On The Wires

Barack Obama's attack on small town Americans from Pennsylvania has erupted out of the blogosphere and onto the wire services. Reuters has posted his remarks for the folks who still get their media the old-fashioned way. This one is not going to go down the media memory hole anytime soon.

"Pennsylvania doesn't need a president who looks down on them," she said at a rally in Philadelphia. "They need a president who stands up for them, who fights for them, who works hard for your futures, your jobs, your families."

Obama, an Illinois senator, was reported to have told a crowd at a San Francisco fundraiser earlier this week he understood why the struggles of residents in towns hard hit by manufacturing job losses would make them bitter.

"You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them," Obama was quoted as saying by the Huffington Post.

"And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling 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," he said.

Terms like 'elitist' and 'condescending' are all over the blogosphere over this one. Now the major media has it and all of the services will have to run with it now that Reuters has. There are going to be a lot of very unhappy residents of small towns all across the United States over this one. As I posted earlier, this could be the Obama pratfall Clinton needed to stay in.

By the way, don't think the Obama campaign is sweating bullets right now? I'd bet they are spinning overtime right now trying to defuse this one in the media. The problem is that the actual words of the candidate don't allow for much spinning.  

Small Town

The latest ruckus in the blogosphere is the recent comments of Barack Obama dismissing small town Pennsylvania voters as overly-religious, gun-nut, anti-immigrant bigots. Obama's exceedingly bigoted comments may very well big the big stumble that Hillary Clinton needed to hang in the race.

You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.

And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

That's a pretty broad list of things to explain with job loss.

Obama just shot himself in the foot with small town people all across the US and especially in Pennsylvania. A totally self-inflicted, unforced error. Unwittingly, he showed exactly how out of touch a leftwing Chicago "liberal" really is with the "little people" he claims to champion. And how bigoted he really is toward those same people. McCain is already on the offensive on this - and he should be.  

New Nuclear Plants

Georgia Power has reached an agreement to build two new advanced Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear power plants. The new plants would be rated at 1,100 MW (electric) and are to be built at the existing Vogtle plant site, south of Augusta, Georgia.

Westinghouse's reactor, the AP1000 design, is new and has not been used before. Utility officials tout its simpler design and enhanced safety features.

Nuclear power is making a comeback in the United States as the nation tries to lessen its dependence on natural gas and foreign oil as well as cut back on carbon emissions and other pollutants. Based on the state's expected growth, Georgia Power says it needs to add more than 7,000 megawatts of capacity and that nuclear energy is essential to achieving that goal.

While several utilities have hinted at building nuclear reactors, few have actually committed to doing so.

Part of the issue is cost for utilities and consumers. The first generation of nuclear plants throughout the country was expensive to build. Construction cost overruns, combined with the Three Mile Island disaster in 1979, stunted the industry's growth in the United States.

Georgia Power seeks to hold Westinghouse to a firm price on the reactors but is not yet sharing estimates.

Estimates have been given in other states. For example, Raleigh-based Progress Energy and Charlotte-based Duke Energy Corp. have estimated that two of the new Westinghouse reactors would cost between $4 billion and $6 billion combined.

Expensive? Well, consider how expensive it would be if the lights went out - and stayed out. There will have to be a lot of new nuclear plants in this country very, very soon or there are going to be real problems with the supply of electricity. More about the AP1000 design here. There are significant reductions in the number of safety-related valves and piping and greatly simplified safety systems. (Not less safe, just easier to maintain and operate.) I've been hearing about these for a number of years now. Four of these units are under construction in China right now.