Sen. Barack Obama's presidential run will be hindered by racism among even pro-union Democrats if party activists do not get out to change their minds, a national labor leader told a breakfast gathering in Denver.
AFL-CIO Secretary/Treasurer Richard Trumka said no Democratic presidential nominee has ever been more sensitive to labor needs than Obama, who has voted with labor interests 98 percent of the time. He went on to say, however, that the Illinois senator is up against "one of the biggest obstacles we've ever had."
"There are a lot of white voters out there, some of them union members, who think that he's the wrong race," Trumka said.
"They want change," he said. "They need change. But they just can't get past the notion that voting for a black man named Barack Obama is the only way to do that."
In one hour, 30,000 text messages
Forgive some of the 84,000 people amassed at Invesco Field if their thumbs were a bit weary by the time Barack Obama spoke Thursday night.
In the hours before he took the stage, these supporters were repeatedly asked to text messages to the campaign and to make phone calls from specially tailored call sheets as part of an unprecedented effort to mobilize voters and get nonvoters to register.
The effort to combine telecommunications, microtargeting techniques and Obama's known ability to draw a crowd could be a groundbreaking calculation to expand Obama's vote base.
Within one hour, 30,000 messages had been received by the campaign.
WAITING FOR THE BOUNCE FACTOR
One thing presidential candidates hope they'll get from their nominating conventions is a healthy "bounce" -- a gain in popularity as measured by public opinion polls.
But the quick popularity boosts don't always mean much. In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson and Republican Barry Goldwater saw convention bounces of about the same size, while in 1984 Democrat Walter Mondale's 16-point boost was double President Ronald Reagan's. Johnson and Reagan won landslides.
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