June 3rd, 2008
I’m going to go way out on a limb here. I believe Hillary Clinton will stay in the presidential race for the immediate future. I think her campaign may believe that there’s another bombshell out there from Obama’s former church, Trinity United Church of Christ, where radical Blame America First Jeremiah Wright was pastor, and where Michael Fleger, the wacko Catholic priest from St. Sabina’s who ought to be sent to a monastary by Cardinal George, gave an outrageous, sexist and racist rant of a guest sermon a week ago Sunday.
If there is such a recording, say, of a controversial talk given by anyone close to Obama, it may be the last straw for some voters, maybe enough to convince superdelegates to switch back to Clinton.
I concede that this is a longshot, and that Obama probably will prevail, but strange DVD’s seem to emerge from Trinity Church. In the fall, they promise to be the gift that keeps on giving — to John McCain.
June 3rd, 2008
My first car was a used, 1960 Chevy Bel Air. The color was copper, and it was the best paint job of any car I’ve had. As a four-door six-cylinder, it wasn’t the snazziest on the street, but I bought baby-moon hubcaps for it and that spiffed it up a bit.
That still qualifies as my favorite car. I never realized until this spring where it was built — Janesville, Wisconsin, at the sprawling GM Assembly Plant, the nation’s oldest, which started in 1918 or 1919 as a tractor factory.
The classic full-size Chevys were made there, the ‘55, ‘56 and ‘57 Chevys, for instance, as well as my ‘60. They stopped making the full-size Chevies there in 1981, ending a long run that began in 1923.
The factory at one time employed as many as 7,000 workers, it’s now down to about 2,500.
I’d never visited the sprawling complex in Janesville until this winter, when I was covering the Wisconsin presidential primary. Barack Obama came there to speak to auto workers about his economic policies. I remember thinking how ancient the plant was, and yet it was still able to turn out classy-looking vehicles. Obama spoke in front of a display of Tahoes, impressive vehicles by anyone’s imagination.
Problem is, with gas now at $4 a gallon and no prospects of it declining, there’s no future in big, gasoline-powered SUV’s. And they don’t make hybrids in J’ville.
So, the factory is going to close, along with plants in Ontario, Canada, Mexico and another in the U.S.
GM is going thru another round of downsizing while it changes from big behemoths to small cars produced in Lordstown Ohio, and a new line of gas-electric cars.
Too bad they couldn’t retool J’Ville once again to make the new cars, but perhaps the factory’s old age caught up with it.
This closing, expected in 2009 or 2010, will have a ripple effect in Janesville, from the Leer seat factory to the Union Pacific, which transports finished vehicles, and others up and down the supply chain. Hopefully the fact that Janesville is in the growth corridor south from Madison will help it survive and prosper.
