This morning was an article titled In Flag City USA, False Obama Rumors Are Flying in the Washington Post newspaper.
It profiled Jim Peterman, from Findlay, a retired worker at Cooper Tire, a father of two, an Air Force veteran and a self-described patriot, who as the paper states is “a swing voter who entered this election leaning Democratic” and the difficulties the Obama campaign has to dispel the false rumors percolating about the candidate. The article talked about Findlay itself and how most citizens hate change. Unfortunately the paper failed to mention that Peterman is a minority in Hancock county. The county is so GOP that a Democrat hasn’t won the presidential election in the county since the time of Woodrow Wilson.
I guess they were trying to show that Findlay is a battle ground when the battle there is over and has been for sometime. The false rumors will never be refuted in the minds of most Findlay people because the local radio station airs all the GOP flacks who reinforced them and Obama is left to place adverts in the paper which doesn’t convince anyone with their mind made up.
“I’ll admit that I probably don’t follow all of the election news like maybe I should,” Peterman said. “I haven’t read his books or studied up more than a little bit. But it’s hard to ignore what you hear when everybody you know is saying it. These are good people, smart people, so can they really all be wrong?”
People rarely change their mind in Findlay – just check the The Courier news archive on the topic of sidewalks…. That argument has been going on for more than 20 years now.
The article is yet another way the mainstream media is sweet on the GOP and McCain. If they wanted to do a balanced piece they would have gone to a more balanced district or found real swing voters.