For White Working Class, Obama Rises on Empty Wallets

Lincoln County, Mo., a fast-growing exurb northwest of St. Louis, is one of a handful of U.S. counties that always vote for the winning candidate in presidential elections. This perfect record goes back more than a half-century. And it explains why I recently set out for that oracle county, traveling across the middle of bellwether Missouri to ask how the ultimate swing voters — the white working class — are looking at this year's decision.

I followed a cord of suburban and rural communities that connects the urban Democratic strongholds of Kansas City and St. Louis. After stops along the way, I found myself in Lincoln County, driving through a little subdivision of newly minted homes called Ashleigh Estates, looking for voters to interview. A group of young families was gathered on a concrete driveway, next to a pickup truck with a big toolbox in the bed. Lots of kids, ranging from toddlers to preteens, were playing in the slanting evening sunshine, while a couple of the dads sipped after-work beers.

Nothing special was going on, one mom explained. "We don't make a lot of money," said Tammy Pyle, "so we just hang out and have fun together." Another mom volunteered that the key to this neighborly spirit is that they steer clear of politics when shooting the breeze. But they made an exception in this case.

"I really wanted Hillary," said Holly Haggard, a purposeful young woman in tan slacks and running shoes. "Well," her husband Robbie quickly reminded her, "now we got Obama." He said this in a tone of voice that made me think he wasn't too happy about the fact.

If this story had been written a few months ago, that exchange might have been the gist of it — white working-class voters left cold by Barack Obama. But then Holly came back with exactly the thing Obama might hope she would say: "Yeah, and we got $3.74 gas too." For many Americans, the price of gas remains shorthand for a whole world of economic woes.

Robbie's response this time was almost a sigh of resignation. "Think I don't know that?" he said softly.

I soon gathered that six of the eight adults standing in that driveway planned to vote for Obama in November. Their support ranged from enthusiastic to reluctant. And of course, there's nothing scientific about one driveway. But I heard similar things throughout my trip. Among white voters, Obama appeared to be rising on a pile of empty wallets. Many folks in Lincoln County shared that impression.

"Who do you think will win around here?" I asked.

"Obama," Robbie Haggard answered flatly, and several others agreed.

"But Missouri's always been Republican," Pyle protested.

"I think Missouri's had about enough," Holly Haggard said.

Some hard data support that reaction. A recent poll of 1,024 Missouri voters, sponsored by Time and CNN, found that Obama's standing in the Show-Me State has improved significantly in the past month. A must-win state for John McCain's campaign — once considered fairly safe — is now a virtual tie, with the momentum going in Obama's direction. That's not something that can be accomplished solely with the support of liberals and minorities — not in Missouri. Here in the borderland between North and South, between East and West, between rich and poor, between city and farm, any would-be President must stay competitive among white voters of modest and middle incomes.

There's still time to change again, for doubts to resurface, for suspicions to harden. And voters may say one thing to pollsters and do another in the voting booth. Yet at this late stage of the campaign, after dozens of interviews across this toss-up state, evidence suggests that the issue that once seemed as if it would dominate this election — Obama's race — is not consuming the people who will actually decide.