Mountain State's an uphill climb for Obama

WAYNE, W.Va. -- The location of Democrat Barack Obama's just-opened headquarters here says a lot about the challenges facing him and this community as voters prepare to go to the polls in Tuesday's primary. His office is across from the courthouse and next to a thrift shop. The torn awning over its door indicates the storefront used to be a restaurant.

Though the bell tower atop the courthouse gleams with a fresh coat of paint — the state colors of blue and gold — the rest of the town has the faded look of a community that has seen better days.

Many Wayne residents used to make good money in nearby Huntington, about 20 miles north. But the factories making glass and auto parts and the chemical supply plants where people used to work "have gone on the skids in recent years," says Wayne County Clerk Bob Pasley.

In West Virginia, Gov. Joe Manchin says "you drive to survive" and the gas price spike has hit particularly hard. "It's hard to drive from here to Huntington when gas is $4 a gallon and you're getting paid minimum wage," says Wayne Mayor Junior Ramey.

This state of small towns is home to the gun-owning, church-going, financially struggling voters whom Hillary Rodham Clinton is targeting Tuesday. She says Obama alienated them with his remark before the Pennsylvania primary last month about "bitter" dislocated workers in small towns "clinging" to guns and religion.

Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly 2 to 1, but President Bush won here in 2000 and 2004. "It was because of three things: guns, God and abortion," says Danny Jones, the Republican mayor of Charleston, the state capital.

"The people in the last election were persuaded by the gun issue," said Robert Dennie, a retired Union Carbide employee, a Democrat who cast an early vote Tuesday for Clinton in Charleston. "Everybody has wised up."

Though Obama is ahead nationally in delegates and the popular vote, Clinton has a huge lead in statewide polls here. Local politicians say it will take more than a well-decorated storefront for Obama, the Illinois senator, to make headway. "He's going to have to visit," says Bob Pasley, who adds that Obama should come prepared to answer "tough questions," including some about his religion.