Bitter as hell in Pennsylvania
Folks agree with Barack Obama in at least one Pennsylvania trailer park. But will angry voters help or hurt Democrats in swing states this fall?
By Mike Madden
April 16, 2008 | EXETER, Penn. -- Shawn Erfman lives in a trailer park, listens to Rush Limbaugh and voted for George W. Bush -- twice. Over the weekend, he heard all about what Barack Obama had to say about "bitter" Pennsylvanians like himself. And he's mad as hell.
Not at the guy you might expect, though. "It's fucking true," he said Monday night. "Everybody's bitter for one reason or another. So they're crucifying him because he spoke the truth? Cause he's not saying something that's going to suck up to people and kiss ass? Because, what, he slipped and accidentally spoke the truth, instead of kissing butt?"
A 37-year-old mechanic for a construction company, Erfman won't be voting Republican this time around. While he isn't a registered Democrat and can't vote in next week's primary, he'd be happy to go for Obama in November. (Or Hillary Clinton, for that matter.) "I do like him, I think that he would be a change," Erfman said. "Believe it or not, I voted for Bush. See where that got me?" But when you get right down to it, Erfman -- like many of his neighbors -- doesn't see much chance of any politician really doing a lot to help the dwindling middle class in northeastern Pennsylvania. "It doesn't make a difference who I go vote for, whoever gets in is going to see fit to try to make it go their way," Erfman said. His wife, Heidi, felt the same way. "Can I vote for Mickey Mouse?" she asked.
By the time Obama and Clinton sit down for Wednesday night's debate in Philadelphia, the question of whether people like Erfman were insulted by Obama's remarks at a San Francisco fundraiser will have dominated nearly a week of news about the campaign. White working-class voters -- the ones Obama said "get bitter" and "cling" to guns, religion and nativism -- are, without a doubt, the key to winning the Pennsylvania primary next week. If Clinton holds on to a big share of the blue-collar Democratic vote, as she did in Ohio last month, she'll win, as polls show she's on track to do.
But they're also the key to November's election, which means this won't be the last you hear about bitter Pennsylvanians. Either Obama or Clinton will have to keep John McCain from trouncing them among white working-class voters (as Bush did to Democrats in the last two elections) in order to win Rust Belt swing states. The first step could simply be convincing those voters, after years of hard times, that it's worth paying attention to either side. If Democrats are going to take back the White House, their biggest enemy might not be whatever Obama says to California donors next. The biggest hurdle might be bitterness itself.
"I'm just not crazy about politics," said Mary Perno, 47, an apprentice baker who lives around the corner from the Erfmans. She hasn't voted since backing Ronald Reagan in 1984 and doesn't sound like she'll get around to trying it again any time soon. "Most of the politicians that I've known in my life are nothing more than liars, and I don't like liars." That was a common sentiment in Exeter, which sits between Wilkes-Barre and Scranton in what used to be the heart of Pennsylvania's manufacturing and coal country. No matter who was in power, factories kept closing or moving offshore, mines kept shutting down or laying people off and wages kept sliding down. "None of 'em ever do anything," said Perno's neighbor Tom Sciandra, a heating and plumbing repairman. "All they do is yap a lot."
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http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/04/16/bitter/
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