Posted on 10/08/2008 1:12:20 AM PDT by Berlin_Freeper
He's Philadelphia born and raised, a resident of the Northeast. He's 51-years-old and he's never voted for a Republican. Not once. He's also a union plumber and that's why he doesn't want his named used. Leadership is lobbying the rank-and-file hard to vote for Sen. Barack Hussein Obama. If my friend the plumber publicly states that he intends to vote for Sen. John McCain instead, he'll hear about it.
"I can't bring myself to vote for somebody whose wife has never been proud of America," he says, alluding to a putdown of our country uttered by Michelle Obama. "McCain's a war hero. This other guy's a show pony."
The plumber mostly keeps his feelings to himself, perhaps close family members might know. Maybe not. They'd be shocked. The Messiah has blown dust into the eyes of many young people and maybe the plumber's nephews and nieces overlook Barack "the Baby-Killer's" record and hard-left political leanings.
You really can't blame young adults for not knowing. The media has made it a point not to inform them of Sen. Obama's slurs against our fighting men and women, and opposition to a bill that would have protected infants who survive an abortion. Maybe they've heard (or maybe not) about Sen. Obama's close ties with a man, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who sits right up there with David Duke on the list of America's most infamous racists. Rev. Wright performed the ceremonies when Sen. Obama got married and the senator's daughters were baptized.
The plumber knows all about it. He makes it a point to keep informed, which means digging beneath what the mainstream media shovels your way. The plumber also knows the risk of stating publicly in a city that's overwhelmingly Democrat, among friends and family who've never voted Republican, that you don't want Sen. Obama to win.
"Oh, then you're a racist," the plumber says with a shrug, noting that Sen. Obama himself has none too subtly attempted to slur critics with that label. "My vote has nothing to do with race. What has this guy ever done?"
The plumber would never tell any pollster his intentions. It's nobody's business but his. There's no way of knowing how many people in the Northeast are keeping their opinions about this election to themselves.
As of this writing, Sen. Obama leads in the polls. How accurate is that? During the primaries Sen. Obama's margin of victory had often been overestimated. Pundits write that off to people in exit interviews simply lying for fear of appearing racist. There may be something to that. But not wanting to appear racist is not the same thing as actually being racist. My friend the plumber isn't a racist. He isn't a fool either. He knows the difference between celebrity and authenticity.
I'm betting that there are a lot of people like my friend the plumber, representing a stealth-voting block that will shock prognosticators on Nov. 4. That block will make itself known in the Northeast. Nearly 25 years ago I got my first job in newspapers at the Northeast Times. Back then many in the Northeast wanted to secede from the rest of Philadelphia and call themselves Liberty County.
I think that movement resurfaces over the years, but in many ways the Northeast is in constant revolt against the rest of the city. The section is full of people like my friend the plumber. It is full of nurses, firefighters, cops, carpenters, teachers, small-business owners, car salesmen, factory workers and bus drivers. They are people from blue-collar backgrounds who are predisposed to vote for the Democrat. They are people like the plumber who can hardly believe that this year, for the very first time in their lives, they are going to vote for a Republican presidential candidate. Shhh! Don't tell anyone.
The media charges that they are doing this because of race, in an effort to shame these people into voting for Sen. Obama. They don't know these people. That sort of cheap ploy just makes them stand their ground. They won't back down, just as Sen. McCain didn't back down all those years ago in a prison hell-hole. These people put country above political correctness. Three cheers for Liberty County!
I really hope the Union Plumber is right...and that there are more out there like him.
I want Sarah in mainstream politics so that she can take out the trash.
Washington DC is a complete and total cesspool of corruption, and I want to see it completely renovated.
Amen to that.
I wonder how many union workers have had to pick up the slack and carry the water for poorly performing minority workers who are never fired or even disciplined. Why would these people vote for a man that attended a church for 20 years preaching black liberation theology?
Hopefully something positive will happen with the polls. They seem to be trending up in recent days ~ much credit going to Palin on the stump ~ despite what I gather to be a debate that was not necessarily what conservatives were hoping for.
I think this phenom of the “stealth northeast voter” has some potential, but I certainly don’t rest easy at night hanging my hat on the notion. I was banking on such a showing in PA. Of course, I’m also banking on unprecidented voter fraud by the Dems in Pittsburg and Philadelphia.
I have no love for these voters. I think they’re garbage.
They have continuously and blindly voted for representatives that are the very worst in the nation, they’ve voted for policies in public schools that hurt their children and within their unions they have voted themselves out of their own jobs.
Now they’re voting for our guy on the basis of his pigmentation ~ sorry if I can’t put a lot faith in these racists.
Hey, if they didn’t like affirmative action and continued to vote Dem for 20 years they are going to get a real kick out of Barry’s sliding mortgage scale ruler!!
“I have no love for these voters. I think they’re garbage.
They have continuously and blindly voted for representatives that are the very worst in the nation, they’ve voted for policies in public schools that hurt their children and within their unions they have voted themselves out of their own jobs.
Now they’re voting for our guy on the basis of his pigmentation ~ sorry if I can’t put a lot faith in these racists.”
Wow, you sound like a troll. At least some dems are waking up and it has nothing to do with race! Obama is a fraud!
I agree that there is a lot of stealth voting that will occur.
In the booth, confronted with the actual names on the ballot, decisions will be made that have nothing to do with the policies or campaigns of the candidates.
It will come down to the known vs. the unknown, black vs. white, an intrigueing woman vs. DC politicians.
McCain prevails, barely
A friend of ours lives in Chicago, is Jewish and is a die-hard Dem.
He DESPISES Zero and will not vote for him.
[he considers him a Trojan Muzzie]
Locally, they are running out of McCain/Palin yard signs and stickers so often they’re now getting them directly from the printer rather than wait for them to be distributed by the campaign itself.
Today in our errand running, I saw *5* Zero signs, a few stickers and tons of Mac/Sarah signs.
[which have the life span of a fruit fly due to torching, stomping, stealing and other hissy-fit desecrations]
That my friends (hehe), is really how 99% of most "Reagan democrats" feel. They do not show up in the polls. They keep this close to the vest.
True.
People need to remember the majority of ppl are not weirdo leftists like the elitist media types....
For what it’s worth, I hear this too, in Manhattan.
I pray that you are correct.
Of course I also pray that a good number of people hafve an attack of conscience when they get into the voting booth.
A muslim with a condom? /s
“Wow, you sound like a troll.”
I think that you’ve misread or possibly misinterpreted my post, DWD.
I support McCain/Palin. I don’t particularly like the moral stature of the folks who have been “roughly outlined” in this piece.
Obama’s charechterization of “bitter/clingers” is based on a real stereotype, whether we like that or not. I think it is a small minority, but “the candidate of hope” painted every caucassian, blue collar worker in PA with the same brush. He also did it in front of a group of elitist jackels in. So, I don’t mean to do the same thing, still I don’t think very highly of these people and I’m not thrilled by their necessity within our voting block.
I am geralizaing here, but I know these voters. I have on rare opportunity sat in bars with them through various parts of Pennsylvania. I would never discuss politics in such places because if I did “your voters here” would have 3 or 4 union thugs beat out of me as soon as I stepped out the door.
These people have continuously voted for what is best for themseleves and their unions, despite what is good for our country. They have supported failing schools, pro-aborts and a few have demonstrated against our military. They support Jack Murtha and now they are miraculously coming around to my way of thinking and the only difference that I see is the shade of the politician???
I’ll take the votes for McCain ~ thank you! But there is much to be said for being thought of “for the company that we keep”.
I have cousins who are working class union guys in PA. Not bad guys, but they blindly vote for their own interests and whoever the unions tell them to vote for. Sorry, I just don’t think very highly of that.
Mostly Mac/Palin here in Fred and Carroll.
The Dems out this way still don’t know how to vote, but they seem to have a little class in terms of NOT stomping/burning/driving over their neighbors signs.
You get more of that the closer you get to Balmer.
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