Margaret Carlson trashes Pennsylvania

In the lead up to the primary, the national news media has flocked to Pennsylvania and continues to analyze its residents ad nauseam. Many residents cringe when they hear reporters inaccurately portray their state. Politicos are not paying compliments to Pennsylvanians when they quote Jim Carville over and over again: "Pennsylvania is Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with Alabama in between."

This past weekend, Margaret Carlson, of Bloomberg News, seemed to encapsulate the inaccuracy of reporters' portrayals of the state. In her column, Carlson critiques Obama for his failure to connect with the average Pennsylvanian voter. In a bombastic and offensive fashion, Carlson makes Pennsylvania look like a state without any dignity or sophistication.

Carlson, a native of Camp Hill, notes that she "grew up in that swath of the Keystone State between Pittsburgh and the eastern seaboard that remains happily stuck in the 1950s, when men were men and the steel mills thrived." "When I return there," writes Carlson, "I raise eyebrows for driving a foreign car and having gone to law school without signing on with the FBI."

Come on, Margaret. Camp Hill is an affluent area with a highly educated populace. People do not raise eyebrows because you are driving a foreign car. Her embarrasing and relentless commentary on Pennsylvania continues:

"In many places, the daughers and sons of...families look back and think their parents were hopelessly hokey, if not chumps. But not in Harrisburg, the town that Starbucks forgot until recently. Like upstate New York, where the blue-haired ladies also had to cope with disappearing jobs and hound dog husbands."

First off Margaret, there are six Starbucks in the Harrisburg area. She fails to acknowledge how Harrisburg is becoming a model city for other municipalities in Pennsylvania. The Reading Eagle reported last year that, "Harrisburg, thanks in large part to Restaurant Row, is enjoying a renaissance. Other cities around Pennsylvania are trying, with mixed success, to duplicate its formula of drawing people downtown with new restaurants and bars."

Despite her outrageously inaccurate portrayal of the area, Margaret Carlson claims that she visits her home very often. Perhaps she should get out of her foreign car next time.

Margaret Carlson, "Obama throws a gutter ball."