Obama Girl's Parents Might Not Vote for Obama

McClatchy reports on Obama Girl Amber Lee Ettinger and her parents:

All these forces are coming to a slow boil as Hazleton looks to Pennsylvania's primary on April 22 and to the general election in November. If this slice of hard-times country mirrors how Pennsylvania ends up voting, there's hope for Clinton.

On West Broad Street, the scruffy main drag, one passes a billboard for Spanish legal services, a Latina beauty salon and storefronts that reflect the city's German, Polish, Italian and Irish roots.

Just past them, Obama Girl's mom, Roseann Ettinger, is tapping her savings to keep her vintage clothing and jewelry shop, called Remember When, afloat.

The store used to be open daily; now it's open only on Saturdays and by appointment. Foot traffic waned as longtime businesses closed and immigrant-related crime troubled old-timers. Meanwhile, high oil prices took their toll; between the Ettingers' nearby home and the store space, the cost of a month's heat approaches $3,000.

Photos of their daughter Amber Lee Ettinger, 26, better known as Obama Girl, plaster the store's walls. In them she's modeling her mom's 1960s and 1970s outfits. People call or drop by to say they saw Amber on TV — and Roseann Ettinger thinks about supporting Obama. But she's apathetic.

"Nothing appeals to me about what I've heard yet" from any of the candidates, she said.

Husband Terry Ettinger is a registered Republican, but the veteran is "very disappointed" in his party. He admires John McCain's military background but not his immigration stance. He likes Obama's speeches but worries that there isn't enough substance beneath the rhetoric.

Hearing about Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright, makes Terry Ettinger mad. "It's the black philosophy of the white people holding them back," he said. "That they can just say one side of it and have the congregation cheering — when I don't think it's true!"