Weeks after slamming the North American Free Trade Agreement in Ohio, Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have retooled their messages for Indiana and North Carolina, states that have made gains from free trade amid losses elsewhere.
...In the steel-producing region of northwest Indiana, the Democratic presidential candidates blamed China for the erosion of manufacturing jobs. But other parts of the state have witnessed an uptick in foreign investment and have positioned themselves as hubs for major distribution centers.
"We may not be able to bring back all the jobs we've lost because of trade, but we can create tomorrow's jobs in this country," Sen. Obama said last week at a high school in Indianapolis. At a steel factory in Munster, Ind., he told the crowd, "We're going to have to trade."
...Meanwhile, North Carolina has positioned itself as a biotech and banking capital, anchored by Bank of America Corp. and Wachovia Corp. based in Charlotte and the research park in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill metro area, which boasts the highest average wages in the state. Monday, in a stop in Durham, Sen. Obama addressed employees at Cree Inc., which makes energy-efficient light-emitting-diode, or LED, lightbulbs.