http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/18/opinion/18krugman.html?hp
Clinging to a Stereotype
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: April 18, 2008
Will Barack Obamas now famous bitter quote turn out to have been a
big deal politically? Frankly, I have no idea.
But heres a different question: was Mr. Obama right?
Mr. Obamas comments combined assertions about economics, sociology
and voting behavior. In each case, his assertion was mostly if not
entirely wrong.
Start with the economics. Mr. Obama: You go into these small towns in
Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs
have been gone now for 25 years and nothings replaced them. And they
fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration.
There are, indeed, towns where the mill closed during the 1980s and
nothing has replaced it. But the suggestion that the American
heartland suffered equally during the Clinton and Bush years is deeply
misleading.