"Al-Jazeera: Palin supporters fear 'blacks will take over'
by David Edwards and Muriel Kane
Supporters of Sarah Palin attending a rally in St. Clairsville, OH on Sunday were not shy about displaying their racist attitudes and their ignorance about Barack Obama -- along with their very real fears and insecurities -- to al-Jazeera reporter Casey Kauffman.
One white-haired old lady said frankly to Kauffman, "I'm afraid if he wins, the blacks will take over." She then added more shrilly, "He's not a Christian! This is a Christian nation! What is our country going to end up like?"
Another woman stated, "Obama and his wife, I'm concerned that they could be anti-white, that he might hide that." A third suggested, "I don't like the fact that he thinks us white people are trash -- because we're not."
A young man holding a baby told Kauffman, "He seems like a sheep -- or a wolf in sheep's clothing -- to be honest with you. And I believe, Palin, she's filled with the holy spirit."
St. Clairsville lies just a dozen miles west of Wheeling, WV, in largely-white southeastern Ohio, which was a Bush stronghold in 2000 and 2004. One Daily Kos diarist who commented on the video wrote, "I am originally from a small town 30 miles away from St Clairsville, and seeing this clip reminds me of what it was like to live there. St Clairsville is actually sort of a metropolis in this rust belt region. To many farmers, steelworkers, and coal miners who live in the surrounding countryside, it's known for being 'where the WalMart is.'"
A few days earlier, a blogger had interviewed audience members at a McCain-Palin rally in Strongsville, OH, in the northern part of the state, and reported that "this is the most strange, ignorant, uninformed, angry, up-to-no-good, and gullible group of people I’ve ever seen at a political rally."
--MORE w/video--"
