Listen My Friends

The above is a little Moby Grape ditty called Omaha. Which brings to mind a report on how Omaha voters view the Obama administration.

OMAHA, Neb.—As President Barack Obama began his first State of the Union address Wednesday night, Kevin Fischer glanced at television above him and compared his 2008 vote for the president to ordering from an infomercial.

"You listen to the sales pitch and you're so excited and then it arrives and you open the box and it just crumbles," Mr. Fischer said. "It turns out you didn't get what you thought you were going to."

Politicians and used car salesmen. Voters should know better.

Regret for supporting a Democratic presidential candidate is an unusual sensation in this quiet, snow-covered prairie city. That's because heading into the 2008 election, no Democratic presidential candidate had won here since 1964. Nebraska was second only to Utah in its red-state reliability.

My mom is an Omaha Democrat. When I was growing up I was an Omaha Democrat too.

The Obama campaign succeeded by drawing from the district's substantial pool of independent voters and by coaxing a critical mass of registered Republicans in middle-class neighborhoods to cross party lines, according to Douglas County election records. Here, where the urban core gives way to 20- and 30-year-old subdivisions with names like Ridgefield and Eagle Run, Mr. Obama turned Omaha blue.

Some of those voters eat breakfast at Billy's Cafe, a small restaurant in a busy strip mall where a short stack of pancakes and an egg costs $2.85 and photos of dirt-track racing cars adorn mustard-colored walls. Jennifer Wood, a waitress at Billy's for seven years, said a lot of her customers own their own homes and pay cash for new cars.

"All of a sudden, a lot of them lost a lot of money and instead of retiring in a year, they're hoping to retire in five years, minimum," she said. A Republican who voted for Sen. John McCain, Ms. Wood said that Mr. Obama, "had a chance to be a great president. But he focused on the wrong thing, he focused on health care instead of jobs, and people are angry about that."

I can confidently tell Jennifer it is not just Omaha.

Chris Pflaum, a liquor salesman who also abandoned his party to support Mr. Obama, said in retrospect, he voted with his heart instead of his head.

"I think I got caught up in the fact that he was the first African-American president," Mr. Pflaum said. "With the economy the way it is, that doesn't seem as important anymore."

Well at least he has the liquor to fall back on.

What is the most common sentiment in America about Mr. Obama's election and subsequent performance according to totally anecdotal evidence I have collected?

Mr. Fischer said when he voted he believed Mr. Obama would draw down U.S. troops abroad, close the prison at Guantanamo Bay and help get the economy back on track.

"None of that has happened," he said. "I feel duped."

These folks from Omaha are not the only rubes.

There is evidence that there are a lot of rubes in Europe. And there is no evidence that any of the European people quoted ever lived in Omaha.

And for the record: I voted for Palin. I could see the Three Card Monty dealer now ensconced in the White House from half a continent away. Actually I didn't have to look that far. Chicago is less than 90 miles away from where I reside.

Cross Posted at Classical Values