Obama Woos Red-State Alaskans

NOME, Alaska -- Blueberries and silver salmon were on the minds of Inupiat Eskimo artist Norbert Thomas and his friend as they sat on the beach in Nome.

Barack Obama was not.

"I haven't heard much about it, 99 percent of us stay away from the TV," said Thomas, deftly carving a piece of driftwood into a face. "The silvers are in and it's berry-picking time."

Many residents of Nome, the famous Gold Rush town of about 3,500 on the Bering Sea, feel the same way. even as Democrats gather in Denver to nominate Obama president. Residents say no presidential campaign has ever reached out to Nome or the much smaller Alaska Native villages and other rural outposts that make up the "bush" of Alaska's vast, largely roadless expanse.

But in a bid to become only the second Democratic presidential candidate ever to win the state, Obama has launched an "Alaska Bush Field campaign" to garner votes in remote villages accessible only by air or river. The campaign was launched in Barrow, North America's northernmost town on frozen tundra abutting the Arctic Ocean, in a roller rink last Thursday.

Anchorage-based campaign staff were lucky to make it in to the town's small landing strip, as a flight earlier that day had to pull up and head back to Anchorage at the last minute because of swirling fog. After the rally and volunteer training, which drew about 50 people from tribal elders to young kids, supporters photographed an "Alaska Natives for Obama" campaign sign propped on a whale skull on the chilly beach.