Posted on 10/19/2004 5:39:10 AM PDT by OESY
To an outsider George W. Bush's political demeanor seems little more than stumbling tautology. He utters his campaign message in clipped phrases, filled with bravado and repeated references to God, and to resoluteness of purpose. But to a trained eye and ear these performances have the deliberate balance of a country singer at the Grand Ole Opry.
Speaking in a quasi-rural dialect that his critics dismiss as affected, W is telling his core voting groups that he is one of them. No matter that he is the product of many generations of wealth; that his grandfather was a New England senator; that his father moved the family's wealth south just like the hated Carpetbaggers after the Civil War; that he himself went North to Andover and Yale and Harvard when it came time for serious grooming. And as with the persona, so also with the key issues. The Bush campaign proceeds outward from a familiar mantra: strong leadership, success in war, neighbor helping neighbor, family values, and belief in God. Contrary to many analyses, these issues reach much farther than the oft-discussed Christian Right. The president will not win re-election without carrying the votes of the Scots-Irish, along with those others who make up the "Jacksonian" political culture that has migrated toward the values of this ethnic group.
At the same time, few key Democrats seem even to know that the Scots-Irish exist, as this culture is so adamantly individualistic that it will never overtly form into one of the many interest groups that dominate Democratic Party politics. Indeed, it can be fairly said that Al Gore lost in 2000 because the Democrats ignored this reality and the Scots-Irish enclaves of West Virginia and Tennessee turned against him.
Why are the 30 million Scots-Irish... so invisible to America's intellectual elites?....
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
bttt
Anyone with a bugmenot? I'm wondering if the word "Cherokee" appears anywhere in this article. If we're talking the rural mountainous south, and Scots-Irish...we're leaving out part of the equation.
Bugmenot doesn't appear to work for WSJ.
The Scots-Irish are all over the place... I know because I am one of them! Great article. Go W!
This is getting ridiculous. Now we are being told the Scots-Irish vote so important.
What about the one-armed, green eyed, Albanian-American vote?
Translation: "Please buy my book!"
Subtext: "Redneck trash for Bush!"
The Hispanic vote is more important and when the sleeping giant wakes up to vote...it will be screaming "VIVA BUSH!"
I read something pertaining to this in the Houston Chronicle this past few days.
I also was told by some very humble cleaning people (At the place where I work as a contract Engineer, in spanish of course.) That they will vote for Bush, simply because Bush needs to be given the opportunity to finish what he started. I was really amazed that these humble poor people had made more sense than the Engineers who were trying to convice me that voting for Kerry would be the right choice.
I'm of Scottish heritage, on both sides. I'm a plain speaker, too. Maybe that's what explains my appreciation for the President's no-nonsense, plain talk.Go Bush !
Actually, my dad says we have the blood(distantly) of Robert Louis Stevenson..
The Scots are a feisty bunch, indeed.
We're remembered, ah couldna believe it when I read it.
So who has the Irish Travellers vote?
That must be because it is no longer the party of Andrew Jackson.
"that and if you got the blood of William Wallace in you then I am sure you don't like people messin' with your freedom. That will get a Scot's back up every single time."
One of our favorite Episcopal priest who is now dead was a Scot. His ancestors were such a pain for the Royalty of England, they would line up the males in his clan and decimate (kill one out ten) when they felt they getting ready to rebel. It didn't work then, and it doesn't work now.
Being Scottish, maybe this why GW resonates with me when he talks.
The Scots-Irish vote is the rural folk of Appalachia from central and western Pennsylvania through western Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee to the mountain highlands of northern Georgia (think, Zell Miller's home turf).
How about somebody saying something positive about German/Polish/English? I feel so lonely...
A German Rifle in the hands of a Scots-Irishman, conquered America's frontier.
Well...I'm Scots-Irish but I had no idea we were an organized group or that I was being pandered to. I feel so entitled, now!
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