Obama, Clinton woo Philadelphia suburbanites

ARDMORE, Pa. - The farmer's market features a winery and a gourmet cheese stand, the local cricket club is thriving and some of the front lawns in this old-money suburban enclave look like the entrance to a national park.

If Barack Obama has any chance of beating Hillary Clinton in this state's Democratic primary April 22, and a poll released Tuesday shows he is steadily narrowing her lead to single digits, he's going to have to charm voters, especially women, in and around the Philadelphia suburbs they call the Main Line.

In this haven of old money and high society, Obama and Clinton are fervently wooing the economically conservative but socially liberal voters, many of whom are disenchanted with Republican politics once so dominant in this land of stately homes and private clubs.

"They're the classic brie-and-Chablis voters," said G. Terry Madonna, professor of public affairs and director of the Franklin & Marshall College Poll. "They're upscale, college-educated, very successful people who tend to be very liberal on cultural issues," Madonna said. "They're the types of voters who, 20 years ago, were Republican, and they moved away from the Republican Party partly because of its swing to the right."

They're also the type of Democrats whom Obama has been attracting in earlier primary states, and who now offer him an opportunity to cut into the advantage Clinton holds over him with rural, blue-collar and senior voters elsewhere in Pennsylvania.

The contest for Pennsylvania, once considered firmly in Clinton's corner, has closed to within six percentage points, with Obama now trailing the New York senator 50 percent to 44 percent in the Keystone State, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll. It also shows the Illinois senator closing the gap among women and widening his lead among blacks in the state.

Yet Clinton can lay legitimate claim to the Main Line territory too, with its wealth of professional women who have made their way much the same way she has. Women have been the sturdy pillar of her candidacy, sustaining her especially in Rust Belt states like Pennsylvania.

The Main Line communities, home also to some of the better known liberal arts colleges, and their surrounding towns are a battleground in the Democratic primary, a target area in a state that could validate or break Clinton's argument that she is the candidate who can win large battleground states in the fall.

Though Republican roots in the area are strong, it's not hard to find Main Line voters who are trying to choose between Clinton and Obama.

In the sunny atrium of an indoor farmer's market in Ardmore the other day, Mike and Milca Lilian amicably disagreed about their choices.

Mike Lilian, an anesthesiologist from nearby Bala Cynwyd, has voted for candidates of both parties in the past but likes Clinton this time around because she seems "wily."

His wife couldn't say exactly why she leans toward Obama, except to say "he's charismatic, dynamic" in a way she thinks might improve the country.

"He seems a little naive, don't you think?" her husband asked. "He has so much less experience in foreign policy."

"But don't you think it's about judgment too?" she replied. "He was against the war from the beginning."

Both voters say they have been open to Republican candidates in the past but now are concerned about issues the Democrats are talking most about.

The effort to appeal to those sensibilities has been intense. Obama has poured at least $2 million into television advertising with a concentration on the Philadelphia market - likely four times the significant amount Clinton has spent.

Both campaigns poured on the steam to sign up voters for this month's primary, registering upwards of 15,000, by the local party's count, in Montgomery County, which encompasses the Main Line and other populous suburbs.

The candidates have campaigned in the region and sent high-level surrogates to speak for them at meetings of local Democrats. On Thursday, for example, Clinton dispatched Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell with her daughter, Chelsea Clinton, to schmooze Montgomery County Democrats at their spring reception. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., spoke for Obama and stayed for pictures and handshakes as local Democrats mingled over wine and cheese.

The Clinton team is optimistic about its chances in the area even though these voters make up a slice of the electorate that differentiates Pennsylvania from Ohio, a heavily blue-collar state where Clinton went over so well with primary voters.

"We're different than Ohio," Rendell said, referring to the affluence of the suburbs and other areas, "because there are certain sections of the state that are just off the chart economically."

Many voters in the area remember the Clinton administration fondly, he thinks. "When Barack Obama says we don't want to go back to the ‘90s, you get a lot of people in this area who raise their hands and say, ‘Well, we do,'" said Rendell, a former Philadelphia mayor. "The ‘90s were awfully good to a lot of people here."

But Sen. Robert Casey Jr., D-Pa., thinks Obama is competitive in the suburbs, partly because voters there may be less driven by economic anxiety than about the war in Iraq.

Obama opposed the war from the start, while Clinton voted to authorize the president to go to war before becoming a war opponent. Both candidates propose an expeditious withdrawal of American combat troops from Iraq.

"Just by definition, when people have more money in their pocket, they're not focused on the same thing," said Casey, who backs Obama. "It's possible the war will be a bigger issue, and possible that issues like the environment and climate change are bigger issues."

Ironically enough, it's likely not Casey's political formula Obama needs to replicate to win Pennsylvania but rather Rendell's. When the two faced off in the governor's race six years back, Rendell was the liberal candidate who won just a handful of the state's most densely populated counties, with Philadelphia and the suburbs a core constituency.

Obama can't lose the suburbs and win Pennsylvania, Madonna said.

"Rendell's voters are his voters," he said. "The Democratic Party is losing blue-collar workers and becoming the party of minorities and liberal upscale voters who intellectually feel much closer to the Democrats than to the Republicans."

Many of those people live in the communities along the old Main Line of the Pennsylvania Railroad.

Not surprisingly, Republicans dominated local politics until the 1990s and are still strong. Yet many voters said they feel more drawn to Democrats these days. In particular, suburban women have been an important swing group in past elections, Madonna said, critical to the general election fortunes of the eventual nominees.

Not all of those voters are wealthy. Over the years, the townships of the Main Line have developed a thriving middle class, and they make up an important part of the suburban vote.

"Hillary Clinton has so much more experience," said Maxine Halpern, who moved with her husband from Philadelphia to Wynnewood 37 years ago in search of better schools for their two sons. "Obama came up very quickly, and he really needs to gain some experience."

"I like that he's straightforward," she said, "but I like her record on health care, which is such an important issue."

Her daughter-in-law, Meryl Halpern, also is leaning toward Clinton.

"I've known Hillary so much longer, and she's always been so together," said Meryl Halpern, an international student adviser at a local university. "The fact that she's a woman doesn't hurt."

The Rendell recommendation is helpful too, she said.

"I love, love, love Gov. Rendell," she said. "He was just so good for Philadelphia and now for Pennsylvania, a real hands-on politician."

Still, she finds Obama's demeanor appealing, because he doesn't seem like "a slimy politician."

"But both candidates are great," she said, "so it's a no-lose situation."