Photo: PDA’s Tina Shanon

A Rural Slice
of a Big State
Tests Obama

[The Tina Shannon quoted in this article is the Chair of the 4th CD Progressive Democrats of America and a stalwart of Beaver County Peace Links, our local UFPJ group. Carl Davidson, also quoted, as well as being a supporter of PDA here, is also working with 'Progressives for Obama'. All of us gave the writer a little help finding people to talk to, but he was a great door-knocker all on his own. The article captures, quite well, why this is a close race, why we must, despite a bumpy ride, redouble our efforts, remain resolute and focused -- Stop McCain, Stop the War, Vote Obama 2008!]

By MICHAEL POWELL
New York Times
August 21, 2008

RACCOON TOWNSHIP, Pa. — Wander up a gravel road and ask George Timko about Barack Obama and John McCain and he wrinkles his nose. Neither of those guys strikes him as a prize.

Mr. Timko is a burly fellow, with close-cropped white hair and a Fu Manchu mustache, and a gold necklace that rests on his bare chest. “Barack Obama makes me nervous,” said Mr. Timko, a 65-year-old retiree with a garden hose in hand. “Who is he? Where’d he come from? ”

As for Senator McCain? He shook his head. “He keeps talking about being a prisoner of war back in Vietnam: Great. The economy stinks; tell me his plan?”

To roam the rural reaches of western Pennsylvania, through white working-class counties, is to understand the breadth of the challenge facing the two presidential candidates. But this economically ravaged region, once so solidly Democratic, poses a particular hurdle for Senator Obama.
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