Obama sidesteps Tennessee

NASHVILLE, July 6 (UPI) -- Some Democrats in Tennessee say they fear their party's likely presidential candidate, Barack Obama, has written off the Volunteer State.

Tennesseans say, too, they haven't seen enough of the Illinois senator to make up their minds about whether to support him, The (Nashville) Tennessean reported Sunday.

The last time Obama was in Tennessee was June 2007, the newspaper reported.

Obama has pledged to run a 50-state campaign and invest in building campaign organizations in even in states considered long shots, and there are plans are under way to open campaign headquarters in Tennessee, the newspaper reported.

But Tennessee is not among the 14 states George Bush won in 2004 that the Obama camp plans to devote the bulk of its resources to winning.

"Obama doesn't need Tennessee," said David A. Bositis, an expert on racial politics at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington. "Obama's base was highly educated, upper-income voters ... . Obama's not going to try to recast his campaign and claim that he's going to be the candidate of rural America. He's from Chicago."

Even Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen, an Obama supporter, has been openly skeptical about Obama's chances of winning Tennessee.