Obama Girl's Town Is Hot for Hillary

Turns out that Obama Girl, aka Amber Lee Ettinger, hails from Hazleton, Pa., which is right in the heart of Clinton country. To get a sense of how her candidate’s message is getting through, McClatchy visited Ettinger’s family and neighbors in this former coal town near Scranton, Hillary’s family home. Turns out the town definitely does not share her crush on Obama.

Clinton’s down-to-earth message resonates strongly with working-class whites worried about disappearing jobs and rising energy costs, and they like her “backup man." The inflammatory rhetoric of Jeremiah Wright didn't help either—it made Ettinger’s father, a registered Republican, fighting mad. Even the local librarian who set up Obama's office in Hazleton says, "We're in Clinton country; we make no bones about that. But I've always broken from the pack." (More Obama Girl stories.)