'Reagan Dems' still not sold on Obama

WARREN, Mich., Oct. 1 (UPI) -- Michigan's "Reagan Democrats" have not been convinced by Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Barack Obama to return to the party, polling indicates.

Although a recent poll indicated Obama, a U.S. senator from Illinois, holding a 49 percent to 42 percent statewide lead in Michigan, another survey suggested he was tied with Republican opponent Sen. John McCain of Arizona in Macomb County, The Detroit News reported.

Macomb County known as the birthplace of the "Reagan Democrat" movement of the 1980s that saw union workers abandon their populist roots and vote for Republicans. A survey by Washington pollsters Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research indicated McCain was virtually tied with Obama in Macomb County, northeast of Detroit, leaving the key county up for grabs.

It is home to 460,000 Michigan workers who have lost their jobs since 2000, and residents blame Democrats as well as Republicans, the News said.

Frank Herdrick, a 55-year-old laid-off toolmaker from Warren, Mich., said, "I didn't just lose my job, man. We lost a whole industry, and nobody seemed to give a damn."

The newspaper did not report the methodology used for the Macomb County poll.