Posted on 03/21/2008 2:45:22 AM PDT by ricks_place
PHILADELPHIA — Stephanie Gill, a bartender in a white working-class neighborhood, noticed the shift immediately.
A week ago, her customers at Rauchut’s Tavern in Tacony didn’t have much to say about Barack Obama. But when she returned to work Wednesday, a day after the Illinois senator attempted to quell the furor over his pastor’s racially incendiary remarks, the reaction inside the corner bar was raw and unapologetic.
“People are not happy with Obama,” Gill said. “It’s the race stuff.”
Obama has always been a tough sell in largely white Northeast Philadelphia and in the city's blue-collar river wards, a collection of white ethnic enclaves where customers at the local watering hole have often been born and raised in the neighborhood that supports it.
And his speech Tuesday, although widely praised by the pundit caste and Obama supporters, has only seemed to widen the gulf with the Budweiser class here.
More than a dozen interviews Wednesday found voters unmoved by Obama’s plea to move beyond racial divisions of the past. Despite baring himself with extraordinarily personal reflections on one of the most toxic issues of the day, a highly unusual move for a politician running for national office, the debate inside taverns and beauty shops here had barely moved beyond outrage aimed at the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Obama’s refusal to “disown” his longtime pastor.
A day after the speech, local residents were left wondering whether Obama was candid in the last week when he said he hadn’t heard any of Wright’s most objectionable remarks, but then said Tuesday that he had heard “controversial” remarks while sitting in the pews.
“He lied to Anderson Cooper,” said Rodica Mitrea, an aesthetician and immigrant from Romania, referring to an Obama interview Friday with the CNN anchor.
The reactions are merely a snapshot of a slice of the electorate, but it is a highly coveted one.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton relied on this blue-collar coalition — Catholics, union households, ethnic Europeans — to win Ohio. It accounts for her significant lead in Pennsylvania polls, and represents the demographic that political analysts say Obama needs to make gains with in order to present the strongest case possible for the Democratic nomination and the presidency.
Obama built his lead in the delegate race with a different kind of coalition. He won white voters in states like Virginia, Illinois and Wisconsin. But in recent contests, he has relied on African-Americans to offset Clinton’s strength among working-class whites.
Larry Ceisler, a Philadelphia political strategist, said the unvarnished look at race in America could help Obama in the suburban counties that surround Philadelphia, which carry an identity as a well-to-do, increasingly Democratic battleground.
“The speech plays only among the elites,” Ceisler said. “The average person on the street cares about the economy and the war and everyday life.”
Glenn Peter, 54, a patron at Rauchut’s Tavern, said he heard finger pointing, not reconciliation. He took issue with Obama’s explanation that Wright’s observations of a racist America were reflecting the racial scars of his past.
“I don’t want to hear that you are blaming us for him saying this,” said Peter, who is white and worked at an auto parts factory until it was shuttered several years ago. Cutting ties with the church “would have been the best way to do it. That way, I could have been able to listen to him again.”
Peter nursed his early evening cigarette and a beer at Rauchut’s, where Eagles memorabilia and decorative shamrocks feel secondary to an intimidating portrait of Frank Rizzo, the barrel-chested former mayor popular with white ethnic voters but with a mixed legacy on racial issues.
Peter said he’s never voted for a Republican for president, but if Obama is the nominee, he will support Sen. John McCain.
“I would have a hard time if it is Clinton and McCain,” Peter said.
Michael Smerconish, the morning drive-time host on 1210 AM WPHT, a radio station with a conservative lineup, watched the speech in person Tuesday at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. He appeared that night on MSNBC’s “Hardball” and called the speech “stunning.”
The comments from his listeners Wednesday morning were far different.
“It was a great speech,” one man said. “But what concerns me is that on the website for his church, they say they are unabashedly Afro-centric. ... The underlying message is they are perpetual victims and they enjoy the victim status and, by proxy, me as a white person is their victimizer. And as long as we perpetuate these divisions, we will never heal.”
Smerconish, in an interview later in the day, said voters needed to spend time absorbing the speech — “the most unmuzzled speech about race in my adult lifetime.”
“So here the problem is, Jeremiah Wright is conducive to a 10-second sound bite and the speech is not,” he said. “This is the problem. The Wright thing is perfect for our short attention spans, and this requires a little bit of attention. It takes some sitting down and settling in and not a lot of folks are willing to do that.”
Mitrea, the aesthetician on her cigarette break outside Beautyworx Salon and Day Spa in the Mayfair section of Philadelphia, said she watched the whole speech. And before the controversy over Wright’s sermons, Mitrea said she was 55 percent for Clinton, 45 percent for Obama.
“Now I am 100 percent for Clinton and zero percent for Obama,” Mitrea said.
As an immigrant who is now a citizen, Mitrea said she took offense to Wright’s comments that "God Bless America" should be “God Damn America.”
“I love America,” Mitrea said. “I thank God I am here. I live a free life.”
Obama should have severed all relations with Wright, Mitrea said.
Jean Clayberger, who works at a crafts store in the Port Richmond section, said Obama couldn’t be expected to go that far.
As she hand-knotted tulle for decorative Communion crosses (within one block of her store are Polish, German and Irish Catholic churches), Clayberger said she supports Clinton, but she understood Obama when he said Wright is part of who he is.
“I know Obama is embarrassed by him, but he is sticking with him. He’s his pastor,” said Clayberger, 76. “Are you going to condemn your own child?”
CARRIE BUDOFF BROWN
Carrie Budoff actually wanted to be an attorney. So as a high school senior, she shadowed a 28-year-old lawyer … who was utterly miserable. With her career path derailed at 17, Carrie went in search of another occupation. She eventually walked into the newsroom of the York (Pa.) Daily Record, found that journalists were (mostly) happy people and decided to give it a try.
That is an accurate statement. I grew up in a Catholic, union household. My parents, uncles, aunts, and cousins were (and continue to be) die hard Democrats.
The previously fawning Obama worshipers have just found out the emperor wears no clothes. In short, Obama is a fraud. He was supposed to be the post-racial candidate who would heal all the nation’s racial wounds. In fact he just wants to perpetuate them.
Smerconish is our local morning talk radio host, and he is increasingly hard to take. A limp Libertarian RINO who craps on his staff on the air is the best way to describe him. Think pro-abortion, pro-homosexual, best friends with Sen. Spector kind of guy.
I heard his broadcast about Obama's speech. He was "in awe" and "in a state of rapture."
The Immigrant said she Loves America ,she lives a Free life here ,SHE IS 100 percent For HILLARY ? What a Moron
And so instead of a fake, phony, fraud like Obama, these people are all out for that fake, phony, fraud Her Heinous. Yeah, that makes total sense.
WPHT has hired a bunch of Smerconish clones recently. Strange people with unlistenable voices. I guess they make enough ad money with Beck, Limbaugh, and Hannity, cause they’re the only ones keeping the station going.
good analysis of smerconish....consistently moving more and more left each passing day....his radio show is becoming a lovefest for chrissy mathews and arlen sphincter!!!!
Blue collar. I prefer being called “downscale white”
They are also fed up with the old "we were slaves, all you white people were and are responsible so you gotta understand, he has a right to hate America and all you white people", shuck and jive excuse in light of the fact that slavery hasn't existed for over a hundred and fifty years.
The reason why is because "typical white people" moved on along time ago but it appears that the majority of so called black Americans never have and never will "move on" in spite of all the advancements they have made or the privileges and advantages they have been given over the last 150 plus years because as soon as they do they no longer have any excuse for their hatred, self pity or for their self made short comings and their black race baiters will no longer have a so called "ministry" or message.
Obama and the revelations about his racist "pastor", their "church" and the theological state of the black "church" in America (many steeped in Black Liberation i.e. "hate whitey Marxist theology") have set back race relations by fifty years but they are so blind they can not see that they are to blame.
“I love America,” Mitrea said. “I thank God I am here. I live a free life.”
Completely, totally contradictory statements. You CANNOT be for Hillary Clinton and say you love America and a free life.
You’re correct. Two frauds don’t make a right. But for one of them it makes a “Wright”. (smirk) Hillary is as deserving of scorn as Obama, but at least she didn’t have a pastor who said “god d-— America”. She just had non-religious mentors who said.
Not that Her Heinous has a pastor at all, just a big phony Bible carried about by her bigger phony husband.
Hillary Clinton and her husband did their best to damn America themselves by selling us out to the Chicoms and the terrorists. You know, maybe Wright was correct that the chickens came home to roost on 9/11—the Clinton cowardice and enabling of terrorists chickens.
My guess is that the primary results for Pennsylvania will in many respects mirror those of Ohio on the rat side. Similar demographics with the exception of all the dead, and brain dead voters in Filthadelphia. I’m convinced we need to keep “Operation Chaos” going as long as we can because it is just beginning to bear fruit. I suppose the next time somebody brings up Rev. Wright to the “messiah” he’ll throw a hissy fit and insinuate that the questioner is in some way racist. He needs to be asked why he threw his Granny under the bus. Turning on the person who raised you shows true class.
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