http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/189807.php

Remember that woman from the debate last night who the moderators showed videotape of asking whether Barack Obama “believes in the flag”? Her name is Nash McCabe.

I remember thinking it was sort of odd to have a couple one-off uses of ordinary voter question when it didn’t really seem like it was part of the format. But I was too distracted by the general inanity of the debate to focus on this issue too closely.

Well, it turns out TPM Reader JL did give some thought. And he came up with something very interesting (see JL’s post at the DrexelDems blog). He did a little googling and found out Nash is pretty popular with the traveling press now in Pennsylvania. It turns out McCabe was featured in an April 4th story in the Times which begins like this …

Ask whom she might vote for in the coming presidential primary election and Nash McCabe, 52, seems almost relieved to be able to unpack the dossier she has been collecting in her head.

It is not about whom she likes, but more a bill of particulars about why she cannot vote for Senator Barack Obama of Illinois.

“How can I vote for a president who won’t wear a flag pin?” Mrs. McCabe, a recently unemployed clerk typist, said in a booth at the Valley Dairy luncheonette in this quiet, small city in western Pennsylvania.

Mr. Obama has said patriotism is about ideas, not flag pins.

“I watch him on TV,” Mrs. McCabe said. “I keep looking for that lapel pin.”

Now, it does seem like McCabe is not a fan of Sen. Obama’s. And I think we can assume that it’s not a coincidence that McCabe managed to show up featured in the Times and also as the sole outside questioner in the ABC debate. Presumably, a researcher for ABC or Gibson saw the piece in the Times, figured, hey, this lady hates Obama and is seriously ginned up about the lapel issue. Let’s send a camera crew Obama and film her slamming Obama to his face. It’ll be great in the debate.

You both are sweethearts for sharing the info and I for one THANK YOU!!

Because I work with it literally every day, I’ve completely lost contact with what it’s like to be a neophyte trying to use HTML. I know all kinds of great references, but they all assume you already know quite a bit and are just looking for details on some seldom used feature, etc.

I guess you could say I’m an “elitist”…

Tryit Editor v1.4

Though I did have my comments break in a weird way for weeks until I figured out that there wasn’t supposed to be a return after the first command.

I’m sure there is. But we don’t have it, and louise had tried to help Hawise but couldn’t get the angle brackets to show, so her comment was incomplete.

For future reference:

To code a ‘less than’ bracket/symbol (<): &lt;

To code a ‘greater than’ bracket/symbol (>): &gt;

For what it’s worth…

I looked around (a little) for some really simple guide to HTML, but they all look too intimidating for the novice.

Any suggestions?…

There’s special coding that has to be done to get the “angle brackets” to show up…

There is a quick and easy comment quicktags plug-in for WordPress, which, if our hosts installed it, would put the proper coding functions in user-friendly buttons.

And just how many “average people” did they have to interview to find somebody who’s still interested in the whole flag lapel flap? Or did they just send over to Freeperland?