few and far between, and residents can "go for days without running into a minority."The single congressional district east of Interstate 5 is several times larger than Massachusetts and much more conservative, Lunch noted, but has just a fraction of the Bay State's population. Though many voters there are expected to turn out for Clinton tomorrow, there aren't enough of them to make a significant difference for her, Lunch said.

Analysts said Clinton's best hope to compete with Obama is in places like Salem, a picturesque city of about 140,000 an hour south of Portland.

Surrounded by farmland with the snow-peaked Cascade Mountains as a backdrop, Salem has a small-town feel and a substantial working-class community. But the city, home to the Democrat-majority state Legislature and Willamette University, has a strong progressive flavor: The downtown area features organic restaurants touting locally grown food as well as holistic medicine shops and a large used-book emporium.

Brian Clem, a young Democratic state representative from Coos Bay, said Clinton's populist message could resonate here and other rural areas where "there's a feeling of, 'Portland doesn't get us,' " said Clem, who supports Obama.

"That she could play on pretty effectively. But there aren't a lot of people."

Clem, whose congressional district lies west of Salem, said even Salem seems to be a lock for the senator from Illinois. When Clem canvassed the area for undecided voters to persuade, he said, he was hard-pressed to find any: "They're with Obama and they're not moving."

But one Clinton supporter was not swayed by the doomsday talk surrounding his candidate.

Cody Lofdahl, 49, an air conditioning mechanic, said he likes Clinton's experience and determination and called her the candidate of "forgotten people" who work hard for a living. He rejects predictions of Clinton's defeat, because "you're not going to know the outcome until all the votes are in."

Besides, he added, a ballot is the only way the working man can make his voice heard. Clinton can win, he said, but "it all depends on how many of those forgotten people turn out to vote."