Politics: Report from Ground Zero (PA)

With just a few days left till the big Democratic primary here in Pennsylvania, we're being subjected to more targeted campaign rhetoric than I've ever experienced before. The phone rings and it's Hillary or Obama, asking for our votes (in fact, the writing of this post was interrupted by a call from Senator Bob Casey, who "knows Barack Obama well" and thinks I would do well to cast my ballot for him). Former POTUS Bill was in town last Sunday; made an appearance at the local high school, and I had every intention of going and hearing him out. But then evening came and I realized, "Oh, yeah! That's what I was planning on doing today." I knew there was something.

Sorry, Bill. Just got to doing other things.

Most of you know (or might guess) that I'm an Obama man, but I'm not a hater of the Clintons. Still, as a direct target of the phone/TV/direct-mail onslaught, I think I can fairly objectively say that the Clinton campaign is decidedly more negative in tone than Obama's. Case in point: During Wednesday night's debate, Obama actually went to bat for Clinton (and himself) in calling ABC's Charles Gibson on the petty, divisive, side-show pap that "distracts" from the real issues (paraphrase). Obama's high-minded defense of substance over gossip was good enough for Clinton Wednesday night but apparently not today, to judge by the mailing we received:

DOES BARACK OBAMA UNDERSTAND US AND OUR VALUES?

At a Fundraiser in San Francisco, Barack Obama Told Wealthy Campaign Donors What He Really Thinks of Pennsylvania Families.

"You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them . . . 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." -- Barack Obama, San Francisco, 4/6/2008

Pennsylvania Needs a President Who Will Stand Up for Us -- Not Someone Who Looks Down on Us. (Paid for by Hillary Clinton for President.)

It's evident from the style of this mailing what its Author's Opinion of Pennsylvania Voters Really Is -- but let's leave that aside for the moment. The whole flap over this Obama quote is nicely encapsulated by what one blogger has called "the cult of the offhand comment." Irrespective of whether or not you agree with Obama or feel that his words were well chosen (If anyone cares, my opinion happens to be that his words were neither particularly well chosen nor intended in the sense in which people have been gleefully bruiting them about), you will surely agree that there are rather more pressing issues in this election than the fact that one of the candidates said something behind closed doors that could, if you squint hard enough, be taken as an insult to some voters in Pennsylvania. Yet instead of focusing on those very real and important issues (war, economy), this is the sort of thing that Gibbons and Stephanopoulos spent the first 50 minutes of Wednesday's debate rehashing.

And now this mailing.

Barack, I'm still waiting for your postcard lambasting Hillary for her phantom memories of sniper fire. Better hurry. Only four days left till election day.