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A Postcard From Small-Town Pennsylvania

April 14th, 2008
By SHAUN MULLEN, TMV Columnist

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bethlehem02_2crp.jpg

Geez! I don’t blog for a day or so and all hell breaks loose out on the old campaign tail.

Many commentators have weighed in on Barack Obama’s “bitter” remarks, and as someone who has worked in, traveled through and is blogging this week from one of the most depressed areas of small town Pennsylvania with among the nation’s highest foreclosure, bankruptcy and unemployment rates, all I can say is:

Right on, brother.

Hillary Clinton, of course, takes voters for fools who will be so superficial as to relate to the hurt in what Obama said but ignore the larger truth. I happen to think that these folks are well outnumbered by voters who understand what Obama meant and that once again his candor and Clinton’s superciliousness will work for him and against her.

* * * * *

Look, I have a cool job, a wonderful woman, the love of my family, excellent health care benefits, a 30-speed trail bike with a titanium frame, a rich cultural existence that includes the latest books and best in music, ballet, opera and theater, and I yelled “Free Tibet!” when the local Chinese cultural association trooped by the other day in a parade celebrating the 250th anniversary of my own small town. (One guy gave me the finger in return.) I suppose all that makes me “elitist” as Clinton accuses Obama of being — and I too can’t bowl a lick.

But even I’m bitter.

I’m among the 80-plus percent of Americans who tell pollsters that the U.S. is going to hell in a hand basket, the majority who long ago broke faith with The Decider over the Mess in Mesopotamia (didja known that another 19 of our brothers were killed last week?) and one of the Haves who look at middle-class acquaintances with deep concern who are quickly becoming Have Nots as they fall further into debt and wonder how the hell they’re going to be able to keep their Uncle Leo in a managed care facility let alone send their kids to college.

Just as Bush-Rove have, Hillary and Bill Clinton want to drive us apart; as tone-deaf as the clingy aspects of Obama’s remarks were, he wants to bring us together.

Not a tough choice for many people and I believe many Pennsylvanians. That is why the results of my own informal poll show that there continues to be movement away from Clinton and toward Obama with eight days to go before the primary hereabouts and that the “bitter” flap has been less a bump in the road for Obama that a defining moment of a Clinton campaign in its own bitter final throes.

Photograph of abandoned Bethlehem steel mill by Tony Karp



This entry was posted on Monday, April 14th, 2008 at 4:57 am and is filed under Newsweek Blogitics, Bush Administration, Primaries, Negative Campaigning, Pennsylvania, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Economy, Iraq, George W. Bush, Karl Rove, 2008 Elections. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Viewing 22 Comments

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    Shaun has gotten the talking points memo from the Obama campaign. Focus on the "bitter" comment...at all costs, avoid any reference to "cling(ing) to guns and religion".

    This has ramifications far beyond the primary. Democrats are more urban and less religious than the population as a whole.

    Is the "large truth" the fact that small-town Americans
    "cling to guns or religion, or antipathy to people who aren't like them"

    Those are Obama's exact words. The words the Obama campaign has instructed its surrogates not to talk about at all costs.

    That suggests, contra Shaun, that the Obama campaign knows EXACTLY how devastating those words might be in the long term.

    From ABC News:

    " But Obama allies are trying to focus on the "bitter" part alone....No mention of the "cling"-ing to guns or religion. Likewise, when Obama's most valued surrogate in the Keystone State, Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., took to CNN this morning, he steered clear of explaining the guns and religion part of Obama's comments, even when pressed specifically to explain it."

    http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/
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    That's not true marlow. He spoke directly to the "clinging to guns and religion" aspect at the Compassion Forum last night. He's not avoiding that part of his comments at all, though he is certainly making more hay out of the bitterness remarks because Clinton was stupid enough to hand out "I'm not bitter" stickers. Clinton turned lemonade into lemons and Obama turned it back into Jack Daniels lemonade.
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    Bitter? Of course we're bitter!! Obama only said what most Americans are thinking and saying to one another. We have the right to be bitter...

    Our President has put us in a war that has no justifiable reason to be in, a costly state to stay in, and no foreseeable end in sight.

    Millions of Americans are having their homes foreclosed and their vehicles repossessed...while gas and the cost of living keep going up! Has anyone thought of passing a bill to limit the cost of fuel, or maybe reduce the taxes put on a gallon of gas from the feds, states, and counties in which is sold? How about not only investigating the mortgage companies but also investigate the oil companies too!

    Bitter? Millions of Americans can't even afford healthcare and those that do have it, treat it like auto insurance and are too afraid to use it in fear their rates will go up or their policy will be dropped...

    Our Public Schools seem to be out of control..not teaching real world studies like how to file a tax return or the credit system (like they are never going to need to know that) but instead forcing parents in to having their kids learn Spanish....the only thing we seem to be getting out of the schools these days is late breaking news on another shooting rampage at our local high school or college....now we get a bunch of teens who are beating each other to get on YouTube!!

    Bitter?! No we are PISSED OFF and we're all just praying the next President won't be as out of touch and so willing to sell our Country down the river as the current one has.....

    By the way, Has anyone seen the NEW $5 Five dollar bill?...on the front it says "In God we trust" and on the back it says "Good for one gallon of gas"
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    Support for religion, the 2nd amendment of the US Constitution, and community doesn't equal "bitterness" in my mind, so I found Obama's words offensive.

    (I'm a Buddhist, grew up in the rust belt during the last recession, and am getting very sick of politicians trying to polarize, polarize, polarize.)
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    Elrod said: "That's not true marlow. He spoke directly to the "clinging to guns and religion" aspect at the Compassion Forum last night. He's not avoiding that part of his comments at all..."

    Obama knew he had to address the god issue...it was a forum on religion, after all.

    The key point: Obama tried to shift the tone of his words.

    Instead of "clinging" -- and there is no way that is not a negative, pathetic sounding word -- Obama makes it appear that they are resolutely relying on their faith.

    These are Obama's words at the Compassion Forum.

    “When economic hardship hits, they have faith, they have family, they have traditions that have been passed on from generation to generation. Those are not bad things. Those are the things that are left.”

    These are fine sounding, noble words . . . BUT they are NOT the words he used in San Francisco.

    "Clinging" is synonymous with weakness.

    As for the guns comment, Obama has referenced it indirectly only in attacking HRC's comments.

    Elrod...in the span of two sentences in San Fran...Obama linked "clinging" "god" "gun" and "racism" with small-town America. There is no way that is good.

    If you think HRC is hard on him...the GOP will absolutely hammer him on these points in the Fall.
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    Marlowe,
    What in the world does any of this have to do with any issues that matter to anyone anywhere? Please explain.
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    Cool job, wonderful woman, multi-speed bike. This guy sounds like one of my kids and just as out of touch with the grit of that majority of Keystone Staters without "cool jobs." I read a similar blog recently. My recollection was that it's author admired Obama because he looked so cool wearing a suit without a tie, his stage was crowded with stars and his wife was as stylish as Jackie. That picture of Bethlehem's former works. If you take another look at that valley you will see the new casino the proceeds of which will help care for the Uncle Leo our author references. It is not, you see, nephews and nieces that pay for his care. They have no legal responsibility. I am old enough to have spent considerable time with friends and relatives in managed care. The excellent physical facilities I am familiar with are staffed with caring people. The money to operate, in a majority of cases, comes from the state. The idea that we should simply 'cut and run' from our responsibilities in Iraq is to ridiculous for comment. In closing, I also have a multi-speed bike, did my PhD work at Lehigh (in Bethlehem) and served in the military. Possibly most weighty of all my comments, I grew up in a Pennsylvania town with a one screen movie, without a traffic light and where my family, both sides, had lived since the 1830s.
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    carperry:

    You must have missed class the day they were teaching at Lehigh that state-sanctioned slots parlors run by people with organized crime ties will not help Uncle Leo in the long-run, only enable a few folks to get rich in the short run.

    I am blogging two counties over from Bethlehem where the slots boomlet already is fading.

    I am glad your world is so perfectly wonderful and apparently without even a trace of bitterness.
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    81% of Americans believe that their country is headed in the wrong direction. Cynicism towards the political realm and of the government is high. "It's not going to change anything anyway" is a familiar refrain. What's the opposite of Congress? Progress.

    I'm not sure how you can say Americans aren't bitter. They have every reason to be bitter. What's really at issue is a certain kind of political correctness that won't allow commentators to acknowledge the word "bitter."

    Bitter
    bit·ter
    Pronunciation:
    \ˈbi-tər\
    Function:
    adjective
    3: Cynical and resentful
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