Thursday, October 23, 2008

Southwestern Pennsylvania

Yesterday on Hannity and Colmes, Karl Rover said this about southwestern Pennsylvania:
ROVE: But it’s a conservative part of the state, and then if you take the far southwestern corner over there near Pittsburgh and the suburbs, that’s coal country, and that’s the kind of people who really do cling to their guns and their faith, and took a lot of — you know that was part of the state where Obama might be expected to do well.
I grew up in southwestern Pennsylvania, in a little place up in the mountains too rural to even be considered a village, and Rove is simply incorrect. People there have guns, sure, for hunting, but they are by no means fanatical about it. Yes, my dad took me to shoot rats at the dump, and a few times we had to pull over so he could shoot a groundhog or two in a field. I wasn't ever much interested, personally. Faith? Hardly. Growing up I never heard anybody in my family or extended family talk about faith or religion. We went to church for awhile and then gave it up. I went to Bible summer school one year and mostly remember it for the girls there. No one in my family goes to church. No one in the community or nearby communities talks about religion, if at all. There is no evangelicalism. Religion was not discussed in schools or anywhere else. The churches are modest and not ostentatious. The biggest religion there is the Pittsburgh Steelers.

In my visits back there I don't see that it's changed much back there.

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