Check out our special report on the US presidential elections for in-depth analysis, reports, and interviews.
On April 22, the voters of Pennsylvania head to the polls in the next US presidential primary election. While Senator John McCain is all but guaranteed the Republican nomination, fellow Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton continue to battle it out for the top spot on the Democratic Party ticket. A Franklin and Marshall poll released April 15, shows Clinton hanging on to a 6-point lead, though Obama has gained more than 15 percentage points in the past few weeks.
But the poll was conducted before news spread of Obama’s now-famous “guns or religion” comment. He made the remarks at a private fundraiser in San Francisco on April 6: “You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and… the jobs have been gone now for 25 years, and nothing's replaced them…. It's not surprising then 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.”
The Keystone State
His words went unnoticed for some time, until an April 14 post on the liberal political website Huffington Post. Now, his opponents and the media are analysing and dissecting every word. Are Pennsylvanians bitter? Are they clinging to their guns and their religion out of frustration? While Obama’s remarks may reflect the sentiments of some local residents, Pennsylvania is a complex state and its citizens are not so easily pigeonholed.
Pennsylvania has always been a key player in US politics. In fact, its nickname is the “Keystone State” for its central role in early US history.
Over the years, many different immigrant groups flocked to Pennsylvania. In its early years, the state was flooded with German immigrants looking for farming land (a German dialect is still spoken today by communities known as the Pennsylvania Dutch). Later immigrant groups, notably Irish and Italians, were drawn by the prospect of work in Pennsylvania’s two main industries – coalmining and steel – and the industries that serviced them, such as shipping and railroads.
Today Pennsylvania is the sixth-biggest state in the US, with a population of just under 12.5 million people. Many of the manufacturing jobs that attracted immigrants disappeared in the 1970s and 1980s (unlike in neighbouring Ohio, where job losses are often blamed on the NAFTA trade agreement passed by Clinton’s husband President Bill Clinton in the 1990s).
‘Philadelphia in the east, Pittsburgh in the west, and Alabama in between’
James Carville, a Democratic political strategist, once described Pennsylvania as: “Philadelphia in the east, Pittsburgh in the west, and Alabama in between.” It’s true that Pennsylvania is dominated by its two main cities, located on opposite sides of the state. Thanks to the cities’ growing economies, the unemployment rate in Pennsylvania is actually declining, with the most recent figure at around 4.9%. “Pennsylvania’s economy is not as bad as people want to make it,” says Terry Madonna, political science professor at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Philadelphia, in the east, is fully integrated into the bustling Boston-New York-Washington corridor. The city has taken advantage of the high-tech boom, with telecommunications giant Comcast headquartered there.
Pittsburgh, near the Ohio border in the west, suffered terribly in the 1970s and 1980s due to the demise of the steel industry. However, the city recently turned a corner, repositioning itself as a hub for the high-tech, medical and biotechnology sectors.
The rest of Pennsylvania is primarily agricultural. It is the fifth-largest exporter of dairy products in the US and has over 58,000 farms. In the south-eastern part of the state, Amish and Mennonite communities continue to run their farms without electricity or motorized vehicles. Suzanne M. Gold, political science professor at Pennsylvania State University in State College, sums it up: “It’s small town America throughout the entire middle part of the state.”
The state is also dotted with small industrial cities, many past their prime and struggling to find a new business. Some have succeeded, many have not. These are the places that Obama was talking about at the fundraiser in San Francisco, and where Clinton has a solid voter base - cities like Scranton (the hometown of Clinton’s father), Bethlehem, and Allentown. Clinton has been heavily campaigning in these towns, running ads about her family in Scranton and her support for the blue-collar worker. “If she can’t win in these places then she can’t win, period,” says Madonna.
Words Matter
So what does all of this mean for the primary on April 22? Pennsylvania last played a deciding role in a presidential election in 1976, according to Madonna, when union bosses failed to stop Jimmy Carter locking up the Democratic nomination. For the first time in 30 years, Pennsylvanians feel they have a key role in the primary process, and turnout is expected to be high.
As for Obama’s remarks on April 6, their true impact will only be known after the final ballots are counted. The people most likely to be offended by the comments - religious conservatives and Pennsylvania’s 250,000 National Rifle Association members - would either vote Republican, or if they vote Democrat, are likely to favor Clinton over Obama. Regardless of Obama’s comments, Madonna thinks Clinton is “expected to do well in the state.”
He continued, “The combination of labor support, a large blue-collar Catholic base, a large number of older voters, and close ties to the political establishment bodes well for her. These are the electoral coalitions that have worked well for her in earlier states.”
Obama, in turn, looks to the urban areas of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh for support. Philadelphia’s large black community and wealthy liberal suburbs tend to favor Obama. He is also hoping to make inroads among the blue-collar and agricultural sectors. His recent endorsement by Pennsylvania’s conservative Democratic Senator Bob Casey could help him there.
