S Carolina: "Fired up! Ready to go!" Lady, others struggle

[Undercurrent]

This is a good article with photo album.

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A Hundred Anxious Days

In a South Carolina Town Where the Downturn Has Deepened Since the Inauguration, Two Obama Supporters Have Struggled, Going From 'Fired Up' to Tired Out

...Across the dark living room, one of Childs's favorite pictures is displayed on a worn coffee table. It shows Childs with her arms wrapped around Barack Obama, his hand on her back, her eyes glowing. They met at a rally attended by 37 supporters on a rainy day in 2007, when Childs responded to Obama's sluggishness on stage with an impromptu chant: "Fired up! Ready to go!" She repeated it, shouting louder each time, until Obama laughed and dipped his shoulders to the rhythm. The chant caught on. "Fired up!" people began saying at rallies. "Ready to go," Obama chanted back. He told audiences about Childs, "a spirited little lady," and invited her onstage at campaign appearances. By the day of his inauguration, when Childs led a busload of strangers bound for the Mall in her now-iconic chant, her transformation was complete. She was Edith Childs, fired up and ready to go.

But now, as Obama nears the 100-day milestone of his presidency, Childs suffers from constant exhaustion. In a conservative Southern state that bolstered Obama's candidacy by supporting him early in the Democratic primaries, she awakens at 2:30 a.m. with stress headaches and remains awake mulling all that's befallen Greenwood since Obama's swearing-in.

On Day 4 of his presidency, the Solutia textile plant laid off 101 workers. On Day 23, the food bank set a record for meals served. On Day 50, the hospital fired 200 employees and warned of further job cuts. On Day 71, the school superintendent called a staff meeting and told his principals: "We're losing 10 percent of our budget. That means some of us won't have jobs next year, and the rest should expect job changes and pay cuts." On Day 78, the town's newly elected Democratic mayor, whose campaign was inspired partly by his admiration for Obama, summarized Greenwood's accelerating fragility. "This is crippling us, and there's no sign of it turning around," Welborn Adams said.

On Day 88, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that South Carolina had set a record for its highest unemployment rate in state history, at 11.4 percent. Greenwood's unemployment is 13 percent -- more than twice what it was when Childs first started chanting...

more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/25/AR2009042501870.html?hpid=topnews