What does Obama offer US poor?

Barack Obama began his political career working with the poor of Chicago. But some are now complaining that issues of poverty have been relatively absent from his election campaign, the BBC's Paul Moss reports from Chicago.

People start queuing early for free food parcels in Chicago's South Side

They started queuing at 5am. Some seemed embarrassed to be there, others only hungry.

St Colombanus Church is a destination of choice for Chicago's poor huddled masses. It offers free food parcels to people in the deprived neighbourhood of South Side.

But what is truly surprising about the people who come here is how much optimism they have right now - and it is all down to one man.

"Senator Obama, he knows what to do," one woman tells me. It turns out she used to be a nurse, but is now disabled and unable to work.

"It is kind of hard. I need food. But Obama, he knows what it's like for the poor. We need him."

Her faith is rooted in the community work that Barack Obama did here back in the 1980s. He spent three years in Chicago's South Side, and later described it as "the best education" he ever had.

"Obama, he worked with us," another man in the food queue says. "Times are very hard right now. Barack helped a lot of people. That's why the people are following him."

With the US in financial turmoil, the economy has become a major election issue. And recent television adverts from Barack Obama's team have him arguing that health insurance is increasingly expensive, while the value of people's homes are falling.

Candidate Obama promises to solve the current problems, starting with a tax cut for the "middle class".

Forgotten issue

But even some of his supporters are claiming that there is too little mention here and elsewhere of those below the middle class, who may have no health insurance, or will never own their home.

Dawn Trice says poverty is not a 'sexy' issue for the candidates

"He really has not talked a lot about poverty," says Dawn Trice, a columnist with the Chicago Tribune newspaper.

She emphasises that she does not really blame the senator for this. The problem is, she argues, that poverty is just not a vote-winning issue in the US.

"After Hurricane Katrina, all of a sudden we had a national discussion about poverty. But once things settled down again, that faded away. So candidates don't focus on it - it's not a 'sexy' issue."

Trice's argument seemed confirmed listening to voters down at Jimbo's Bar. It's a popular, though rather sparse establishment, right next to the Chicago White Sox baseball stadium.

"Folks in an impoverished situation have harmed themselves," one customer tells me, and he is a Democratic voter. "It's more the middle class this election will be about."

Another female drinker is more sympathetic, but warns that the current economic situation has left most people more concerned with their own difficulties.

"They're focused on pay cuts, and gas prices. Social security and health care are issues we've never come to terms with."

Question of race?

There is another, more specific reason why Mr Obama might find it hard to campaign on issues around poverty.

When Senator Obama talks about poverty, white Americans believe he's going to raise black people over white people Michael Dawson Professor of political science

According to Michael Dawson, a professor of political science at Chicago University, to do so would drag his race into the election.

"When Americans hear about a poor person," he says, "they literally see a black person. When Senator Obama talks about poverty, white Americans believe he's going to raise black people over white people."

But that suggestion is not considered important by one of the older women queuing for food at St Colombanus, who proudly describes herself as of multiple mixed-race blood.

She thinks that if Senator Obama were to win this election, the obstacles he would face are rooted elsewhere.

"There's gonna be a whole lots of people, even if he tries to be president, that are gonna try to stop him doing what he wants to do," she says, with a drawl that betrays her Southern US origins.

"It's not because he's coloured. It's that you have lots of people that don't want the poor people to get in a better situation."

But she insists she will still vote for Mr Obama.

"What do I say? I say just give the man a chance. You never know what a man can do."

Paul Moss was reporting from Chicago for BBC Radio 4's The World Tonight.