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Published Letters: 17
Editor's Choice: 11
I spent two days in Columbus reporting this piece and what surprised me the most was the number of political insiders in Ohio (as many Republicans as Democrats, by the way) who honestly confessed bafflement about the degree to which Obama's racial heritage would affect the outcome. That is why I stressed it in the first paragraphs of my article because it was something that seemed new based on my reporting.
What often troubles me about reading the letter threads at Salon is the number of readers who seem to think that every reported article has a hidden conspiracy-theory agenda. I certainly was not trying to set up an excuse for Obama losing Ohio, mourning Hillary's defeat nor accusing the voters of Ohio of racism. All I was doing was interviewing many people -- and drawing conclusions from the conversations. That, to me, is the point of going somewhere and actually reporting rather than merely theorizing in front of a TV or computer screen.
One last point: I quoted a voter in the article who expressed his certainty that Obama did not pledge allegiance to the flag and had a fake Hawaiian birth certificate. I did not refute these claims in print because I thought that they were so ludicrous that readers would feel insulted if I stopped to point out that they were obviously false. In hindsight, though, I might spell things out explicitly the next time around.
