Town shows economic woes weighing on election

Then hard times arrived for him--and now, for many makers of recreational vehicles.

First, Brink ran into trouble after his mortgage payments skyrocketed and his savings dried up, forcing him to sell his house last year and move his family to a cramped $300-a-month trailer. Then this month, Monaco Coach Corp. closed its plant here, leaving him without a job.

Battered by tightening credit, soaring fuel prices and slumping sales, RV companies have laid off thousands of workers in the last several months, many here in north-central Indiana. And Brink--part of the closely watched blue-collar voting bloc in the presidential race--is now trying to figure out how survive.

"I always had a cushion--$2,000-$3,000--in the bank. Now that's gone," says the 38-year-old Brink, who worked at Monaco on and off over 14 years. "I had a job that paid enough to support my family. Now I don't. This just knocks the wind out of your sails. ... You don't want to get up at age 50 and have nothing."

"I'm scared," adds Brink, the sole breadwinner for his wife and their four children (the oldest is 10). "I just fear not being able to provide for my family. All the weight is on my shoulders."

Economic anxieties about unemployment, Wall Street's collapse and the specter of a recession have sent a chill through this quiet stretch of middle America. Folks here fret about high prices: $3.79-a-gallon milk, $4-a-gallon gas. They mourn the loss of good-paying jobs. And they're skeptical that either presidential candidate--Barack Obama or John McCain--can relate to their troubles or deliver on their promises.

"They're all playing on our fears now," says Jody Baugh, a welder who lost his job when Monaco closed here this month. "If one of these people lived like we do for a week, they'd have a whole different outlook. They just don't have a clue ... the day-to-day struggles--keeping a car running, a roof over our heads, a decent job."

For both workers, the job losses were the latest in a string of financial setbacks. Both had adjustable rate mortgages that rose dramatically in recent years (Brink sold his house in 2007 after his payments jumped from $670 to $1,050 a month).

Baugh, 40, was caught in a larger economic vise: rising home insurance costs, the drain of routine medical bills and the burden of helping two of his four daughters in college.