Fair warning:  In addition to believing that the title may increase readership, I thought it was catchy and it actually does relate to the diary but, to be clear, this diary is not about Hillary Clinton's whereabouts or her views on Iraq.

Okay, so I'm calling Pennsylvania today to help get out the vote for Barack Obama.  Two calls of the 50 I've made so far today really stood out.  both of them shook me up a bit, hence this diary.

I had gotten most of the way through my first block of phone numbers.  A lot of busy signals for some reason -- I'm guessing some kind of phone circuitry or call volume issue since they were all to the same phone exchange.

I left a few messages reminding people about the primary today and had several actual conversations with PA voters.

The first call of note started something like this:

Me:  "Hello, is Clinton there?"

PA household:  May I ask who is calling?

Me:  "I am a volunteer calling on behalf of Barack Obama's presidential campaign."

PA household:  "Clinton is in Iraq."

More over the flip, as the bloggers like to say...

-- with Apologies to Thomas Jefferson and the Second Continental Congress.

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for the people to dissolve the political stranglehold of lobbyists and special interests which have confounded them and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of the political establishment, the blogosphere and interested pundits requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to take such action.

One thing that I love about PBS is how it can bring things to your attention that you otherwise never would have found.

A few years ago, I was flipping through the TV channels and happened upon my local PBS affiliate, which was airing an interview with James Loewen.

The topic of discussion was his new book "Sundown Towns."

After hearing Mr. Loewen talk for a while, I was taken aback at how vile and how recent some of the racism in this country has been.

After the flip, I will comment in more depth on how this experience with PBS and Mr. Loewen relates to the incredible speech recently given in Philadelphia by Senator Barack Obama.
"A More Perfect Union"