Pa. Democrats see color, and beyond it

By Michael Powell

updated 11:57 p.m. ET Oct. 26, 2008

ALIQUIPPA, Pa. - Voting for the black man does not come easy to Nick Piroli. He is the first to admit that.

To the sound of bowling balls smacking pins, as the bartender in the Fallout Shelter queues up more Buds, this retired steelworker wrestles with this election and his choice. A couple of friends, he says, will not vote for Senator Barack Obama .

“I’m no racist, but I’m not crazy about him either,” said Mr. Piroli, 77. “I don’t know, maybe ’cause he’s black.”

He winces at himself. “We was raised and worked with the black, the Serb,” he said. “It was a regular league of nations. And the economy now, it’s terrible.”

“I’ve got to vote for him,” he said finally.

Him? “The Democrat, Obama,” Mr. Piroli replied. “I can’t be stupid.”

Mr. Obama’s Republican rival in the presidential campaign, Senator John McCain , has placed a sizable electoral bet that he can sweep predominantly white, working-class Beaver County and a dozen more Pennsylvania counties like it. Last week, Mr. McCain spoke before thousands in Moon Township, and two days later his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin , drew more than 2,000 fans to a rally in Beaver.

But to walk the back streets of the Beaver River mill cities — the biggest mills were long ago shuttered — and to visit rural hamlets like Economy and Hookstown is to hear more than a few Democrats saying they intend, however reluctantly, to support their party’s standard-bearer, particularly as the world economy cracks and heaves. Many Democrats, and a few independents, wonder if Mr. McCain is too old and Ms. Palin too unsophisticated to take his place.

Such sentiments could bode ill for Mr. McCain, who hopes for a surprise victory in Pennsylvania to rescue his presidential bid. And they dovetail with poll findings that show a gravitation of white voters, female and male, toward Mr. Obama’s camp. To try to stanch that flow and tap into doubts about Mr. Obama, Mr. McCain will return to the state on Monday for the second time in a week and then appear on Tuesday with Ms. Palin as they try to sway voters like Mr. Piroli.

Mr. McCain may have an opening: 35 interviews over three days offer up a conversation about race and presidential choices, and that is where the greatest uncertainty lies for Mr. Obama. Sometimes race talk runs like a subterranean river. Sometimes it floats right on the surface.

In Ambridge, a Beaver River factory town named after the company that gave it fame — American Bridge — Olga Permon, a 71-year-old steelworker’s widow and a lifelong Democrat, climbs the stoop of her yellow-brick home. She considers the field: Mr. McCain? A grouchy old man. Ms. Palin? Please. No way. What about Mr. Obama?

Her pause goes on and on. “He scares me,” Mrs. Permon said. “The coloreds are excited, but my friends and I plan to write in Hillary’s name.”

These are not gentle lands for Mr. Obama. A visit here in August found even deeper suspicions of him in Beaver County, where Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton beat him by 40 percentage points in the Democratic primary. Democrats outnumber Republicans, but voters here tilt either way in presidential elections.

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Still, a worsening economy has worked to the Democrats’ advantage. Mr. Obama and his running mate, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. , drew 8,000 to a rally in Beaver a month ago; John J. Sweeney , the A.F.L.-C.I.O. president, stumped on Saturday in Beaver; and many dozens of union members go door to door each weekend, rounding up votes. They remind their fellow workers that Mr. McCain had supported privatization of Social Security, a move they say could have left worker retirement accounts trapped in a plummeting stock market.

“This is McCain’s Hail Mary; they looked at the huge margin here for Hillary Clinton in the primary and figured, ‘Hmm, we have a shot,’ ” said G. Terry Madonna, director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin & Marshall College, in Lancaster. “But it’s going to be very difficult here for him to get the margins needed to offset the cities and the eastern suburbs.”

In Ambridge, Vince Pisano, 47, a union plumber, reflects that challenge. As he sits on his porch, he considers collapses — of the economy and his retirement account. He is firm for Mr. Obama, but he is in a small club.

“Close friends, real close, tell me they can’t get past his race,” said Mr. Pisano, flashing his give-me-a-break look. “If Obama were white, this would be a landslide around here.”

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Beaver was known as the cake-eater’s town. Steel management lived here, and its elegant Edwardian and Victorian homes, with oak and mahogany beams, lend a grace to the streets.

Ms. Palin has taken a lead role in wooing culturally conservative counties like Beaver. She held a rally here and obtained the endorsement of the Beaver High School football coach, who paraded his players and cheerleaders onto the field for her, and the crowds cheered when she spoke of her opposition to abortion. This is a theologically conservative province — Catholic churches vie with conservative Protestant and evangelical churches.

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