US election coverage

From James Norman (Johnstown, Pennsylvania)

Here in Johnstown Pennsylvania on the weekend the queues stretched four blocks down the street, past the abandoned factories and old coal mill, a sea of flag waving Republicans had gathered to hear Sarah Palin at the War Memorial.

Since her entry onto the national stage as Vice Presidential candidate just a month ago, the Alaskan governor Sarah Palin has dramatically re-ignited the US culture wars.

The scene on the streets couldn’t have presented a clearer picture.

On one side of Main Street several thousand gathered holding banners with captions such as ‘NOBAMA’ and ‘America is killing Americans: Make abortion illegal’. On the other of the road a group of Obama supporters, union men and women mostly, wearing buttons such as steel workers for Obama.

They shouted abuse across the street at one another like footy fans at the MCG on grand final day.

Palin’s Johnstown speech signalled a shift in her rhetoric away from dwelling on Obama’s connection with 60s radical Bill Ayers to his record on abortion, saying that he “hopes you won’t notice how radical
his ideas are on this until it’s too late.”

It was perhaps her most blatant pitch yet into the culture wars. Her central message here was about abortion – a hot button issue in US politics.

“As defenders of the culture of life, John McCain and I believe in the goodness and potential of every innocent life,” she said.  “I believe the truest measure of any society is how it treats those who are least able to defend and speak for themselves. And who is more vulnerable, or more innocent, than a child?”

The key here is that America decides its abortion laws not in elections but in the Supreme Court. Bush has appointed two conservative pro-life Judges in his term of office – John Roberts and Samuel Alito. That means that if McCain/Palin are elected, he will only need to appoint one more conservative to the High Court.

The likely result of that would be the reversal of Roe vs Wade and the banning of abortion in America, potentially for generations.

Obama, on the other hand, would likely appoint a progressive that would maintain the availability of abortion under tightly controlled circumstances to be determined on a state to state basis.

Sarah Palin is an evangelical Christian who opposes abortion even in the cases of rape and incest. McCain, on the other hand, has a history of playing a much cooler hand on social issues.

He supports gay marriage being a decision of the each states, and during the 2000 Presidential election denounced the two most prominent Christian conservatives, Pat Robertson and Jerry Faldwell, as “agents of intolerance.”

There is a pattern emerging in the Republican campaign where John McCain is the diplomat and Sarah Palin is the attack dog (or pitbull with lipstick to use her words).

The previous day John McCain had attempted to derailed the more personal tone the attacks on Obama had taken over the previous week. One woman at a town hall meeting told McCain that she didn’t trust Obama because he is an Arab. Another crowd member jeered ‘Kill him!’.

McCain told the meeting that he respected Obama, that he is a good family man, and that the American people should not be scared if he were to become president.

It was no coincidence that Sarah Palin chose to speak about abortion in Johnstown.

Like many other small economically depressed American towns, Johnstown is made up of many wavering voters and disenfranchised workers. The tiny town also contains over 100 churches for its 20 thousand residents.

At one point the crowd outside the rally broke into a chant of ‘Religion and Guns, Religion and Guns’.

They were repeating the accusation that Obama made in San Francisco earlier this year that some working class voters had not taken to him because in their bitterness over economic woes, they clung to religion and guns.

Obama must have been speaking about people in towns like Johnstown. Perhaps he shouldn’t be too surprised that Sarah Palin received a rock star welcome here and that her anti-abortion message resonated.
[4:02:17 PM] james norman says: Palin’s Pitch to the Culture Wars
By James Norman (Johnstown, Pennsylvania)

Here in Johnstown Pennsylvania on the weekend the queues stretched four blocks down the street, past the abandoned factories and old coal mill, a sea of flag waving Republicans had gathered to hear Sarah Palin at the War Memorial.

Since her entry onto the national stage as Vice Presidential candidate just a month ago, the Alaskan governor Sarah Palin has dramatically re-ignited the US culture wars.

The scene on the streets couldn’t have presented a clearer picture.

On one side of Main Street several thousand gathered holding banners with captions such as ‘NOBAMA’ and ‘America is killing Americans: Make abortion illegal’. On the other of the road a group of Obama supporters, union men and women mostly, wearing buttons such as steel workers for Obama.

They shouted abuse across the street at one another like footy fans at the MCG on grand final day.

Palin’s Johnstown speech signalled a shift in her rhetoric away from dwelling on Obama’s connection with 60s radical Bill Ayers to his record on abortion, saying that he “hopes you won’t notice how radical
his ideas are on this until it’s too late.”

It was perhaps her most blatant pitch yet into the culture wars. Her central message here was about abortion – a hot button issue in US politics.

“As defenders of the culture of life, John McCain and I believe in the goodness and potential of every innocent life,” she said.  “I believe the truest measure of any society is how it treats those who are least able to defend and speak for themselves. And who is more vulnerable, or more innocent, than a child?”

The key here is that America decides its abortion laws not in elections but in the Supreme Court. Bush has appointed two conservative pro-life Judges in his term of office – John Roberts and Samuel Alito. That means that if McCain/Palin are elected, he will only need to appoint one more conservative to the High Court.

The likely result of that would be the reversal of Roe vs Wade and the banning of abortion in America, potentially for generations.

Obama, on the other hand, would likely appoint a progressive that would maintain the availability of abortion under tightly controlled circumstances to be determined on a state to state basis.

Sarah Palin is an evangelical Christian who opposes abortion even in the cases of rape and incest. McCain, on the other hand, has a history of playing a much cooler hand on social issues.

He supports gay marriage being a decision of the each states, and during the 2000 Presidential election denounced the two most prominent Christian conservatives, Pat Robertson and Jerry Faldwell, as “agents of intolerance.”

There is a pattern emerging in the Republican campaign where John McCain is the diplomat and Sarah Palin is the attack dog (or pitbull with lipstick to use her words).

The previous day John McCain had attempted to derailed the more personal tone the attacks on Obama had taken over the previous week. One woman at a town hall meeting told McCain that she didn’t trust Obama because he is an Arab. Another crowd member jeered ‘Kill him!’.

McCain told the meeting that he respected Obama, that he is a good family man, and that the American people should not be scared if he were to become president.

It was no coincidence that Sarah Palin chose to speak about abortion in Johnstown.

Like many other small economically depressed American towns, Johnstown is made up of many wavering voters and disenfranchised workers. The tiny town also contains over 100 churches for its 20 thousand residents.

At one point the crowd outside the rally broke into a chant of ‘Religion and Guns, Religion and Guns’.

They were repeating the accusation that Obama made in San Francisco earlier this year that some working class voters had not taken to him because in their bitterness over economic woes, they clung to religion and guns.

Obama must have been speaking about people in towns like Johnstown. Perhaps he shouldn’t be too surprised that Sarah Palin received a rock star welcome here and that her anti-abortion message resonated.