Posted by
davecatbone on Tuesday, August 19, 2008 8:53:01 AM
The Philadelphia Enquirer sent a columnist to Colorado to interview someone they called
Angry White Man. Expecting to find someone with horns and razor teeth, spewing racist xenophobic venom, Michael Smerconish was taken by surprise. Gary Hubbell writes a monthly column for the Aspen Times, and way back in early February wrote an Op-Ed titled,
"In election 2008, don't forget Angry White Man". We can all imagine the response this gets in the newsrooms and salons of Progressive America. But it became somewhat of a phenomenon on the internet.
So the intrepid Liberal Reporter goes out to fly-over country to find this person.
But instead of finding a Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter extremist, Smerconish came upon, instead, a former Democrat now registered as an Independent. And this is the chill streaking down the Liberal spine.
Not all Americans are falling in line with Hope & Change. Hubbell points out that each candidate is pandering to all the various special interest groups of different Races, Sexual Preference and Religious Beliefs. But he maintains they ignore the most important one of all:
"There is one group no one has recognized, and it is the group that
will decide the election: the Angry White Man. The Angry White Man
comes from all economic backgrounds, from dirt-poor to filthy rich. He
represents all geographic areas in America, from urban sophisticate to
rural redneck, Deep South to mountain West, Left Coast to Eastern
Seaboard."
Hubbell went on to describe that constituency: a gun-owning he-man
with no problem reconciling twin loves of football and family on Sunday
afternoons. A deer hunter and an avid golfer. A do-it-yourselfer who
hates handouts and the culture that coddles them.
The Angry White Man can't stand the Rev. Al Sharpton or anyone who
embodies the "liberal victim groups" the Angry White Man has come to
despise. But most of all, Hubbell wrote, the Angry White Man loathes
Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose "voice reminds him of a shovel scraping a
rock."
This guy is an expert fishing-and-hunting guide, ranch real estate broker, photo, film and video scout, purveyor
of "trail horses, hay for sale," and "professional writer and
photographer." The multi skilled individual necessary to make it in the West. And he has an opinion about this election.
Hubbell said he could not see himself voting for Sen. Barack Obama
in November - a notion he says has nothing to do with race, but much to
do with perceived liberal ideology. "I think people are supporting him
out of emotion rather than a rational analysis of his policies," he
writes. "If you want more taxes on people who really make this country
run - working Americans - to support yet another generation of sit-on-your-[butt]-and-collect-a-check slackers, then Obama's your man!"
In the end, he sees the November election as "a contest between rational thought and hope for change."
Rational thought and hope for change? Sounds eerily like an echo of these TH environs.