ROAD TRIP

Obama Going on Blue-Collar Bus Tour

Courting struggling male workers in battleground states.

Now that the Fourth of July celebration is over, President Obama is hitting the road. His first bus tour of the 2012 campaign will take him to several cities in battleground states like Ohio and Pennsylvania to court, specifically, male, blue-collar workers. While the latest average of polls by RealClearPolitics shows that Obama has a 2.6 percentage-point lead over Republican opponent Mitt Romney, both in Ohio and the country, his biggest followings come from women and Hispanic voters. Working-class men, apparently, have not been claimed as a demographic by either candidate, hence the road trip. “The ability of the president to win over blue-collar men is more tied to the reality of the moment: are jobs being created and do people feel more optimistic?” said a Democratic strategist. “For him, the proof is somewhat in the pudding.”