In York, a test of racial concord

Voters trying to move beyond troubled past

Campaign 2008

Acknowledging that Clinton might have more experience with such social service issues, Robertson, who is white, said Obama "has my vote."

"I think Obama will step up to the plate," she said. "I don't want Bill [Clinton] back in the White House."

A sales representative for Hershey Foods, Robertson said she wasn't concerned about Wright's comments, because "it wasn't Obama saying it."

White voters such as Robertson may well be crucial to winning Pennsylvania, where Gov. Edward G. Rendell, a Clinton backer, has said that some conservative whites might not be ready to vote for a black president.

The Wright episode has shifted the internal tensions confronting white voters, said Matthew Woessner, a public policy professor at Penn State Harrisburg. For some, Obama's race has always been repellent, but others want to support the Illinois senator to "demonstrate America's commitment to transcending the racial question," he said.

"After the Reverend Wright controversy, I think racial animosity has become a more powerful force," Woessner said. "It's going to be difficult for [Obama] to maintain the mantle of transcending race."

Clinton's lead in Pennsylvania has shrunk to single digits, according to a Quinnipiac University survey released last week, but she is polling solidly among white working-class voters, the demographic that contributed to her Ohio victory.

Toni Smith, 74, is a City Council member who plans to vote for the New York senator because, she said, "I like what Hillary is saying about health care."

While Wright's comments "did a lot of damage, if you didn't understand the black community," Smith said, Obama still enjoys strong support from young voters who don't hold the same racial grudges as past generations.

But prejudices in York are not hard to find.

McNeil, the anti-racism group director, who is black, recalled arriving at the Country Club of York for a Junior League meeting last year at which she had been invited to speak. A white doorman held his hand to her chest and said, "Are you lost? I don't think you belong here."

She said she's making sure the Junior League doesn't meet there again.

While volunteers stream in and out of the York offices of Obama and Clinton, working telephone banks and distributing yard signs, the candidates have yet to appear here to address race or other issues.

Neither Obama nor Clinton has accepted an invitation to address an NAACP forum here tomorrow, though both campaigns said they would send representatives. Clinton's daughter, Chelsea, spoke before a predominantly white audience at York College last week, where racial issues didn't come up. When The York Daily Record was granted a five-minute interview with Obama last week, the senator's broad answer to a question about race reflected no familiarity with local conditions.

Republicans hold sway in York County by a large margin, though 6,000 voters switched their affiliation to Democratic before the primary. Some Republicans offer kind words for Obama.

"Reverend Wright doesn't bother me. [Obama has] done a great job for the black community," said Kurt Kay, 41, co-owner of an industrial chrome plating business, who was bowling last week at the Suburban lanes.

Kay, who is white, plans to vote for McCain over either Obama or Clinton - but he said that Obama as president would pose no problem. "I'm going to teach my kids to respect him," he said. "No matter what."

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