Feb. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Wisconsin has lots of blue-collar, older and female voters who form the backbone of Hillary Clinton's base. It also has plenty of college students, progressives and upper-income independents who favor Barack Obama.
With an earlier start and more support from the state's political establishment, including the governor, Obama may have the edge in Wisconsin's Feb. 19 contest for the Democratic presidential nomination.
``Obama's got the momentum in this state, but I never rule out a Clinton,'' said Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Joe Wineke, who supported North Carolina Senator John Edwards. Both Obama, 46, and Clinton, 60, are vying for the endorsement of Edwards, who dropped out of the race Jan. 30.
Obama's campaign, according to an internal document published by Bloomberg News last week, projects a 7-point victory over Clinton in Wisconsin, garnering him 40 of the state's 74 delegates. Obama, a senator from neighboring Illinois, expects a close race statewide, except in Milwaukee, where blacks comprise a large share of the Democratic vote and he is likely to win decisively.
Victories
With at least one poll showing her ahead in Wisconsin, Clinton, a New York senator, is trying to slow her rival's momentum. Obama swept five contests last weekend, and is favored to win the Virginia, Maryland and District of Columbia primaries today.
A November battleground, Wisconsin is the only major contest next week. Hawaii will hold a caucus on the same day, though few delegates are at stake.
Wisconsin's socio-economic landscape mirrors the nation's: cities, suburbs and farmland, blue-collar and college towns, manufacturing communities that lost jobs to free trade, and a growing minority population in larger cities. The issues for Democrats -- health care, jobs, college costs, energy prices and the Iraq war -- echo concerns across the country.
To win, a candidate must ``excite the liberal Democratic base'' in Milwaukee, the largest city, and in Madison, the state capital and home to 40,000 college students, said Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz. Victory will also depend on a candidate's ability to ``excite independents, who are our largest voting group.''
Edwards' Backers
Cieslewicz, who had endorsed Edwards, said he believes most Edwards supporters will migrate to Obama, as some political and labor leaders already have.
Independents can vote in Wisconsin's primary, and according to exit polls from last week's Super Tuesday contests, these voters prefer Obama over Clinton by a 23-point margin. Even some Republicans said they would cross over.
``This is the first time I'll vote Democratic in my life,'' said Timothy Baldwin, 37, a Milwaukee lawyer. Four years ago, Baldwin attended the Republican National Convention; last week, he offered a nightclub he owns for a Super Tuesday party for Obama supporters.
Kathleen Falk, the top elected official in Dane County, disagrees.
Clinton, she said, is ``the first woman who excites independents, especially women independents.''
Obama Offices
Unlike Clinton, Obama has had offices for some time in Milwaukee and Madison, which has one of the largest Students for Obama chapters in the nation. He also has support from party figures such as Governor Jim Doyle, Representative Gwen Moore and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, and at least 16 state legislators. Both campaigns say they have volunteers in all 72 counties.
Clinton's top endorsements are from Falk, Lieutenant Governor Barbara Lawton and Representative Tammy Baldwin.
Neighboring states have chosen Obama. Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois favored him by large margins. Only Michigan, where Clinton was alone on the ballot, didn't.
In Wisconsin, where more than one in four voters is from a union household according to 2004 exit polls, labor is divided over which candidate to back.
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees is mobilizing for Clinton; the Obama campaign rented its Milwaukee phone bank and office from the Service Employees International Union, which supports him.
And while the American Federation of Teachers endorsed Clinton nationally, the state's second and third largest AFT locals recently endorsed Obama.
Lyn Hildenbrand, 49, who works for a non-profit group and organized a Super Tuesday gathering for Clinton supporters in a bar she owns in Milwaukee, said ``the working-class population wants someone to show, not tell, us what they'll do.''
Nafta
Clinton, however, has been hurt in eastern Wisconsin's manufacturing corridor by her association with President Bill Clinton's support for the North American Free Trade Agreement, which many factory workers believe cost thousands of jobs in the region, said Peter Behrenstrung, United Auto Workers president for the Kohler Co. plumbing fixtures plant in the Sheboygan area.
Obama was the choice of 60 percent of UAW members from Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota and Iowa in a vote last November. The one-term senator has never voted on it and both he and Clinton now criticize Nafta.
Congressman Dave Obey, a former Edwards loyalist who endorsed Obama last week, said his rural and blue-collar constituents in northern Wisconsin hold anti-Nafta and anti-war views that could favor Obama.
Obey, 69, said he fears the hard-fought campaign could leave scars. He remembers the 1960 Wisconsin primary when John Kennedy defeated Hubert Humphrey: ``There are still Democrats in this state who won't talk to each other since.''
To contact the reporter on this story: Indira Lakshmanan in Wisconsin at
ilakshmanan@bloomberg.net .
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