Posted: Thursday, 31 July 2008 10:41AM
Obama Machine Hits Local Potholes
Steve Corbett Reporting
Thursday, July 31, 2008
The gas crisis just got more confusing.
Yesterday on “Corbett,” Marty from Scranton emailed me to let me know that a Barack Obama rally was scheduled this morning in the Hill Section of the city – “your neighborhood,” Marty wrote.
The event was planned for an old-fashioned urban gas station – a symbolic setting where working-class people have filled their tanks for years as part of the struggle to survive in a hard neighborhood.
The event would kick off a combination voter registration and get-out-the-vote campaign.
Lackawanna County Commissioners Mike Washo and Corey O’Brien would be there, Marty said. So would Scranton Mayor Chris Doherty, Marty said.
Democrats all, Doherty stood by Hillary Clinton during her landslide hammering of Obama in the Pennsylvania primary. Washo and O’Brien came out early for Obama and are now hoping to ride the gravy train to fame and fortune.
Obama will need them and every other Democrat he can find in Scranton if he hopes to win Northeastern Pennsylvania in November.
Thanks, Marty, I wrote back.
But will you or another Obama supporter talk on the radio about the rally?
No, he said in response.
And nobody did either.
All Marty provided was the name of the guy who owns the gas station in the Hill. But when we called him during the break, all he said was that some guy from the local Obama campaign had stopped by and asked if they could rally ’round his pumps this morning in an exercise of democracy.
Whatever, he said.
But he didn’t even know the guy’s name or any other details about the Obama campaign event.
Despite my attempts to alert people to this political gathering for Obama, nobody from his campaign responded. Obama supporters who did call to defend their man also had no knowledge of the rally.
Once again Obama supporters in Northeastern Pennsylvania blew it.
If this keeps up, they can call it a day long before Election Day because the smooth, well-oiled Obama machine has hit some serious local potholes.
Even if the rally gets underway today, it will make far less impact than it could have made with some real basic organization.
I’ll let you know what happened on today’s show.
I tried my best to be fair last week when Obama supporters scheduled another rally on Public Square in Wilkes-Barre.
I read about that one in the previous day’s paper and immediately called the communications director for the state Democratic Party, who came on the air to talk about the rally as if it would draw hundreds.
Dozens of Iraq War veterans would gather, he said, to talk about the high cost of war and oppose Republican John McCain’s plan to push the war effort.
Reports indicate that fewer than a dozen people showed up on Public Square, an early indication of a serious flaw in Obama’s Wilkes-Barre local team spirit.
I tried harder to promote their rally than they did – and I oppose Obama. I’m turning down Obama. There will be “nobama” for me. In the 2008 race I’m with Hillary Clinton until the last light bulb burns out in America.
Pumping up the volume means working harder in the enemy camp than ever. The coal region is Clinton Country and Obama’s minions must work triple time if they hope to make change they can believe in.
Right now, the only change I see is chump change. If this is what the world’s been waiting for, count me out.
Obama, the presumptuous nominee, needs local political organization in battleground states such as Pennsylvania more than he needs hundreds of thousands of fawning Germans cheering for him like he’s the lead singer for the Berlin Wall band called the Scorpions.
Obama needs to get real.
You want change, Obama?
Pump your own gas for a change.
See how it feels to wake up on the wrong side of the pumps.
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