This is the point at which I fully bought into the possibility of a true landslide, a sea change, an election that alters the American political landscape for generations:
Anything can happen. Everyone knows that. But if McCain has lost the "Stars and Bars on a flagpole" demographic, it's over, man.
It does depend, though, on where this was taken and on the personality of the individual or family in question. The Stars 'n' Bars mean different things to different people. I had a friend freshman year at my overly liberal college in Maine who was from Louisiana and painted the Confederate flag on his dorm room ceiling. His roommate was Jewish, and he had plenty of African-American friends. (Well, plenty for Maine.) To him, it was just a symbol of his Southern heritage; he wasn't a racist, KKK-adjacent kind of guy at all. He's gone on to work in the nonprofit sector and is one of the least prejudiced people I've ever met. I'm definitely not condoning anybody's flying the S'n'B today, because it carries such a very loaded message, but I just wanted to point out that not everybody thinks of this symbolic piece of fabric in exactly the same way.
That said, seeing the juxtaposition of the S'n'B and the Obama/Biden sign at one voting household is a powerful suggestion that things just might be going Obama's way.
(Still, fellow Democrats and others who support The Big O, keep on keepin' on: phone-bank, door-knock and cross those fingers. You know...when they're not busy dialing and/or knocking.)
Posted by: Voice o' Reason | October 29, 2008 at 03:16 PM
It still shocks me more to see the juxtaposition of nationalism and treason on the same flagpole.
Posted by: yoyo | October 29, 2008 at 03:30 PM
But, hey, at least the Stars 'n' Stripes is on top, and it's not upside down.
(I'm Little Miss Glass-Half-Full today, aren't I?)
Posted by: Voice o' Reason | October 29, 2008 at 05:46 PM
Holy shit..........
Posted by: oddjob | October 29, 2008 at 06:39 PM
As I've said before, the problem with the 'stars and bars'(used late and seldom in the Late Unpleasantness) is for me, not that it is a Civil War flag, but that it was the flag of the Jim Crow South, the flag of lynchings and the American apartheid that was obtained until the Civil Rights act.
A lot of folks are just unaware of this history. Most Black folks who were alive then aren't.
When I was 3-4 (and that would have been in 1960 or so)I noticed one of my uncle's got a front car tag that was a 'stars and bars'..I asked my mom if we could get one, and she said, no son; your uncle doesn't like the laws letting black people vote or have rights. We support them, and we won't fly a rebel flag.
Thanks mom!
Posted by: MR Bill | October 30, 2008 at 02:35 AM
REDNECKS 4 OBAMA (Even we've had enough!)
Posted by: oddjob | October 30, 2008 at 08:32 AM