GOP sees Obama mired in base

Sen. Barack Obama is close to clinching the Democratic presidential nomination, but he faces trouble on several fronts in the general election with blue-collar workers and other parts of the electorate who question his lack of experience, foreign-policy judgment and social liberalism.

Fewer than a few dozen delegate votes away from making history as the first black to win the nomination of a major party, the freshman senator is also showing signs of weakness among white voters in Midwestern and Southern battleground states, including Ohio and Florida, which Democrats must carry if they are to win the White House.

A senior Republican official in Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign said the party’s internal polls show Mr. Obama is having trouble reaching outside of his base of blacks, young adults and college-educated voters.

“We’re seeing that in state after state Obama has trouble drawing beyond his own base. His coalition has been secular liberals, young people and blacks. That’s proven to be enough in the Democratic primaries, but he’s going to have to go beyond that to win the general election,” said Frank Donatelli, the McCain campaign’s chief liaison at the Republican National Committee.

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“He’s done poorly in the last two months in every contest he’s run outside of those areas. He’s clearly not the candidate he was in February and March when he won a dozen primaries in a row,” said Mr. Donatelli, who was President Reagan’s White House political director.

The results of matchups between the two prospective nominees in a Quinnipiac University poll in several swing states were similar to the RNC’s internal poll findings, he said.

In Ohio, a Democrat-leaning state in economic distress, the presumptive Republican nominee edges out Mr. Obama 44 percent to 40 percent, according to the Quinnipiac survey. In Florida, where Democrats are campaigning heavily, Mr. McCain led his likely opponent 45 percent to 41 percent.

“Senator Obama is losing the white vote by 14 to 18 points in Ohio and Florida, which is enough to keep him from victory despite overwhelming support from African-Americans,” said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

“In Ohio, more than a quarter of [Hillary Rodham] Clinton voters say they will support McCain. In Florida, more than a third of them say they will back McCain against Obama. If he can’t win a decent chunk of them back, he’s got an uphill climb in these pivotal states,” Mr. Brown said.

Mr. Donatelli, in an interview with The Washington Times, said the McCain campaign has succeeded in uniting Republicans behind the senator from Arizona. “We are already over 90 percent by our survey, while in contrast, the Democratic nominee is going to have a lot of work to do to put his party back together again.”

He acknowledged that the economy and the war in Iraq were major issues to overcome, but said the McCain campaign is convinced that the election will turn largely on “the blue-collar workers in the Midwest.”

“These are the old Reagan Democrats, and they are in play more than at any time since Reagan, despite the downbeat economy,” he said.

“Obama is a cultural and social liberal, and he has trouble connecting with these voters. That puts in play a number of blue states that McCain has a strong chance to win this time, including Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio, Missouri and Pennsylvania,” he said. “We feel much better about our chance to win many of the big industrial states in the Midwest.”

McCain strategists point to an ABC News/Washington Post poll of 1,122 Americans, released May 12, that revealed weaknesses in Mr. Obama’s candidacy in three areas when compared with Mr. McCain’s:

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