MERRILLVILLE, Ind. - No game of free association would lead one to link Hillary Clinton and firetrucks, but there she was on Monday, standing in front of the ruby-red beauty that the local volunteer firefighters rely on every day.
No, she didn't do a Full Dukakis and get behind the wheel. She just stood there with a dozen uniformed firefighters up above her on the truck, basking in the applause of the huge crowd of folks in work clothes and jeans and t-shirts that had gathered to see her.
There she was: Hillary Clinton, working-class hero.
Meanwhile, 268 miles to the south, Barack Obama mixed with a bunch of brick-layers, aching to prove that he, too, had a lot more in common with the working folks than he had with, say ... the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
So this is what this campaign has come to. Hillary swigs a shot of whiskey at a bar in Pennsylvania and drops the "g"'s from every blinkin' word that ends with "ing" here in Indiana. And Obama throws gutter balls in a Pennsylvania bowling alley and fusses over the locally baked biscuits in the Hoosier State.
So, workers of the world, what do you make of it all?
--- Jerry Zremski
tagged
Race for the White House
