Pehhhhhhhhhnsylvania! Where the wind comes sweeping through the mines …!
That's the way it goes, isn't it?
"Virtue, Liberty, and Independence" is the motto of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Pretty good motto. Pretty good state.
Next Tuesday the C of P will hold its Presidential primary election. No one. NO ONE believed that either nomination would still be at issue on April 22nd.
Hillary R. (!) Clinton has to win the Pennsylvania primary election next Tuesday. That is not at issue. There are some in the Democratic Party family who are attempting to set the Hillary bar very high by contending she has to win by double digits or … else.
Barack H. (!) Obama looked like he was making a run at Hillary in Pennsylvania and, in fact, might finally have been able to close her out of this nominating process until he made that very telling unforced error in San Francisco last week.
For those who have been off the planet, at a private fundraiser in San Francisco last week, Barack H. (!) Obama explained to the rich, West Coast elites about the po' folk in small towns in places like central Pennsylvania: "You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest … and it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."
As I said on Fox yesterday morning, those of us who have spent a great deal of time in small towns like Marietta, Ohio (45750) population something on the order of 14,000, that's the way we believe the big city people from New York, and Chicago, and Dallas, and SAN FRANCISCO think about us.
We're too dumb to think through big issues, so we "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them …"
Back in the day, I was the news director of WMOA, one of the two radio stations in Marietta, Ohio (45750). I was a pretty good reporter. I wrote a daily commentary which, readers of MULLINGS would find comfortingly (or eerily) familiar.
Other than a few of the college professors at Marietta College, I was the only Jew most citizens of Marietta had ever met.
I didn't wear my religion on my sleeve, but I mentioned it now and again (as I do now and again in MULLINGS) in passing when it made sense to do so.
These bitter, frustrated small town people, from Southeastern Ohio, from Appalachia, who cling to guns and religion and "antipathy to people who are not like them" elected me to be a member of their City Council.
Imagine that. A Long Island Jew. Way, WAY different from the overwhelming majority of voters in Marietta, Ohio (45750) who nonetheless elected me with the highest number of votes of anyone running that year.
Barack H. (!) Obama was wrong to characterize people from places less sophisticated than Chicago or San Francisco as rubes who can't think their way out of their own outhouses.
Barack Obama is an elitist punk. And … it will cost him.
First of all, he has all but guaranteed Hillary will win the primary in Pennsylvania next week and, therefore, will have no reason to exit the race.
Second - follow me here - Republicans believe they have to win Ohio and its 20 electoral votes to win the White House. However, the GOP did so badly in Ohio in 2006 it is very much in doubt whether John McCain will be able to carry the Buckeye state in the fall.
Ok. McCain has to figure he's going to have to replace those 20 electoral votes to get to the magic number of 270 to be elected President.
How about … Pehhhhhhhhhnsylvania!
Pennsylvania has 21 electoral votes. And in October and early November (assuming Obama is the Democratic nominee) I wouldn't be at all surprised if the voters of the Keystone State were reminded with some frequency that Barack H. (!) Obama called them bitter, frustrated troglodytes.
The longer this Democratic primary fight goes on, the more likely it is that John McCain will be the next President of the United States.
"Virtue, Liberty, Independence." The motto of Pennsylvania.
Whose life does that motto more closely reflect: John McCain or Barack Obama?
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