“Rewarding people for buying homes they couldn’t afford.”

September 25th, 2008 at 10:56pm Chuck Sweeny

Ray Clyburn looks at the giant, flat-screen TV in the Amtrak Sleeping Car Passenger Lounge in Chicago’s cavernous Union Station. We were tuned to CNN, but a patron asked if anybody would mind if he switched to Fox. Everybody shrugged, and he changed the channel. On both channels, talking heads were going on about the proposed $700 financial industry bailout.

Clyburn said, “It looks to me as if we are going to be rewarding people for buying homes they couldn’t afford, that we will continue the moral decline of the young people. In a capitalist society, we shouldn’t be doing bailouts.”

Clyburn, 70, lives in Norfok, Va., a military city. He’s retired from a career as a Nationwide Insurance agent.

“I always have been an independent, but I’ve voted Republican mostly because I thought they would do best for the economy. I think McCain is a very good person to lead our country now.”

Clyburn admires McCain for his fortitude during more than five years of captivity in North Vietnam. He has two grown children, “and I have no idea who they’d vote for.”

And what of Obama?

“My thoughts are that he’s a Muslim. I think he must be one and not practicing it, but it must have been instilled in him as a youngster. He has no experience in business or politics.”

Clyburn volunteers that he’s on his is his third major train trip. A decade ago he took a deluxe, $10,000 trip across Canada and stayed in fancy hotels. And then there was the Costa Rican experience.

“My wife and I rode on a banana train. The windows of the coaches were broken out, and we rolled from side to side brushing trees and big plants at 10 mph. When we got to a creek, the train stopped and people got out and went for a swim.”

Entry Filed under: Norfolk weighs in