On Sunday gun rights took center stage for Pennsylvania Democrats in the suburbs of Philadelphia and the rural communities of the central part of the state as primary voters debated the meaning of Barack Obama’s statements about what motivates “small-town” voters.
Obama’s challenge: How to reach wealthy liberals in Philadelphia’s suburbs without alienating the central part of the state’s blue-collar masses.
“For Obama to win the state, he has to win the suburbs of Philadelphia big,” said Jon Delano, a Pittsburgh-based political analyst and adjunct policy professor at Carnegie Mellon University.
Delano added, however, that “a third of the Democrats are in southeastern Pennsylvania, a quarter are in southwestern Pennsylvania, and the remaining 40 percent are spread across hundreds of miles in nooks and crannies that require retail politics, and Clinton is very good at retail politics.”
On Sunday morning, members of Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church listened to a sermon calling for an end to gun violence.
“Four hundred people in Philadelphia were killed by gun violence last year,” said the Rev. Dr. Wesley Avram, pastor of the 3,000-member congregation. “Where are you being called to take peace?”
Two hours to the west in the town of York, young Democrats in sweat shirts and baseball caps spent the afternoon with 9 mm handguns blasting holes in targets at the local shooting range.
“It’s a hobby,” said David Black, a 23-year-old counselor for juvenile sex offenders. “It’s like going to the movies.”
Obama’s recent comments about how “bitter” small-town residents “cling” to their guns didn’t dissuade Black from saying he’d support the candidate next Tuesday, however.
“He could’ve expressed it better, but I don’t think he was being elitist,” Black said. “His general concept was that people are frustrated with government as it’s been — that’s his entire platform.”
