In This Forgotten Pennsylvania Town, Obama Can Forget About It

[DeepModem Mom]

WP: In This Forgotten Town, Obama Can Forget About It
By Dana Milbank
Tuesday, April 22, 2008; A03


McKeesport, Pa. won't be changing for Barack Obama anytime soon. (Keith Srakocic/AP)

McKEESPORT, Pa.

This town was bitter before bitter was fashionable.

The Monongahela River Valley lost its steel mills in the '80s and, a quarter-century later, this sad town in the heart of the Mon Valley still hasn't recovered. Its downtown is a collage of crumbling buildings, and its once-proud landmark, the 102-year-old People's Union Bank Building, has signs in the window:

"Bank Repo Sale.

Excellent Deal.

Eight stories.

Priced to sell!"

It is, in short, just the sort of place Barack Obama was talking about when he said he wasn't getting the support of blue-collar workers of the industrial heartland because they "cling" to guns and religion out of economic bitterness. It is also the place Obama chose to visit on Monday night, on the eve of Tuesday's primary -- and the reception here explains why Obama, the national front-runner, is expected to lose Pennsylvania.

"I don't care too much for Obama," Maria Norgren, the daughter and granddaughter of steelworkers, said in the parking lot of the Giant Eagle shopping center here, near the Obama rally. "I don't even think he's American," added her husband, Edward, who lost his job when the steel mills closed and now mans the counter at the Puff Discount Tobacco and Lottery shop next to the Giant Eagle. "His father's from Nigeria, right?" asked Maria, wearing a Pittsburgh Steelers T-shirt.

Kenya, actually. But the point is the same: The Norgrens, who backed Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004, will vote for Hillary Clinton on Tuesday. And if Obama wins the nomination, these Democrats say they'll vote for Republican John McCain, even though they want an end to the war in Iraq, where their soldier-son is about to start his third tour.

If Hillary Clinton wins Tuesday's Democratic presidential primary -- and polls forecast that she will do just that -- it will be because of white, working-class voters like the Norgrens. Yet the blue-collar voters poised to keep Clinton's candidacy alive are also the reason she is losing the national race to Obama: Though still in charge here, they have lost control of the Democratic Party to the wealthy and better-educated....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/21/AR2008042102794_pf.html

[DJ13]

1. .....to the slaughter

[Gman]

2. There's a whole lot of people in this country just like them

and they don't post on DU, Daily Kos, etc., they aren't the "activist" base and they WON'T vote for Obama in November. There's a whole lot more of them in this country than the former.

I think after this evening, we can start looking to 2012 as our next best hope.

[kwenu]

17. That is pathetic because I know a lot of repubs that would have no problem voting for Obama in

the GE. So what is that saying about these so called "blue collar Democrats" Just because you're poor doesn't mean you have to be stupid also. Your willing concession of the presidency because of Obama's race says more about you and the people you identify with than you know because your experience clearly is not mine.

Why are people like this in the Democratic Party anyway?

[Gman]

19. People like us are in the Democratic Party because

someone has to be the adults.

[BlueManDude]

3. I've given up caring about people like the Norgrens. They can dig their own grave for all I care.

It's every man for himself.

[RaleighNCDUer]

4. Piece of crap opinion piece which starts with a lie and goes

downhill from there.

Obama never said that he was not getting the blue collar vote BECAUSE they cling to their religion and guns any more than Dean said he wansn't getting support in the south BECAUSE the guys have the confederate flag on their trucks.

[Mojambo]

5. "And if Obama wins the nomination, these Democrats say they'll vote for Republican John McCain"

They're not bitter, they're morons.

[Red Zelda]

6. Ah, McKeesport's white racists

they'll vote Repuke and sit drinking their Iron City waiting for the mills to come back and give their stupid asses easy work for big pay.
Go Stillers! Yinzer love them kinds of blacks.

[babylonsister]

9. That's exactly the impression I got of these people; it has

nothing to do with politics or issues, everything to do with his color. Sad.

[Mojambo]

11. And if not racists, certainly xenophobes. n/t

[xxqqqzme]

7. I can't get the link to work so

I don't know the end of the sentence but I hate to tell milbank but it is those of us in the trenches trying to get the DNC out of the clutches of the wealthy/educated(another word for elite?) DLC. Once the dlc is gone, we can have a Democratic Party again.

[DeepModem Mom]

10. I'm so sorry (I checked, it works for me). I just messaged you...

the entire article.

[GDAEx2]

8. He could forget about it...

were it not for a substancial African American community that is
FIRED UP and READY to GO!!!

[Pirate Smile]

12. Ugly. Excuse me if I'm not sad that these people have lost control over the Democratic Party.

Uninformed and/or racist seems to be a requirement.

[catnhatnh]

13. Like a Rock.....

Their son is about to start a third tour and they talk trash about Obama's father and offer to vote for a man willing to fight the war to the last drop of their great-great-grandchildrens blood if Hillary is not the candidate?
Like a rock,but with less intellectual curiousity.....

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

14. What I don't get is that they say Obama isn't American

because his father was from Africa? Or was this really racism stated in another way?

[LeftinOH]

15. They sound more stupid than 'bitter'.....n/t

[islandmkl]

16. hey, dana....why didn't you ask those folks about the 'common blue-collar'...

kind of people in the Republican Party that have gotten us to this point...

name any one of the bush syndicate that has anything in common with the people in these economic and social conditions...

the times they are a'changin'....one way or the other

you want some old, 'back when America was great' slogan chanter who will threaten to kick the world's ass while they sell YOUR ass and MY ass down the river for whatever ca$h they can...vote for mccain....and send your GRANDSON to some war...

vote white out of spite you pitiful people...maybe things are SO BAD (but you are not bitter, are you?) that you figure even another bush-type cannot make your personal situation ANY WORSE....

well, hang on motherf***ers, the ride is going to get bumpy....

[Shakespeare]

18. Racism and ignorance always go hand in hand.

What hideous people.