While she was hammering While she was hammering George Bush's economic record (such as it is) today, I noticed that Hillary Clinton was wearing a snappy scarf with giant four leaf clovers on today to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day and make an appeal to….wait for it…Pennsylvania’s Irish-American Democrats? Lest you think she is only making superficial gestures, think again: She has been issuing a variety of press releases of relevance to Irish Americans, and on Saturday her campaign held a press call with several Irish-American members of Congress—none from Pennsylvania; rookie Rep. Patrick Murphy is a Barack Obama guy—to discuss her plans for solving Northern Ireland’s issues. The Obama campaign blasted back, accusing her of inflating her role in Northern Ireland diplomacy. About 18 percent of Pennsylvania’s population is Irish in its ancestry, according to Wikipedia, although this site seems to suggest a lower figure. Either way it’s one of the top 10 most Irish ancestral states in the nation, and the only one left with a major nomination contest. (Who knew that Montana is also among the top 10 in share of potato-eaters? Oh, and please save the outraged-by-ethnic-slur emails: My paternal grandmother’s birth surname is Lennon, so I’m one-eighth Irish and thereby entitled to tease my own. Plus, I could eat potatoes at literally every meal.) Gestures, real or merely symbolic, aren’t a bad idea, and Clinton is a step ahead on the demographics for the forthcoming, April 22 primary. P.s.: Fun fact I learned while researching this blog post: There are nine towns in the United States named “Dublin.” --Tom Schaller
