BY JONATHAN VALANIA A long time ago, in a Clinton campaign far, far away, James Carville famously declared that Pennsylvania is Pittsburgh and Philadelphia and Alabama in between. Aw, yeah: Pennsyltucky. We know thee well. It’s sort of like watching the Dukes Of Hazzard after smoking too much kielbasa. Like sweat socks with a Sunday suit. Like the Deer Hunter costumed by Wal-Mart. It’s the long dark Chicken Dance of the national soul. Lord help us all. Anyway, with the national press are already converging on the Keystone state to get some local color on their laptops, we feel an obligation to Sherpa them up to the mountaintop electoral bellwethers that only a local nature boy would know. Every day, or close to it, from now until April 22nd we will be calling up some unsuspecting Pennsyltuckian picked randomly out of the phone book and ask them point blank: Hillary or Obama? Today we talked to Marie Uslin, from the great Northeast!
PHAWKER: Hello, my name is Jonathan Valania, I am calling from the Internet where there’s two girls for
every guy! Can I ask you who you plan to vote for on April 22nd?
MARIE USLIN: Sure, you are the third person who called. I am for Hillary.
PHAWKER: What did you think of Obama’s speech about race?
MARIE USLIN: I didn’t like it, he had a weird smile.
PHAWKER: A weird smile?
MARIE USLIN: I am not prejudiced, but it just looked weird, like he was hiding something. I mean he is part Indian.
PHAWKER: I think you mean Indonesian. But the truth is he just lived there for a time when he was a child. He is actually 100% natural born American citizen. So, just to clarify: when you say he is hiding something and ‘he is part Indian’ you’re concerned that he is just acting like a nice guy who loves America but if he becomes President he would turn us over to our enemies or something?
MARIE USLIN: No, I don’t think that. I just think he’s too young. Hillary and McCain have experience.
PHAWKER: OK, but he IS 46 years old…
MARIE USLIN: Hey, I’m 49 years young…
PHAWKER: That’s the spirit. But what about the argument that the people that have been in Washington for the last 20 years have brought the country to its current state — two wars, a recession — and maybe it is time for new people and new thinking.
MARIE USLIN: Yeah, yeah, yeah, change, change, change. That’s what all the kids say. Look, my son was over there, I don’t like it either. I think we should just bomb them and come home.
PHAWKER: Bomb who?
MARIE USLIN: Osama bin Laden.
PHAWKER: Right, but you do know he is not in Iraq? Right?
MARIE USLIN: My son was in Iraq and then he was in Afghanistan.
PHAWKER: Wow, well, my hat is off to him for his sacrifice. Can we mention him by name?
MARIE USLIN: I don’t have permission…
PHAWKER: OK, no biggie. Just wanted to give him a shoutout.
MARIE USLIN: Maybe he will start talking to me then. His name is Richard William Uslin.
PHAWKER: You and your son don’t speak?
MARIE USLIN: Yeah, but it’s personal. It’s not about the war.