"Why Obama May Triumph in Working Class Pennsylvania" (salon.com columnist)

[JPZenger]

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/10/30/pennsylvania_vote/

Why Obama may triumph in working-class Pennsylvania.

Returning to my home in Bucks County, I saw how the the utter bankruptcy of the Bush years has transformed the region's political landscape.

By Robert S. Eshelman

Excerpts:

"No one slammed the door," he replies, chuckling. Then he adds in all seriousness: "As the campaign has reached out to traditionally Republican voters, they've begun to realize that it's time to set aside how they feel about social issues. Eight years of Bush's failed policies have created a perfect storm, capped off by this economic meltdown. There's something that matters more to them now than how often the candidates go to church."

What Shane has pinpointed is Thomas Frank's well-known description of Republican Party dominance in Kansas -- but in reverse. After decades of being hooked on the values embodied by the Christian Coalition, values that powered the Reagan Revolution, many voters in Bucks County now seem understandably focused on bread-and-butter concerns -- wages, healthcare and the economy. If this is the bellwether political battleground that so many pundits and journalists make it out to be, then a mass defection from the Republican Party is under way. It's no longer a matter of a single candidate's inability to connect with voters, but perhaps a wholesale rejection of what the party has to offer.

With the exception of the fellow who wanted to "execute" them all, there was such a muted, tamped-down feel to my encounters, made only more awkward by the fact that I was walking around like the other journalists scouring the county, pad and pen in hand.

Of course, the Obama supporters were pumped up on canvassing day, while the air in the sparsely staffed Republican offices I visited was filled with the desperation of an animal caught in a trap. If Obama doesn't take the county, judging by the number of new, energized voters and the radioactivity of the Republican Party, I'll be shocked."