Quote:
YOUNGSTOWN, Pa. — Ken Reed sat down at the main bar of the Tin Lizzy tavern with two things in mind: to dig into the tavern’s oversize cheese steak, and watch the presidential debate.
“I am hungry and undecided, in that order,” he said, digging into the savory dish in a bar that dates back to 1746.
Kady Letoksy, a paralegal by day, a waitress and bartender at night at the Tin Lizzy, sat beside him. At 28, she has never voted before, and she is now thinking it might be a good idea to start.
Letosky entered the evening undecided in a town that is heavily Democratic in registration. Her sister and father are on opposite sides of the political aisle. Donald “Trump had the upper hand this evening,” she said, citing his command of the back-and-forth between him and Hillary Clinton.
Reed, 35, is a registered Democrat and small businessman. “By the end of the debate, Clinton never said a thing to persuade me that she had anything to offer me or my family or my community,” he said, sitting at the same bar that has boasted local icons as regulars, such as the late Fred Rogers, and Arnold Palmer, who had his own stash of PM Whiskey hidden behind newer bottles of whiskey for his regular visits.
“Have to say Trump had the edge this evening, he came out swinging but also talked about specifics on jobs and the economy,” Reed said.
The presidential debate plays on the television at the Tin Lizzy.Photo: Justin Merriman
Reed said Clinton came across as either smug or as though she was reading her résumé, adding there was nothing on her résumé that touched on his life. “I am a small businessman, a farmer, come from a long line of farmers and coal miners. The policies she talked about tonight ultimately either hurt me or ignore me,” he said.
How apropos for this presidential election that these patrons chose the Tin Lizzy — a 270-year-old tavern in this small Westmoreland County town — as the place to watch the historic debate between Clinton and Trump.
The tavern’s namesake is the Model T, the first affordable automobile available to America’s working class, which eventually became slang for something quite different.
If someone said you were “going the way of the Tin Lizzy,” it meant your job or industry was in decline, no longer useful.
That is how today’s cosmopolitan and political classes view Main Street voters — as people whose values, traditions, skills, jobs and lives are being replaced by something new.
“I’ve been a Democrat all of my life, but when Clinton mentions her husband and the jobs he brought to the country in the ’90s, it’s not a fair assessment. She is no moderate Democrat the way he was, her policies would not bring back jobs,” said Nathan Nemick.
It burns Nemick when Clinton references her husband, like she did in the debate on trade and jobs. “She is nothing like him,” he said of the Democrat he admired in his youth.
Pennsylvania is a high-stakes state for both candidates, but particularly Clinton, and Westmoreland is a high-stakes county, particularly for Trump.
She needs to win this state, and he needs not just to win this county but to do so by 2,000 more votes than Mitt Romney did in 2012.
Westmoreland is one of about 10 formerly or traditionally Democrat-blue counties across the state where Trump must drive up a higher-than-normal turnout, or even flip them to Republican red, in order to offset an anticipated high turnout for Clinton in Philadelphia.
The other counties are Cambria, Greene, Fayette and Washington in the southwest corner of the state and Bucks, Lackawanna, Lancaster, Luzerne and York in the east.
Kady Letosky, 28, of Latrobe, Pa., watches the presidential debate at the Tin Lizzy, a 270-year-old tavern in Youngstown, Pa., on Monday, Sept. 26, 2016.Photo: Justin Merrimen
Between 1960 and 2000, Westmoreland County Democrats handily won presidential races with one exception: Ronald Reagan’s 1980 victory.
By 1984, voters here were back to their Democratic allegiances, giving their votes to Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis and Bill Clinton.
When Al Gore turned the party toward its progressive wing in 2000, however, he left behind Westmoreland County Democrats.
Democrats here are more traditional in their values — they are pro-gun, pro-life, pro-coal, something today’s Democratic Party has left no room for.
Trump probably connects better with such voters than did Romney in 2012, or John McCain in 2008; a large part of the reason is his outside-the-box style. Yet for him to win the state, such voters need to turn out in force — here and elsewhere — to offset Philly’s overwhelming numbers.
Before the debate, the latest CNN poll showed a virtual tie in the Keystone State.
Outside the bar, a lone sign lit up the quiet corner of the old Lincoln Highway: “RIP Mr. Palmer, Forever in our hearts,” honoring Arnold Palmer, who died Sunday.
“He was just a regular guy, just a working-class guy at heart like everyone else around here,” said Jim Sciabica, the unofficial bar manager and small businessman who kept “Mr. Palmer’s” PM Whiskey tucked in a corner away from patrons and workers.
(09-27-2016 07:59 AM)chakalaka Wrote: Trump will win. But he must keep fighting. This will not be handed to him. He must appeal to the moderates/center I believe. But I could be wrong.
(09-27-2016 08:27 AM)Gmac Wrote: How Trump won over a bar full of undecideds and Democrats
(09-27-2016 07:26 AM)The Beast1 Wrote:(09-27-2016 06:15 AM)Phoenix Wrote: Can't you just disable this forum for users with sub 250 posts in the software?
It just seems like a deliberate trap (perhaps that's the idea though) to say "you can't use this" but then to dangle it in their face fully accessible to them.
I think it's fair to say that such functionality isn't built into the forum or any of the available modules.

Quote: Me and MMX2010 had a humorous conversation with these two girls afterward. Maybe he can do a better job filling in the poetics than I can.
(09-27-2016 08:30 AM)Rush87 Wrote:(09-27-2016 08:27 AM)Gmac Wrote: How Trump won over a bar full of undecideds and Democrats
^ This is why his performance will be a net positive. He isn't Hitler. He's just a regular guy like everyone else. He didn't need to be a policy wonk. He didn't need to hammer her. He just had to be a reasonable, well tempered guy. A few flaws may even be helpful.
(09-27-2016 09:31 AM)kosko Wrote:(09-27-2016 08:30 AM)Rush87 Wrote:(09-27-2016 08:27 AM)Gmac Wrote: How Trump won over a bar full of undecideds and Democrats
^ This is why his performance will be a net positive. He isn't Hitler. He's just a regular guy like everyone else. He didn't need to be a policy wonk. He didn't need to hammer her. He just had to be a reasonable, well tempered guy. A few flaws may even be helpful.
100%
That article posted by @Gmac was refreshing. I guess we are too hard on Trump and it is hard for us to view this stuff as a "regular joe". These folks likely view Trump as the fired up rookie who was starting his first game.
I am happy that regular folks could smell the crap HRC was putting out with her smug ass attitude. She acted no better then the mean bitch in HS that only is popular because she is fucking the QB (Bill Clinton).
HRC looked more like the spoiled brat up there. Remember when she was talking about her father? She sounded like a moron who never saw her father work a day in her life. Or the lame attempts to humanize herself talking about her grandkid. She is so cold and empty that she has no ability to keep it real. Trump was much more warm and authentic vs Hillary the robot.
With the Stop and Frisk shit you could see Trump bow up when these trolls like Holt and HRC try to talk about NYC. That is HIS CITY and you could see him get annoyed that they were trying to talk like they knew.
Sorry ass Clinton who was a Senate for NYC had to backtrack on the stance as she knew Trump was right and then tried to spin it into how crime has been decreasing regardless when it was the fact that violent crime and murders dropped significantly with Stop and Frisk that was the main point.
(09-27-2016 09:53 AM)Phoenix Wrote: Worth listening to how the leftists viewed it:
Basically I think it's right for Trump to avoid seeming like he's "on the attack". Unfortunately women have the right to vote, and when they see a woman rightly being grilled for her immoral and even criminal behaviour, it just triggers a "rally to her defense" instinct. We all already know this, with the "pussy pass" and "hamstering".
Women are traditionally near-universally barred from judgeships and positions of power because they don't have the same clear-headed capacity for an objective moral compass as men to. They'll readily fuck over both themselves and everyone around them "because feelings" to the extent they have the power. I'm sure Trump is knowingly holding back because of this.
The best tactic will be, especially in the last debate, making it clear that Hillary is no friend of women, bringing up her husbands treatment of women and her support of it etc. There are countless brainless women who outright say they're voting for her simply because she's a woman. If she's seen as a traitorous woman they might just spend that afternoon on Instagram or at Starbucks, instead of in a voting booth.
(09-27-2016 09:53 AM)Phoenix Wrote: Worth listening to how the leftists viewed it:
Basically I think it's right for Trump to avoid seeming like he's "on the attack". Unfortunately women have the right to vote, and when they see a woman rightly being grilled for her immoral and even criminal behaviour, it just triggers a "rally to her defense" instinct. We all already know this, with the "pussy pass" and "hamstering".
Women are traditionally near-universally barred from judgeships and positions of power because they don't have the same clear-headed capacity for an objective moral compass as men to. They'll readily fuck over both themselves and everyone around them "because feelings" to the extent they have the power. I'm sure Trump is knowingly holding back because of this.
The best tactic will be, especially in the last debate, making it clear that Hillary is no friend of women, bringing up her husbands treatment of women and her support of it etc. There are countless brainless women who outright say they're voting for her simply because she's a woman. If she's seen as a traitorous woman they might just spend that afternoon on Instagram or at Starbucks, instead of in a voting booth.