stephanie
10-21-2008, 10:09 AM
:wtf::lmao:
Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
(10-21) 04:00 PDT Rolla, Mo. -- Les Spencer is an atypical Barack Obama supporter. He's a redneck. His buddy Tony Viessman calls himself one, too. Without accessing their inner Jeff Foxworthy, they define redneck as hardworking guys who like to hunt, fish, and maybe pop a beer or two.
"I hunt squirrels, too," Spencer said, in between drags of bummed Pall Malls on Viessman's back porch. "And I like eating turtles."
Spencer and Viessman comprise the sum total of the Rolla, Mo.-born-and-bred "Rednecks for Obama." Unaffiliated with the Obama campaign, it's a home-grown shtick the two retirees invented to address what may be Obama's most serious challenge in becoming commander in chief: winning - or at least not totally losing - the "redneck" vote.
The two retirees have traveled on their own dime to all the debates and the Democratic National Convention to try to convince doubters that Obama is redneck-friendly. "This election is too important," Viessman said.
Obama's 'small-town' gaffe
Every voter worth his deer rifle remembers what Obama told attendees at a San Francisco fundraiser in April. He said small-town voters in Pennsylvania and elsewhere had become "bitter" over losing their jobs. That bitterness caused them to "cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people like them," he said.
Obama told the New York Times recently the statement was "my biggest boneheaded move" of the campaign, saying that he was "clumsily" trying to say the opposite: that since Democrats hadn't done a good job of reaching out to rural voters on cultural issues, they haven't been able to connect with them on economic ones.
Far more than his losing predecessors Al Gore and John Kerry, Obama has traveled to the reddest parts of states like Virginia, North Carolina and Missouri to try to connect. In 2004, George W. Bush won two-thirds of the vote in these rolling hills of Phelps County two hours southwest of St. Louis.
'Change is hard'
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/20/MNJM13L4F1.DTL
Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
(10-21) 04:00 PDT Rolla, Mo. -- Les Spencer is an atypical Barack Obama supporter. He's a redneck. His buddy Tony Viessman calls himself one, too. Without accessing their inner Jeff Foxworthy, they define redneck as hardworking guys who like to hunt, fish, and maybe pop a beer or two.
"I hunt squirrels, too," Spencer said, in between drags of bummed Pall Malls on Viessman's back porch. "And I like eating turtles."
Spencer and Viessman comprise the sum total of the Rolla, Mo.-born-and-bred "Rednecks for Obama." Unaffiliated with the Obama campaign, it's a home-grown shtick the two retirees invented to address what may be Obama's most serious challenge in becoming commander in chief: winning - or at least not totally losing - the "redneck" vote.
The two retirees have traveled on their own dime to all the debates and the Democratic National Convention to try to convince doubters that Obama is redneck-friendly. "This election is too important," Viessman said.
Obama's 'small-town' gaffe
Every voter worth his deer rifle remembers what Obama told attendees at a San Francisco fundraiser in April. He said small-town voters in Pennsylvania and elsewhere had become "bitter" over losing their jobs. That bitterness caused them to "cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people like them," he said.
Obama told the New York Times recently the statement was "my biggest boneheaded move" of the campaign, saying that he was "clumsily" trying to say the opposite: that since Democrats hadn't done a good job of reaching out to rural voters on cultural issues, they haven't been able to connect with them on economic ones.
Far more than his losing predecessors Al Gore and John Kerry, Obama has traveled to the reddest parts of states like Virginia, North Carolina and Missouri to try to connect. In 2004, George W. Bush won two-thirds of the vote in these rolling hills of Phelps County two hours southwest of St. Louis.
'Change is hard'
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/20/MNJM13L4F1.DTL