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"I know it sounds stupid," he says taking a long drag from his Maverick cigarette, "but Barack Hussein Obama?"
Yup. It sounds stupid all right.
How does a story like this get written. Somebody sits back and says to himself "Gosh, Obama's so wonderful, how can it possibly be that people are not deciding to vote for him?" And then, with the narrative in mind, the reporter goes out and fills up his story with the people he's looking for.
Why are stories like this always written about Democratic candidates, and why do they always take place in rural America? Is rural America some kind of fantasy destination for reporters? It seems to me, from a demographic perspective, that far fewer people live in rural America than in towns and cities, and that is true even in "red states".
I hope at some point, we'll have reporters go around cities and ask the hard questions. "Why is it that McCain cannot get any 'traction' among black, urban voters?"
Why do these narratives always come down to identifying rural, white Americans as "typical" Americans? They really aren't.
And yeah, somebody who thinks a Semitic middle name is a good reason to vote against somebody is a good argument for cancelling this democratic experiment altogether.
