Former President Clinton came to visit our town yesterday, we were part of his swing through northwestern PA. He traveled from Erie (Behrend) to here and from here to St. Marys and Brookville and I hear he then spoke at Lock Haven also. I'm totally impressed with that itinerary, I wonder if the person who dreamed it up has ever driven rural roads. Bet Clinton was exhausted.
He opened his remarks, after thanking some people, with a comment of apology for arriving late -- it took him longer than he expected. A comment from the audience was heard, " That's alright, everyone says that." But it is so true. A state employee drove up from Harrisburg to meet with me yesterday and arrived hours after the 10 a.m. he said he'd be here. I've driven to Harrisburg for meetings, I knew he wouldn't make it by then. His comment, "Mapquest said it was only a 3 1/2 hour drive! I'm so sorry it took me longer than I expected." I'll also never forget the businessman who was to meet with us here, and asked for the most direct road from Pittsburgh. After we got done describing the multitude of back roads after he got off 80, he asked, "Don't you have ANY highways?" I told him the story about when I first moved here and heard a road referred to as 'the two lane'. I was totally confused until someone told me it was where Market Street went to two lanes, the equivalent of a highway or freeway around here. That is, if highways can have 15 mph school zones on them. It's not until you get to 17 in NY or 80 in PA that you see anything resembling a high speed freeway. Of course I now curse a rush hour traffic backup of 13 cars. I've long forgotten the gridlocks in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, or the time it took me 2 hours to get from one highway exit to another in San Diego. Everything has its trade off.
So, the Clinton's have been campaigning hard in PA; polls show Hillary has a good chance of winning here, and Barack Obama has largely ignored the under-populated northern half of this state. I understand he will be in Erie next week but tickets are being issued only at Behrend and at his campaign headquarters. I wonder if he's worried about fallout from his 'guns and religion' remark. We can be very sensitive about comments that even seem to portray us as backwoods rednecks. We can joke about being a part of Appalachia (by definition we are) but others can't infer we are somehow less educated or lacking in worldly knowledge. I work with a group of college-educated people, many with master's degrees, and the comments here have been much as I expected. We would all like to see the full conversation or speech and not be swayed by a statement taken out of context. We realize there has been little mudslinging (thank you both) and both candidates seem to have run clean, professional campaigns, except for small remarks on either side. I have learned over the years that when the campaigns get bitter I tune out the message and usually end up not voting for that candidate. To me mudslinging seems too much like desperation.
No comments:
Post a Comment