Remember Nash McCabe? The "concerned citizen" through which ABC News laundered their atrocious patriotism impugning lapel-pin question in the Pennsylvania primary debate? I know; hard to believe it's only been five weeks ago--this primary campaign unfolds in psychotic reverse dog years with regards to how time feels.
First, a little background on Nash McCabe; there's a nice McClatchy profile HERE.
Second, it's impossible to not be completely sympathetic to her plight. I grew up in a single mother, paycheck-to-paycheck household. It's an incredible strain; and terribly difficult to break that cycle.
Third, I think Nash McCabe perfectly encapsulates the larger point that Barack Obama was attempting to make with his now infamous "bitter" comments.
A little background regarding Nash McCabe and the circumstances that led her to ask this question to Barack Obama in the debate preceding the Pennsylvania primary:
Senator Obama, I have a question, and I want to know if you believe in the American flag. I am not questioning your patriotism, but all our servicemen, policemen and EMS wear the flag. I want to know why you don't.
Nash McCabe lives in Latrobe, PA, located forty miles southeast of Pittsburgh. The population of the city is less than 10,000 and the city has lost more than 20% of its population between the 1990 and 2000 census. Latrobe is almost 99% white.
McCabe is fifty-two years old. She met her husband at a dance in 1983, and married him two months later; they have been married since. Six months into the marriage, Nash's husband was injured in an accident at the coal mine in which he was employed. He has been unable to work since.
The McClatchy article stated:
They never had children. He had back surgery. The muscle relaxers he took damaged his heart. He's had three bypasses, nine angioplasties, seven stents and a pacemaker. Three months ago doctors found a brain tumor. His choice: surgery that he may or may not survive, or life in a wheelchair.
Over 25 years of marriage, McCabe was the breadwinner. She said it took eight years to get her husband disability payments, during which time they racked up huge bills.
"I was a nurse's aide, a cashier," McCabe said. "From 1996 to 2000, I was a manager of a cleaning company. I started out as secretary and worked my way up to manager, and then the company decided to close. It took me almost two-and-a-half years to find a job that I got laid off from recently" as a clerk-typist. She has a high school diploma.
Sometimes the McCabes borrow money from her parents, who are in their 70s. She has a request in to the local food bank to see if she and her husband qualify.
Basically, a heartbreaking account of someone with an incredible amount of economic uncertainty, long-term health care concerns and obvious uneasiness about the ability to find steady work. In sum, Nash McCabe is the perfect embodiment of the very real substantive concerns that are weighing heavily on many Americans.
So, what did Nash McCabe care to know about Barack Obama?
I want to know if you believe in the American flag. I am not questioning your patriotism, but all our servicemen, policemen and EMS wear the flag. I want to know why you don't.
That's not an indictment of Mrs. McCabe. She has every right to be concerned about whatever issue she wants, regardless of what I think of her question. Is a flag pin going to make it easier for her to find a job? Make sure her husband is getting his disability payments? Trying to find decent health care? Of course not; it's not relevant to anything that might be able to improve her family's day-to-day life and allow them to live with a little dignity and security.
All of which brings me to Sen. Obama. Here's what he said--and, by the way, I can't read these words, even as inartfully as he attempted to make his point and not think of Nash McCabe:
Here's how it is: in a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so long, and they feel so betrayed by government, and when they hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, then a part of them just doesn't buy it. And when it's delivered by -- it's true that when it's delivered by a 46-year-old black man named Barack Obama (laugher), then that adds another layer of skepticism (laughter). [Next paragraph edited out]
But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
Again, the last sentence was not expressed in a manner that Sen. Obama would have preferred, as he himself has stated. However, up until the word 'bitter,' doesn't this sentiment both express and have sympathy for Pennsylvanians like Nash McCabe? Out of touch? Has a politician in our lifetime been more in touch with the struggles faced by folks in this country?
All of the problems with which Nash McCabe fights daily battles and what's the issue with which she has chosen to express the most concern: whether Barack Obama has a flag pin on his lapel?
That's where we are in this country. That's why, imperfect as he is, Barack Obama is the best choice for president of the United States.
God bless.
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