"MARTINSVILLE, Va., Aug. 20 -- Sen. Barack Obama lamented the loss of U.S. jobs Wednesday as he campaigned in a region of southern Virginia that in recent elections has spurned Democratic presidential candidates.

Obama came to economically distressed Southside alongside Mark R. Warner, a popular former governor who seven years ago made the strongest electoral showing in rural Virginia of any statewide Democratic candidate in a generation. Warner is running for U.S. Senate, and Democrats hope he can help Obama snare Virginia's 13 electoral votes.

The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee spoke to workers laid off from nearby factories at a packed town hall meeting in a cavernous warehouse here used by Patrick Henry Community College to train workers in the auto-racing industry. U.S. flags and race cars surrounded the stage.

"You're worried about the future. Here people have gone through very tough times," the Illinois senator said. "When you've got entire industries that have shipped overseas, when you've got thousands of jobs being lost. . . . That's tough."

With speculation about his vice presidential choice mounting by the hour, Obama worked his way slowly across southern Virginia by bus, returning to the populist talk on the economy that had shaped the earliest days of the general election campaign.

After his Martinsville appearance, Obama had an event in Lynchburg before heading to Richmond for the night -- a destination that, as the home of Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D), had potentially significant ramifications. Kaine is one of Obama's likeliest vice presidential picks, on a short list with a handful of others. Kaine is scheduled to appear with Obama Thursday in Chester, outside Richmond.

Less than three months before the November election, Democrats and Republicans have increased spending, television advertising and paid staff in Virginia, which has become a battleground. No Democratic presidential candidate has won Virginia since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, but Democrats won the past two gubernatorial elections and a high-profile Senate race in 2006.

Democrats expect Obama to win big in Northern Virginia, perform well in competitive Hampton Roads and attract large numbers of African American and younger voters. But their strategy, much like Warner's winning formula in 2001, also includes securing as many votes as possible in Southside, where Obama ran ahead of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York in February on his way to a landslide victory in the state's primary.

"It's going to be tough territory for Barack Obama to win," said House of Delegates Minority Leader Ward L. Armstrong (Henry), one of the region's few elected Democrats. "But the goal is to get as many votes as you possibly can. Every vote is one vote closer to carrying Virginia."

In recent years, the south-central part of Virginia near the North Carolina border has suffered the wane of the once-booming tobacco industry and the shuttering of numerous textile and furniture factories. Thousands of residents have seen jobs move overseas, leaving the area with the state's highest unemployment rate.

U.S. Rep. Tom Davis, a prominent Republican from Northern Virginia, accused Obama of taking advantage of the downtrodden while shopping for Southside votes.

"It doesn't take a lot of courage to go to Martinsville and talk about trade. . . . What would be courageous is to come to Fairfax County, where you have 362 foreign-owned companies and tens of thousands of employees with foreign-owned firms, and take the same kind of stand up here," Davis said. "It's straight-out pandering."

Davis and other Republicans predict that Sen. John McCain of Arizona, Obama's opponent, will carry the state with support from GOP strongholds in Southside and southwestern Virginia and elsewhere, as well as from moderate Republicans in Northern Virginia.

Wednesday marked Obama's third day of public campaigning in Virginia since securing the nomination in June. He is the first presidential candidate to visit the Southside area since President Dwight D. Eisenhower came by train in 1955.

Obama drew hearty applause here when he spoke about his desire to give tax breaks to companies that create jobs in the United States and stop tax breaks to those that ship jobs overseas.

"People feel like the American dream is slipping away," he said. "That's what's at stake in this election. We can't keep going in the same direction that we have been. We have to fundamentally change how America does business."

He answered half a dozen questions about immigration, education, incarceration rates and, of course, jobs from the handpicked audience of 300.

"I don't want a handout and I don't think the government should fix all my problems," said Brian McGhee, who was laid off in June from Smurfit Stone Corp., which manufactures cardboard boxes. "All I want is for government to stop hurting us."

Robert Denton, a political communications professor at Virginia Tech, said Obama is able to get the attention of Southside residents by focusing on the economy while avoiding social issues such as abortion, gun rights and the death penalty. "It's worth the effort, but a very difficult sell," he said.

Republicans have long prospered in this region. George W. Bush won Southside by more than 10 percentage points in 2000 and 2004. And when Democrat James Webb unseated Sen. George Allen (R) in 2006, Webb trailed Allen in Southside.

"Senator Obama's beliefs are out of touch with Southside Virginia beliefs," said J. Tucker Watkins, a Republican activist from southern Virginia. Watkins said Obama's policies on oil drilling, immigration and the economy are "wrong" for those in the area.

In 2001, Warner won the area with more than 52 percent of the vote after casting himself as a moderate Democrat who showed he could embrace rural Virginia by, among other things, sponsoring a NASCAR vehicle. His successor, Kaine, sought to follow in Warner's footsteps, garnering nearly 50 percent of the region's vote.

Warner, widely considered the front-runner to replace retiring Sen. John W. Warner (R), who is no relation, introduced Obama in Martinsville as "a man of deep faith." At times, the crowd greeted the former governor with more enthusiasm than the presidential hopeful.

Last week, Obama tapped Mark Warner to deliver the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention.

Obama will campaign in Virginia again all day Thursday before flying home to Chicago, where he appears to have an open window on his schedule Friday, one of a dwindling number of days when he can announce his running mate. He is expected to campaign with the choice in Springfield, Ill., on Saturday. An Obama aide knocked down at least one rumor: that he was planning to campaign in Indiana, home of Sen. Evan Bayh, on Saturday. That is not the case, the aide said.

Obama, for his part, was mum. When he stopped to shop at a farmers market in Greensboro, N.C., on his way north toward Virginia, a reporter asked him whether he might still be shopping for a running mate. "How long did it take you to think up that question?" Obama replied." (Anita Kumar, The Washington Post, August 21, 2008)

Staff writer Anne E. Kornblut contributed to this report from Lynchburg.