Barack Obama’s race is still keeping some working-class voters in Northeast Philadelphia from backing him, reports the Philadelphia Daily News.
“The Dunkin’ Donut crowd tells me that we’ve got everything going for us but Obama,” said Mike McAleer, a local party ward leader, during a recent visit to the city by Obama’s running mate, Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.). “They can’t give me a direct answer. Do I have them right now in the 66th ward? No. But I got 60 days to get them.”
When asked what the problem with Obama was, McAleer responded: “It’s his color . . . I tell them he’s half white and half black. He’s got a better perspective for everything in this country.”
One voter told Biden that she couldn’t vote for Obama.
“I told him I’m not going to vote for him,” Carolyn Bauer, 89, said to a Daily News reporter. “Anybody who runs with a guy with a name like that is not going to get my vote. It’d be disgusting to get a man named Barack Obama as president of the United States. No way. I mean it . . . I’m going to vote for McCain and the lady.”
Though Obama is a practicing Christian, Bauer said that she didn’t believe him.
“He pretends to be a Christian, and he isn’t, he’s a Muslim,” she said.