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 live in NoVA now, but i am from southwestern PA and i know these people and i agree that i can’t see them voting for Obama. SITTING HOME, yeah. My union-belonging, lifelong dem, dearly departed dad was one of them. No union could make him vote for Obama, he would stay home, bc he would NEVER vote for a republican. These people, who are my roots, give me hope for the outcome of this election.
Believe me, kids...Northeast Italians are not voting for Barry. ;)
None of this matters. Not one of these states are in danger of flipping to McCain. The only state where this might matter in NH.
From the very beginning, it’s a numbers game and McCain needs VA, OH and PA to win. If people in those states decide they don’t want four years of thug politics and a hip-hop presidency, they’ll vote for the right guy.
If that clown does convince enough people that’s he not a commie wanna-be, he will shut-down talk radio because it led to the 94 revolution. The world will be a much different place this time next year.
“If that clown does convince enough people that’s he not a commie wanna-be”
I’m afraid that Senator McCain has to do much of the convincing ~ something that is lacking in the debates.
Hope the Barracuda can pull our bacon out of the fire!
You can’t be making up a story like this and just bring it up without it having a broad foundation for it.
I can tell you that the thinking and background description of the people in Northeast Philadelphia is ‘to a tee’ as described in this article. I know. I was raised and grew up in NE PHILA!
You combine Obama’s background/radicalness and Hillary Clinton’s PUMA effect, and I can tell you that NE PHILA will totally depress the inner city Phila vote unlike no one is projecting or expecting in the MSM. It has the potential to be truly shocking.
If McCain/Palin can continue to hold their own, and keep this a ‘close’ contest, the ripples will go far beyond NE PHILA and will spill into the Phila ‘burbs’ of Bucks County and Montgomery County - very large ‘RINO/SOCCER MOM’ areas.
I haven’t heard from my dem friends in the old neighborhood - I know they hate Pres Bush and will be blaming their over inflated housing prices on him - Hey, no one made them keep refinancing until they now owe more than their houses are worth...... but I just don’t see them being Bambi supporters...
Racist or not, that’s just the way they think.
Heard this recently
Rscism is thinking that one’s race is bettr than others. Nazis for example, thought the Aryans were better
Bigots prefer their own race.
Prejudice is when one prejudges a person because of preconceptions or previous experience with others.
There have been a noticeable lack of political signs in my neighborhood this year and I can only guess that people are a bit intimidated these days. Anyway, this week a few popped up: 2 MAC/Palin, 1 Barry/Biden. Now I know this is not a great statistical sampling but the remarkable thing is that I live in Massachusetts.
What beautiful pictures of her.Nice website:)
Imho, there are millions out there like him.
Great quote.
“McCain prevails, barely”
He may prevail.
But the “barely” reveals how dangerously close this nation is to the end of its journey of freedom.
If we have come _that close_ to electing a Marxist/Islamic cypher like Obama, what does that say for our future?
- John
I’m visiting relatives in SOLANCO - Southern Lancaster County here in PA. I don’t know what the local politics are but while there are not lawn signs by every house, where they do appear, the ratio is about 5 to 1 in favor of McCain/Palin.
(I add her name instead of the shortcut as I suspect many are voting for McCain ONLY because of Gov. Palin.)
So true.
That’s interesting. I have a friend who is a union electrician. He refuses to vote for the O. He’s learned to not say too much because his co-workers give him no end of cr@p. Particularly the “minority” co-workers.
I still don’t see vast numbers of middle class Southern white rank and file union members going along.
We’re seeing a few more each day here in SW WI. We don’t have either because we are in business and cannot afford to offend clients. However, we take note of who has a zerO sign and we boycott them.
When I run into former friends who are leftists, I have noticed they are not bringing up politics at all. I don’t know that former die hard donks in elite areas of Blue cities are not voting for zerO, though, because we all stopped speaking to each other sometime in the past 4 years.
Anyone who knows the lay of the land on Chicago’s Near North/yuppie-infested formerly ethnic neighborhoods, please post!
Clemenza, you’ve been saying for awhile that Philly-area working-class whites would not be supporting Obama-—here’s some anecdotal evidence regarding voters in Northeast Philly.
BTW, the old PA-03, which was entirely within NE Philly, if I’m not mistaken gave George H.W. Bush 52% in 1988 (DJ, please confirm), but NE Philly moved towards the Democrats commencing in 1992. If those voters don’t give Obama the types of margins to which Democrats have become accustomed, it will help McCain get that extra 1.5% or so in PA that he needs to carry the state (President Bush got 48.42% in PA in 2004).
There are many more like him. We are union, and in Ohio, this is happening everywhere. Don’t worry!
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