Blood is bad between Demo camps

WASHINGTON — Norma Woods of Eastpointe, Mich., a Detroit suburb, could turn out to be the Democratic Party's worst nightmare.

A mother of seven, a grandmother of 15, Woods says she's a loyal Democrat and a supporter of New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

But if Illinois Sen. Barack Obama wins the party's nomination, Woods said she may sit out November's general election.

"Only one time I didn't vote," said Woods, who wouldn't reveal her age. "I was busy having a baby."

Woods is leaving room to change her mind. Still, she represents a conundrum Democrats must face — the possibility of alienating one of the party's two key bases of support: black voters, who have rallied behind the front-runner Obama, or white women, who polls show have thrown their support solidly behind Clinton.

Anger one or the other enough, say pollsters, academics and election experts, and you could risk lowering Democratic vote totals enough in November to make Arizona Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, the 44th president.

"There is a definite sense of entitlement in both camps that they've earned it and it's theirs," said Vincent Hutchings, an associate professor at the University of Michigan's Center for Political Studies. "There's a lot of bad blood between these camps."

For the Democratic Party it could represent a split no one wants to see but one that polls show is real. Consider:

• Obama's lead over Clinton among blacks nationally was nearly 5-1 in Gallup poll surveys taken over the first two weeks of March.

• Clinton's lead among white women who are Democrats or lean Democratic, while not as big at 58 percent to 33 percent, was nonetheless impressive, considering the enormity of that voting bloc nationally.

• On Friday, two new polls — one from the Gallup, one from Rasmussen — showed Clinton and Obama in a statistical dead heat among Democratic voters nationwide. Until this week, Obama had led.

• Though more than 70 percent of blacks identify themselves as Democrats, black support for Clinton in a general election against McCain slipped to 61 percent — with many suggesting they'd vote for a third party or stay home, pollster Scott Rasmussen of Rasmussen Reports said Friday.