Subject: Marine Observation
Hi, Kathleen…Most of my relatives live in Pennsylvania (my home state) and Indiana (my adopted state since 1964). The Clarks are patriotic, mostly blue collar, evangelical, and usually Republican. This year, they are having reservations about John McCain and were willing to give Barack Obama a fair hearing…until last Sunday.
Whatever message he intended his words at that San Francisco fundraiser to convey, the way my aunts, uncles, brothers, and cousins heard them was:
“Those poor rubes and yokels out there in ‘fly over country’ are worried about economic trends over the past couple of decades, so they’re angry and bitter. Since they can’t sort through the ambiguities of world economics and the complexities of the Twenty First Century, they are clinging to their First and Second Amendment rights like shipwrecked sailors cling to driftwood. They are too simple-minded to think through the issues of culpability, so they resort to racism, xenophobia, isolationism, and protectionism to deal with their fear and frustration. They also use a simplistic Sunday School religion as a security blanket when faced with the threats around them.”
I think that Barack Hussein Obama just blew it.
Big time.