Race possible challenge for Obama

In Pennsylvania, as elsewhere, some people hardly hide their prejudices.

Robert Miller, 72, who lives in a government subsidized room in Bedford, said the Constitution should be amended so it will "not let any colored people run for the White House." He seemed unsure about his voting record in recent elections, but vividly recalled voting for Dwight Eisenhower in 1956.

Dixie Pebley of Johnstown, 71, explained her distaste for Obama, saying, "black doesn't bother me, but Muslim does." When reminded that Obama is a Christian, she conceded the point, but added: "He was born Muslim and raised Muslim, that's enough for me. He just scares me to death."

Obama, the son of a white mother from Kansas and black father from Kenya, was born and raised in a mostly secular family that occasionally attended Christian services. He joined the United Church of Christ as a young adult.

Obama has little to fear from Pebley, who said she no longer votes because she is disillusioned with politicians. But even some likely voters who are largely sympathetic to him are troubled by his ties, now broken, to a former pastor who cursed the United States and accused the government of possible conspiracies against blacks.

Kate Tanning, a Pittsburgh antiques dealer who was lunching with friends in Bedford, rejected Obama's claim that he did not know of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's most bombastic statements even though Obama attended Wright's Chicago church for 20 years.

"That's the one thing about him I can't believe," she said.

Obama generally avoids direct racial appeals, and he is likely to pursue such voters with familiar arguments: His opposition to the Iraq war and appeals for national unity and bipartisanship, for example. He may be making progress. National polls show him leading McCain among female voters and running even among Catholics, two groups that generally backed Clinton in the Democratic primaries.

But national polls are less important than those in the roughly 15 highly competitive states in which both parties will focus their efforts. These are all big states full of white, working-class voters who were Clinton's base, and include Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio.

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Obama will count on voters such as Iezzi's lunchmates, Susan Szymanski and Roxane Uhrin. Both said they strongly preferred Clinton, but will vote for Obama this fall in hopes of changing policies on the economy and Iraq.

"I don't want a third term of George Bush," Szymanski said.

James Antoniono, a Greensburg lawyer and veteran Democratic activist who worked for Clinton, said many Clinton backers will support Obama this fall, including some who told exit pollsters they would not.

"It's one thing to come out of the voting booth and say that," Antoniono said. "It's another thing when you're faced with a choice in the general election."

Still, he said, Obama and his aides face tough battles. "There's no way they win Ohio, in my mind," he said in his law office, which faces Westmoreland County's elegant old courthouse. "I think Pennsylvania is winnable," he said. But he predicted Obama will "lose Westmoreland big," even though registered Democrats far outnumber Republicans in the county, which is east of Pittsburgh.

At least one Obama fan thinks the impact of racial prejudice may be limited.

Rick Weimer, a retired Coca-Cola truck driver who was eating a Chinese dish at a mall food court in Johnstown, said analysts are "pretty accurate" in describing Pennsylvania as Philadelphia in the east, Pittsburgh in the west "and Alabama in between." Obama's race "will hurt him" in many places, said Weimer, who follows the campaign intensely on cable TV. "But when push comes to shove, people around here want change."

That might include some white Democrats who publicly criticize Obama just to fit in with their neighbors, he said. "Once they go into the voting booth," he said, "who knows?"

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