MUSCATINE, IOWA — Barack Obama may be the darling of the college set, but the Medicare crowd is another story. While young Democratic voters have gravitated to his presidential campaign, seniors have stampeded to Hillary Rodham Clinton's.
That's why it was welcome news to his supporters when Max Allan Collins, a writer, rose at a recent campaign event here to announce that his 82-year-old mother wanted to vote for Obama.
"He's so sincere," said Pat Collins, a Republican who is turning toward the Democrats because she is disillusioned by President Bush and fearful that her grandson could be sent to Iraq. "He would bring the nation together," she said of Obama.
Collins' conversion is one sign that the Illinois senator, whose campaign's greatest appeal is among younger voters, is making urgently needed inroads into the over-60 set as he struggles to catch up to front-runner Clinton.
The stakes in the battle for seniors are especially high in Iowa, because the state's presidential nominating caucuses -- which are widely seen as a make-or-break first test for Obama -- have traditionally been dominated by senior citizens.
Even as Obama tries to mobilize legions of college-age activists, he is also reaching out to older voters with events tailored to their interests. He is, alone among the Democratic candidates, making a high-profile issue of shoring up Social Security. He has proposed abolishing the income tax for seniors making less than $50,000 a year. And he is recruiting older Iowa Democrats to teach new voters about the state's arcane caucus system.
Senior citizens can be a tough crowd for Obama, who is 46. His appeal for generational change and his critique of 1960s politics sometimes sound like an indictment of everyone over 50. His youth and relatively short governmental resume may not sit well with older voters who value the wisdom of age.
"He probably needs a little more experience," said Charles Wasko, a retiree in Ottumwa, Iowa, who is backing Clinton. "We just got done with a president with no experience and look at all the trouble we're in. You don't get those gray hairs from nothing, but from working at this stuff."
As a group, seniors seem far more comfortable with Clinton, who turned 60 in October. A national USA Today/Gallup Poll conducted Nov. 2 to 4 showed the New York senator with support of 48% of voters 55 and older, while Obama was backed by 15%.
