Obama appeals to working whites in Michigan

By CHARLES BABINGTON and JEFF KAROUB – 47 minutes ago



WARREN, Mich. (AP) — One day after an embarrassing rejection by West Virginia's blue-collar voters, Barack Obama on Wednesday plunged into the task of convincing working-class whites that he understands them and will do more to help them hold their jobs and pay their bills than Republican John McCain.



Perhaps no other task is more vital to his hopes of becoming the first black president, and only the second Democrat elected to the White House in four decades.



Obama has galvanized black voters, broken fundraising records and drawn hundreds of thousands of excited young adults to his campaign. But McCain still hopes to trump him by wooing so-called Reagan Democrats, those working-class voters who are wary of social liberals but anxious about their jobs, which are concentrated in a manufacturing sector long battered by imports and changing technologies.



They also happen to be overwhelmingly white, a challenge Obama is trying to confront indirectly by addressing their economic concerns without referring explicitly to race. Obama's efforts to win over these voters gained a boost Wednesday when he was endorsed by former Sen. John Edwards, who had challenged Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination before dropping from the race in January.



The symbolism of his first visit in months to Michigan, a battleground state in the fall, was clear to those who know the state's history. He made two stops in Macomb County, a northern suburb of Detroit to which thousands of white autoworkers fled during the urban riots in the late 1960s and court-ordered busing that integrated schools in the 1970s.



After touring a Chrysler plant, Obama told about 200 union members at a community college about his plans to create more manufacturing jobs and to help workers pay for homes, health care and college.



"They can't do it on their own," the Illinois senator said. "They need a partner in the White House."



If he is president, he said, "we won't just revive and strengthen our automakers. We're going to revive and strengthen all of American manufacturing." The Bush administration has produced "disastrous years for our manufacturers," he said, suggesting that McCain would do no better.



In an interview with The Associated Press, Obama said his rapport with working-class whites will be much stronger after they weigh the choice between him and McCain this fall.



"This is something that has been ramped up and magnified, I think, by the press," Obama said, noting his strong

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