Posted by
Darrick Johnson on Saturday, April 12, 2008 10:50:34 PM
Wow! Did Barack Obama really say that Pennsylvanians and other small town Americans are a bunch of bitter, racist xenophobes who latch on to guns and religion because they can't get job? That sound you hear is John McCain and Hillary Clinton popping corks.
Hugh Hewitt is asking what makes Pennsylvanians so bitter. I'm a current and native Coloradoan, but I had the opportunity to attend Grove City College in Pennsylvania for 4 years. ( A great conservative school that Hugh doesn't give nearly enough press, perhaps because of his anti-Steeler sentiments.) From my brief time in the Keystone state, here's a couple of things that might make these folks so bitter:
1. The sun never set on the British Empire. It never really rises in PA. I remember about 2 sunny days per semester when I was there. If eternal cloudiness and rain doesn't make one bitter, what would?
2. Politcally, the joke is that Pennslylvania is composed of Pittsburgh on the west, Philadelphia on the east, and Alabama in the middle. If you have the misfortune to be one of these conservative and productive Alabamians surrounded and governed by a the less productive, less rational, less conservative bureaucrats, like Governor Fast Eddy Rendell, and Senator Bob "no, really, I'm pro-life" Casey, embitterment is sure to follow.
More on this to follow...this story isn't going away. The truth is that, just like the Jeremiah Wright controversy, here is case where Obama is in trouble because Americans are hearing what Obama and his fellow liberals really think of America, especially the middle part, the part that grows the food, makes the cars, writes the software, mines the coal, drives the trucks, and wins the wars. An aspect of America of which a "Community Organizer" knows little, but has lots of opinions to share.