Early in his speech, Tom Buffenbarger [president of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers] asked, "So now we have a decision to make. Will we rely on the Harvard Law Review editor? The silver-tongued orator from Kansas, Hawaii and Illinois? The man in love with the microphone?"

Taking off the gloves, he said, "Barack Obama is no Muhammad Ali. He took a walk every time there was a tough vote in the Illinois State Senate. He took a walk more than a 130 times. That's what a shadow boxer does. All the right moves. All the right combinations. All the right footwork. But he never steps into the ring."
In Youngstown, Ohio, home of Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini, those boxing references probably drew a lot of applause.

But it was Obama supporters for whom Buffenbarger saved his most vitriolic contempt, and he proved that the Democratic Party’s coalition is nothing if not fragile. Channeling Howard Beale from the movie Network, he yelled into the microphone, "Give me a break! I've got news for all the latte-drinking, Prius-driving, Birkenstock-wearing, trust fund babies crowding in to hear him speak!
Youngstowners also like class-warfare populisim. (They still consider Jim Trafficant a hero.) They dislike foreign-nameplate cars and the people who drive them. (GM's Lordstown Assembly is fifteen minutes away.) They prefer Bud Light to latte.
This guy knows how to stoke his audience.
This guy won't last a round against the Republican attack machine. He's a poet, not a fighter."