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Old 02-04-2004, 12:20 PM   #3 (permalink)
Paq
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Location: South Carolina
Seeing that i'm from SC, lemme splain somethin to ya

I walked in the 2002 elections and in recent primaries on get out the vote campaigns in the upper regions of the state, including Chester, Lancaster, York, Spartanburg and Greenville, Rock Hill, and a few very very small areas. We went door to door giving out pamphlets, election materials, registering people to vote who were not registered in the area, etc. We also had to talk to everyone to find out their major concerns with the elections and what issues were on their minds. Now, we were supposed to be pushing for certain candidates, but i'm a bit jaded on everything and i'm intensely curious about everything so i would just talk, follow their lead, and find out what really were their concerns and find out who they were wanting to win. It was lots of fun and i'm hoping to do the same again this year and turn in a paper for publication in early jan of next year showing my findings and results.

Anyway, while doing all that, i found out quite a few things that may shed some light on what you are talking about.

1. The war on terror: Most people are concerned with it, but they also blame Bush and Bush Sr for it. Clinton kept us out of war, people in SC rarely had to worry about terrorist attacks bc it's not a high profile area to target and not a large economy, etc. They blame bush bc their children were sent oversees for "Daddy's War" So, there really is no pressing urge for the war on terror, insofar as most South Carolinians don't worry about planes dropping on us or about poisonous chemicals being sent through the mail. Seriously, it's not a huge concern to most people compared to issues that directly affect them...
thos issues being:

2. Economy..seriously, it sux in some places. Take Chester as an example. 15,000 laid off in the main factory that was forced to shut down. That's not a lot of people until you consider that the area's full population is barely over 20/25,000...So yeah, extra jobs went fast and there were thousands left out of work. These were low income workers anyway, but they lost the only source of money they had within a month. That happened before the 2002 elections and still continues to be a problem.

Springs industries, one of the largest textile companies in SC has routinely been cutting thousands of jobs. The last cut they made put over 45,000 workers out of a job. Gotta consider that Rock Hill is one of the larger cities with a population of about 50,000 people. The 45,000 put out of work were across several of the factories, but still, that's the equivelant of putting a top 5 city's population in the unemployment category.

People are honestly blaming bush, rightly or wrongly, for the economic woes the area faces. Is it justified..maybe. Most people i talked to recalled the days before clinton with an animosity and hatred, then the clinton years, they were able to get on their feet, then bam, they are out of work again. So yeah, they may have some unwarranted dislike for the president, but from their POV, it's very justified as their lives have been mostly "Republican=poor, democrat=working" as that is all they remember from the past 25 yrs. You aren't talking about national trends of economy or economic theories, you're dealing with the stark reality of a working class people who seem to be out of work shortly after a republican takes office..

The other part of this that is so confusing to most is how the area is "Constantly growing" according to city motto. There is a HUGE divide between the haves and the have nots. All of the tax breaks and family credits, etc, don't really mean much to those put out of work bc the only place they have worked all their lives shut down, but they do help out those who shut down the factories and those who open the new businesses in areas of very very cheap land and lax restrictions. (horrible sentence, please forgive) So, to the common worker, "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer" and again, they do blame bush for that, bush and the overall republican congress. Economic trends, downturns, theories, whatever, don't really matter to these people who can't afford to feed their families.

And before anyone says, "Why don't they move, why don't they find another job, etc" i advise you to take a look into some of the areas that are hardest hit. Again, Chester falls right into this category. The whole town is based around a factory. Area businesses pop up in response to the needs of the people who work in the factory, so you don't get many shopping mallls or service related businesses beyond the local dry cleaners, laundromat, theater, and various fast food restaurants. Some service oriented businesses, law offices, doctor offices, etc, come in during peak times, but they are often the first to leave when workers are laid off.
Now, throw in the fact that most of these workers have just started families within the past 10 yrs bc they thought they had a stable job with enough money and benefits to be able to raise a family and you have utter chaos when the central core of the area's economy is shut down and moved oversees. So, the area is littered with families with small children and no income and a mortgage on the house..

So, based on just areas that i have personally witnessed, i can honestly, unabashadly say, "YES" the economy really does concern people more than terrorism.

Hope all that made sense. If not, just ask and i'll try to clarify, this was just a bit of random thought based on some of the notes and experiences over the past few years
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Chris
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