Battle for the ’Burbs

The Clinton camp clearly recognizes the stakes. Her campaign has pumped a majority of her ad dollars into the always important and expensive Philadelphia media market—home to half the state's delegates, Kettl says. While Obama maintains a sizable funding advantage statewide, her targeted spending in this region could help neutralize that edge. "That's probably the most up-for-grabs part of the state," says Evan Tracey, a director of TNS Media Intelligence, which tracks ad spending. "If she can overperform there she'll do well."

And the candidate has been blitzing the area. She spent part of last weekend knocking on doors with a local congressman in the Philadelphia bedroom community of Upper Darby. On Thursday she held a "conversation" about women's issues ranging from gender pay inequity to breast cancer research at Haverford College, bringing her daughter Chelsea and 88-year-old mother Dorothy along. She visited a third Philadelphia suburb Friday, holding a rally in a high school gymnasium in the leafy enclave of Radnor.

As she makes her rounds she seldom mentions the "bitter" flap, or whiskey shots, or duck blinds. Those issues, the campaign no doubt knows, would not play as well in these more affluent suburban precincts. Instead she has focused on how to get out of Iraq, the difficulties of juggling a career and children, educational reform, and enforcement of women's rights laws, including Title IX, which requires schools to spend equally on male and female sports teams. Rosalind Horton-Cauffman, a 55-year-old from suburban Newtown Square, says she is supporting Clinton because she loves the thought of a female president but "doesn't like that Hillary Clinton jumped on" Obama's comment about "bitter" small-town voters. But Horton-Cauffman says she respects Clinton's incredible mastery of policy. "I believe she has thought about every issue," she says. "She has thought about it and she has a plan."

Jeff Cramp, an advertising executive from Wynnewood, another suburb, says he is supporting Obama and has been turned off by Clinton's recent emphasis on protecting gun rights. "'Handguns are made for killin', they're not good for nothin' else,'" Cramp says, quoting the Lynyrd Skynyrd song "Saturday Night Special." Of Clinton's recent overtures to hunters, Cramp says he's not sure if Clinton "believes it or if she's trying to beat Obama" by driving up turnout in western Pennsylvania. "She's trying to reach the Reagan Democrats," says Cramp during a chat outside a drugstore in suburban Bryn Mawr.

Asefa Ali, a 49-year-old Bryn Mawr resident, says she hasn't decided yet whom to vote for but thinks that Clinton has flip-flopped on guns, which she thinks should be made less available. "She was saying that to get votes from hunters," Ali says of Clinton's recent emphasis on gun rights. "She doesn't believe it."

Ellen, 50, of Haverford, says Clinton's discussion of hunting and gun rights in the wake of Obama's bitter comment hurt the senator's standing with her. "She has been utterly disingenuous," says Ellen, who asked to remain anonymous because she doesn't like to discuss politics publicly. "Her comments are gratuitous, and she would not have made them if he hadn't made his."
 
Ed Henning, who works at the Firing Line gun shop in South Philadelphia, scoffed at Clinton's anecdotes about duck hunting. "John Kerry did the same thing the last time around," says Henning, who recalls Kerry showing off a hunting suit that still had creases in it. "It's hard to swallow."

© 2008