The economic anxieties in the US took centrestage in the increasingly rancourous Democratic presidential race on Thursday as Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama tilted their campaigns toward blue-collar voters in the upcoming Wisconsin and Ohio primaries.Both candidates tweaked their media advertising and campaign messages to deliver stinging television ads and stress strong populist themes on the economy. Despite focusing openly on Ohio, which holds its primary March 4, Clinton prepared to spend much of the weekend in Wisconsin, where her campaign was diverting resources to match Obama’s organisation and week-old media campaign. The Wisconsin primary is on Tuesday.While Clinton toured an auto plant in Lordstown, and brandished a pair of boxing gloves given to her by General Motors executives and workers — an apt nod to her sharpened attacks on her rival for spurning more debates — Obama was securing endorsements from two major labor unions.A day after he visited a GM factory in Janesville, Wisconsin, to unveil his $210 billion plan to create construction and “green industry” jobs, Obama won the backing of the United Food and Commercial Workers. According to several reports, he also was on the verge of an endorsement from the Service Employees International Union.Those assets would give him new firepower in taking on Clinton’s strong backing from unionised teachers and public service employees in the Ohio, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania primaries.Clinton had also sought endorsements from both unions and had even won earlier backing from SEIU’s New York local and several other chapters. But the national SEIU’s endorsement — representing 1.5 million public service workers and nurses — trumps those moves.Both unions have long been critical of Wal-Mart, the giant national discount chain. Clinton was a Wal-Mart board member in the late 1980s.The UFCW move is a potent body blow to Clinton because the union, with more than 1.4 million grocery and food processing workers, has more than 70,000 members in Ohio. It has even more influence in Ohio than the United Steelworkers, which has yet to endorse in the Democratic race.But Clinton had news to cheer about on Thursday, learning from New Mexico Democratic party officials that she had squeaked out a victory in that state’s caucuses.
