Pennsylvania – A State Apart

Tuesday, Pennsylvania will hold its primary elections for the democratic presidential nominee. It is paramount for Hilary Clinton to obtain a decisive victory. It is in that state that Barack Obama must show that he can persuade the complex electorate of a great country to vote for him. Pennsylvania is a state of contrasts and great historical import: industrial in the North, agricultural in the south, it has been favourably inclined towards the Democrats for the last two decades. The state in which the oldest written Constitution in the world was born, which had long ago offered warm hospitality to the intrepid Marquis de la Fayette, is considered to be pivotal in the race for the nomination between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. And still, Pennsylvania is a little known State. Undeservedly so.

On Tuesday, the State of Pennsylvania will play a key role in the race to the democratic primaries. Pennsylvania is one of the few states in America named after its founder. The Quaker William Penn established, among other things, the freedom to think and in particular the right to practice one’s religion in complete freedom, since … 1682! This State was offered to him by the English king Charles II by way of repaying a debt, and was immediately called “Penn’s woods”, Pennsylvania.*

Today Pennsylvania is a multiethnic state, whose solidly industrialized north has been a victim of globalization in a widespread loss of employment. The Quaker State is agricultural in the south, still peppered with centuries-old wooden houses. It is in one of those houses in the north of Philadelphia, that George Washington provided modest lodgings to the young Marquis de la Fayette, 20 years old in 1777, who had come to offer his services in the fight against the British army. It is in this State also that the wane troops of the American General (who at one time had rebelled against their own Generals!) succeeded in mounting attacks, which were to be proven decisive in the quest for independence.

Moreover, it was in Philadelphia in 1774, that the First Continental Congress drew up and signed the Declaration of Independence. Later, the Constitution was written, and Philadelphia was once again chosen to be cradle to the new American Nation. Pennsylvania was the second colonial State to join the Union which defied the British Empire on which the “sun never set”…

The Amish live there as if it were 200 years ago

Another characteristic of the keystone state (A keystone being the architectural piece that locks the other pieces into position. which makes it very important structurally) is its Catholic majority. Pennsylvania is also noted for having the highest concentration of an Amish population in the United States, who live free of harassment, with no social security, no electricity and no telephone, and use only horse-drawn buggies. The 12 million Amish trace their roots mainly to the Germans (27%), Irishman, Italians, English or Polish (7%) .

It is in this key state that the former first lady can make an unlikely successful comeback on Tuesday in the race to the White House. But she must widen the gap in order to convince and gain the state’s 158 precious superdelegates’ votes. Therefore she plays the card of being “a true daughter of the land”, relying on this being her father’s birth place, in Scranton, and taking pride in the fact that she lived there for part of her childhood.

Hillary Clinton – “daughter of the land”

This card of “I understand you” is in opposition to Obama’s blunder earlier this month, which was the first time he slipped badly in his campaign, when he invoked the small towns of Pennsylvania and their unemployed multitudes as “cling[ing] to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

All the polls show Hillary Clinton winning, including that of Temple University, which allots 44% of the votes to Clinton, with 35% to Obama (and 19% undecided).

Thus we continue to keep an eye on the unfolding events with great attention…

*“Sylvan”, from the Latin, abounding in trees; wooded.