Hardship bends a steel city to the Democrats

BILL CLINTON brought his newly confident campaign to Pittsburgh in western Pennsylvania last week, but there was no coverage in the two local newspapers, writes Patrick Cockburn. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Pittsburgh Press have not appeared since their 627 delivery drivers went on strike on 17 May. Mr Clinton may regret that local voters could not read of his speech, but the desperation of the strikers, who are threatened with the loss of their jobs, explains why the Democratic candidate may win the votes of skilled, white workers who voted for Ronald Reagan and George Bush in the last three presidential elections.

Mike Samrane, a delivery driver for 27 years and now on strike, says: 'There just aren't any dollars 10 to dollars 12-an-hour ( pounds 5 to pounds 6) blue-collar jobs left in Pittsburgh. If we didn't work here we would get dollars 5 an hour flipping hamburgers.'

Unemployment in the city is low, but in the 1980s the well-paid jobs in the steel industry, of which Pittsburgh was once the centre, largely disappeared. Jim Fontana, spokesman for the steel worker's union, says: 'Our experience is that a steelworker who loses his job generally gets half his previous wages - without health benefits.'

Three years ago, Pittsburgh was rated 'the third most liveable city in America', taking into account such factors as jobs, crime rate, health and education. It appeared to show how best to manage the transition from heavy manufacturing industry to computers, financial services and corporate headquarters. Yet even here there is an air of quiet desperation among middle-class Americans as they try to maintain the standard of living they became used to in the three decades after 1945.

Waiting to get into the convention centre where Mr Clinton was to address the American Federation of Teachers was Kelly Shoaf, aged 22, wearing a badge saying she was a teacher. Asked how teachers felt about Mr Clinton she said she would not know since she was, in point of fact, a law student not a teacher, and had only secured accreditation to the convention using the name of a teacher friend so she could hear the Democrats' White House candidate speak.

In 1988 Kelly, who was then an undergraduate in Philadelphia, had voted for Mr Bush. The reason she would not do so this time was that, as the daughter of divorced parents with limited means, 75 per cent of her fees had previously been paid by the university. Her department had since written to say that it no longer had the money to pay for her education. She said: 'My law school costs dollars 10-12,000 a year and I also have to pay for food, utilities and books.'

Kelly said her second reason for voting for Mr Clinton was the Republicans' stand against abortion, an issue brought up by every woman interviewed in Pittsburgh. Cheryil Kaye, working in an Irish bar called Murphy's Tavern, said she worked for Mr Bush in the last election, but this time all her friends were pro-choice on abortion, even though she lived in a Catholic neighbourhood, so she would probably vote Democrat.

In the past, Pittsburgh, with its tradition of unionisation, has normally voted for Democratic presidential candidates, but, even here, there were defections by the white, working-class voters.

As elsewhere in Pennsylvania, a local Republican official was quoted as saying, 'It was the perception that the Democrats represented all the fringe wackos - the homosexuals, the save-the-whalers, the blacks, Puerto Ricans. And what about us, the regular guys?'

In 1988, the teeth of Mr Bush's propaganda was to frighten the regular guys and, not surprisingly, Mr Clinton tried hard in Pittsburgh to inoculate voters in advance against similar attacks. He said: 'Down in Houston at the Republican convention, they're going to say, 'you elect Bill Clinton and Al Gore and they're going to tax all your income away. They're going to take your guns away. They're going to stomp on traditional American values.' '

In Houston, Republicans were already doing just that. But the last election took place towards the end of the prolonged 1983-89 economic boom. Even in prosperous Pittsburgh, far fewer voters now feel economically secure enough to give priority to the issues which won the Republicans the election four years ago.

(Photograph omitted)