CNN: Obama looks to Teamsters for Pennsylvania win

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/04/10/labor.obama/

From Bill Schneider
CNN Senior Political Analyst
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PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- Sen. Barack Obama, trying for an upset in Pennsylvania's pivotal April 22 primary, is hoping the Teamsters Union can help him reel in the state's huge blue-collar vote.

Teamsters president Jim Hoffa, leading a convoy across Pennsylvania, told CNN that he believes the Illinois senator "can change this country."


The 1.4 million-member Teamsters Union endorsed Obama in February.


Obama, who hasn't been doing well with blue-collar workers, took his own tour across Pennsylvania.

"I met folks in factories and on farms, in bars and bowling alleys," Obama recently said.

Hoffa said voters desperately want change.

"There's a despair out there that we can't change things, we've been beaten down," Hoffa said.

On Wednesday, the Teamsters convoy made its way to Reading, Pennsylvania, where the York Peppermint Patty factory is shutting down, moving more than 250 jobs to Mexico.

The target of the workers' anger, according to Hoffa, is NAFTA.

"People remember Clinton and NAFTA, and I think when we talk about changing NAFTA, I think that Barack Obama has more credibility," he said.

FULL story at link.