It’s Not All About Race
Ben Smith gets an interesting email from an Obama canvasser in Southern Ohio:
The ‘Lil Kentucky district in Mansfield, OH was settled by families who came north in the postwar years to take steel and automotive jobs in Ohio’s industrial heartland. While the jobs have dissipated in the last quarter century, the families have remained in place for more than generation and many still carry with them the trappings of a Southern upbringing.
In the first house I visited, a huge Confederate flag that completely filled my field of view was tacked to the living room wall. Couldn’t take my eyes off it as I launched into my standard Obama talk. The guy stopped me mid-sentence, “We’re with Obama. He’s the only one for the working man. Most of us around here are GM and GM is with Obama.”
His neighbor was a postal worker. I almost missed the ceramic black lawn jockey on his porch, a relic of bygone days in many other parts of the state, but what was unmistakable was the household’s political allegiance: a “Postal Workers Back Obama” yard sign was planted on the front lawn.
The talking heads can go on and on about how race is the biggest issue in this election, but, with their livelihoods at stake, Americans have far more important things to worry about.
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