Lost Jobs and Military Funerals Haunt Bush in the Heartland
A MUST read from the Village Voice. (lengthy, but worth it.)
Snip:
Though even in this, Oglesby, Illinois's local den of iniquity, Republicans aren't hard to find, either. "I thought Bush would be a good man for the job at the time, and thought he'd be a good president," says the terse young man, whose nickname is Stony. "So I voted for him."
Stony is the kind of guy liberals love to worry about, the kind they fret they can't win over by next year's election. He works the midnight shift as a "picker" at a nearby grocery warehouse—the very job Tom Wolfe depicts as the soul of thankless blue-collar humiliation in his latest novel. Stony talks proudly about his union and, quietly, mentions his fears that his workplace "could have a shutdown any day. You never know."
Liberals: Worry less. Stony no longer supports George Bush: "Because of the war. Too many people dyin'." Neither does his drunken friend, who pipes up: "I hate him. Because there are kids getting killed every single day."
"I won't go to Wal-Mart. My problem is that the company made $7 billion in profits. And yet they pay their workers substandard wages." Health co-payments are so expensive, he notes, that less than half sign up for the "benefit." This worker fears Wal-Mart more than he fears weapons of mass destruction. Because he knows which one is more likely to end up in his future. Americans who fear Wal-Mart more than apparitional WMDs (and apparitional dreadlocked drug dealers) are proliferating every day—and must be made to proliferate more, for the sake of our nation. This is the Democratic Party's hope: convincing Red America they can provide an economy that's safe for the whole family.
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0349/perlstein.php
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