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The Age of Odin - James Lovegrove [74]

By Root 1089 0
'cause of stuff my forebears did? Ain't there a statute of limitations on that kinda thing?

Audio Description Commentary: She continues over a montage of scenes of her hometown. Caption: "Wonder Springs, Georgia." We see a leafy street lined with antebellum houses - the sign outside a Baptist church - white and African-American children playing together in a schoolyard - an elderly couple in a swing chair on a front porch - customers in a diner eating pancakes - a pick-up truck driving down a lonely dirt road.

Mrs Keener: What happened back then happened. I can't change it. But if I open my mouth and all some folks hear is the voice of a segregationist or even, God forbid, a slave owner - well, I tell you, the problem ain't with me, it's with them. There's an urban intellectual elite in this country that'd like to think anyplace below the Mason-Dixon line is an embarrassment, an irrelevance, not the real America. But Pete, I beg to differ. They can't dismiss so many millions of Americans just like that. They're the minority. I believe I represent the honest, hard-working, dollar-earning, tax-paying majority. We're the ones who count, not them bow-tied, buttoned-up so-called smart guys in the college towns and the Manhattan high-rises. All they do is chatter and bellyache. The rest of us get out there and actually achieve.

Makepeace: You're just a local girl who got extraordinarily lucky? Who was in the right place at the right time?

Mrs Keener: Pete, that's precisely it! I'm nothing special. How I got to where I am today is simple. I am the people who voted me in. I'm them, and they recognise that. I'm not some overeducated lawyer or some Harvard Business School type. I'm not someone who's spent her entire life in politics and knows nothing else. I speak the same language as most Americans speak. I may not have a pretty turn of phrase or use a bunch of fancy two-bit words, but what I am is someone who says what the average American says and thinks what the average American thinks.

Makepeace: The people's president.

Mrs Keener: You said it.

Makepeace: What about when someone calls you a redneck, Mrs Keener? I'm thinking of a recent New York Times editorial. What do you say to them?

Mrs Keener: What I say to them is there ain't nothing wrong with a bit of sunburn, if it means you've been outdoors working hard. 'Course, these days, we're lucky to see any sun at all, ain't we?

Audio Description Commentary: The president is being given a guided tour of a munitions factory by its CEO and other executives. Caption: "Murdstone Dynamics Engineering Plant, Outside Louisville, Kentucky." Workers on a sheet-metal production line smile as she greets them.

Mrs Keener: You guys are doing such a great job here. Our forces on the frontline have every reason to be grateful to you.

Audio Description Commentary: Mrs Keener breaks away from the group of executives to talk directly to one woman in coveralls and protective goggles.

Mrs Keener: Hey there. How're you doing?

Worker: Can I just say, Lois - oh, may I call you Lois?

Mrs Keener: Of course you may. Your name badge says Darlene. May I call you that?

Worker: I'd be honoured. Can I just say, Lois, we at Murdstone should be thanking you, not the other way round. You've given us so much work. Our jobs are secure. I can go home each night knowing I'm putting food on the table and a roof over my family's head, and I don't have to worry about defence budget cuts and factory closures and being made redundant, which I did with the previous president. You have no idea how much that means.

Mrs Keener: If it means a lot to you, it means a lot to me. No, don't cry, Darlene. You're gonna set me off too. Oh, there, see? You have. Come on, gimme a hug. There you go.

Makepeace: [voiceover] It can't be denied she has the common touch, and I don't think it's just for show. She seems genuinely moved by her reception on the factory floor, and I can't think of another politician who would spontaneously and openly hug a person they'd just met like that, and share a tear with them. It's a

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