Stanton from The WV Hot Dog Blog sent me a link to an article from The Financial Times about the upcoming election in WV. It comes to us from a link on The Drudge Report. It is second at the top of the third column under the heading of "HILL-BILLIES FOR CLINTON!" and this lovely photo of a local car:
Yes. That's an actual West Virginian's car. (Note added later: In the comments, Bobzim tells us that's an actual Arizonan's car.)
The whole Hill-Billy thing the title refers to is this (though the fact that they're stumping for West Virginia votes right now does give it added meaning):
Or this which comes to us from Ft. Hard Knox. In case you didn't infer it from their photoshop of the day from December 16, 2007, they're conservative and humorous folks.
I don't have a problem with the use of Hill-Billy to refer to the amalgamated political machine driven by Bill and Hillary Clinton. When their first names have "Hill" and "Bill," you know they're not going to be jumping into blond jokes for their satire.
In the Financial Times article, though, Mingo County is representative of all of West Virginia. You know, whoever wrote that article had to drive through other counties to get to Mingo (or other counties to leave Mingo). Would it have been so hard to notice that people vary from town to town here? Apparently so. I also couldn't help but notice they went to a rally where Bill Clinton was speaking to gather their information about what West Virginians believe about Barack Obama. WTF? Why would anyone go to the crowd that's most obviously supporting Clinton to get their finger on the pulse of WV's opinion about her competitor?
The one thing this article just keeps screaming to me is that it's all based on logical fallacies. They're saying that the reason people in West Virginia aren't going to vote for Obama is because they heard he was a Muslim and his wife was an Atheist as well as other unfounded or misleading rumors about Obama that have been in the press. Many articles have run in the mainstream press trying to set straight those rumors (no Muslim, no Atheist...though his dad at one time or another had been both. See Snopes). And, according to the article, the bigger reasons Obama isn't going to get WV votes are because there are a higher percentage of whites who are blue-collar, not college-educated, and cling to either religion or guns (or both) for their vote indicators and not enough blacks or affluent whites (Obama's key supporters according to the article).
Doesn't the first big reason (that we believe rumors to be true) beg the question: Why haven't people here heard the truth?
Answer (wholly unmentioned in article): Because no one from Barack Obama's campaign has been here to do a high-profile rally of any kind. The Clintons (at least Bill and Chelsea) have been here quite a bit. Now, Hillary is here. Obama did announce he will be giving a speech at the Civic Center the day before the election.
West Virginia does have a history of surprising the rest of the nation with our votes. Um, first there was that one to secede from Virginia. But, then again, I guess folks today assume that back in 1863 a bunch of yokels could haphazardly stumble through the statehood process (with the added pressure of being cleaved from another state that was leaving the Union) at a time of war. Yes, we must've sure been idiots about politics back then too.
We surprised them with the vote for Kennedy.
We surprised them with the first vote for Bush.
Let me think. Do those two historic campaigns have anything at all in common?
Both of those candidates did a whole lot of stumping in this state themselves in order to ensure the vote.
So why is the press blaming the lack of connection people in this state are feeling for Barack Obama on whiteness or blue-collar-ness or education levels? Short answer: Because the press are apparently bigots when it comes to West Virginia.
Wouldn't it stand to reason that the state where the first black woman held a public office (in the 1920's thank you very much...her name was Minnie Buckingham Harper, if memory serves) would consider voting for a gifted and popular black candidate if they felt like he took the time to try to get their votes...the time to say to voters here, "you've been hearing some lies about me....here's the truth"?
Wouldn't it stand to reason to think that in a state where black workers banded together with white workers in union uprising for the first time (with the black workers' support being crucial to tipping the scales in favor of unions...before the unions were pretty much killed that is) would give a black candidate a chance?
Wouldn't it stand to reason to realize that Jessie Jackson spent many a night in the West Virginia coalfields in the 1980's and 1990's standing side-by-side with those blue-collar union voters that the press would have you believe would never vote for a black man if he put on a pair of blue jeans and showed up to talk to people like them about the issues that affect their lives?
Hell, he could wear the suit and still get by doing fine in an Appalachian crowd.
The problem Obama faces in West Virginia is that he's played John Kerry to Hillary's Bill Clinton. He spent too little, too late on West Virginia. She didn't.
Though, from what I overhear when I'm out shopping and stuff, it would seem Obama may still have more supporters here than anyone realizes. I still don't think he'll win here. Historically, we vote for the people who came to see us most. He didn't come at all...until the end...at least he's slated to be here Monday.
So, it's unfair of the press to try to statistically represent what it is about West Virginians that have them supporting Clinton more than Obama when the question they should be asking is: If Obama wanted to win West Virginia, why didn't he come here and try to get some votes instead going with the proven-poor vote-getting methods of John Kerry and Al Gore (sitting back and expecting us to deliver votes he didn't try to get)?
In other words, if the Avon lady is black and she never once comes to my door to try to sell to me, you can't say I didn't buy because I was a bigot. You can say she'll never know how much she could have increased her sales if she'd taken the time to knock on some new doors that she didn't already know to be sure buyers.
Oh, how quickly the press forgets the days when it ridiculed Giuliani for more or less forfeiting wins in earlier primaries by only campaigning in Florida, huh?
30 comments:
did you see the video of
Bill Clinton going off on some woman in wv that had the audacity to question HIllary's work on health care?...holy shit..she was for Obama and argued with him and he got all pissy..loved it...
I looked it up because you posted. Too bad she overstated her claim on camera at the end when she swears for a fact she knows that Hillary did nothing with health care after the first two weeks. Just what FactCheck.org has on Hillary and SCHIP blows that claim out of the waster. If that chick hadn't put a verifiable date in her claim, she might've sounded like she knew what she was talking about. LOL
Jackie Sue, Don't get me wrong. Bill definitely gets all flustered and shows it. I think I just have a real distaste for plants (even if they choose to plant themselves, they're still planted for the purposes of trying to make a politician who hasn't shown up themselves look better at the expensive of one who did show).
That car is from Arizona.
Drudge will fix that later on.
The general consensus is that WV is like me (conservative). And that leads to further assumption that conservatives are narrow minded, gun toting redneck bigots.
And, that is all I'm going to say about that.
Har, you did a far better job of opining on this article than I did. But I posted about it as well. :)
Bobzim, Long time since we've seen you online here. Thanks for the info (added a note in my blog about it) and welcome back.
ETW, Are you saying that people who may share one choice in voting do not have everything else in common? Who knew? Wonder if they'd think William F. Buckley, Jr. was a gun-toting redneck too? LOL
Janis, Thank you. I checked your out and commented there as well. I also covet your Prius in both places. :)
No problem, BB.
Check out my place for my 2 cents.
I did, Bobzim. Welcome back to blogland. For the record, I keep going back and forth on which Dem I'm voting for. Either way, I'll be voting for the Dem in November, regardless of race, gender, or ethnicity.
HA! They can say it's about his religion but let's face it, it's about his race. Race matters in the gold buckle of the Appalachian bible belt and they aint votin fer no neeegro.
HA! So the problem is that Obama hasn't come here and talked to people enough? Gimme a break. . . oh, so what you're saying is that WVians in their poor deprived state don't have TVs?
Come on Buzz, WVians are simply displaying their true colors. Overwhelming support for Clinton at this point in the campaign means only one thing. The ignorant uneducated white working class proles of WV will not vote for an African-American president. McCain will win big in WV and KY. Whoopee! Fortunately, our majority demographic is no longer necessary to win the presidency.
The Obama team needs to downplay the "white people aren't voting for me b/c they are closet racist" garbage. It's not coming from him, but from people in the media (pundits, I mean) who are in favor of Obama. They don't understand why he hasn't locked things up and they jump to race to make sense of it. If that keeps up, McCain will win in the fall, and that will be too bad.
SagH, Precisely what I expected from you. You never miss an opportunity to proclaim all of West Virginia as ignorant backwoods racists. I expected no less from you today. Bonus points for including prole.
AngryMan, I couldn't agree more. Isn't it racist to lump together all whites from an area and label them racist?
Buzz, I know that reality sometimes sucks, but it's much better to define and believe it than live in an illusion that WV is somehow an open minded wonderland. It just aint so.
Sure WV has a rich and interesting black history. There are many firsts and surprising tidbits of history in WV. And sure the labor movement of the early 20th century involved African-Americans. How could it not with a policy of judicious mix in place? When the mines began to feel the crunch, who were the first to go?
History is just that, history.
So go ahead, condemn my definition of reality, agree with the mighty white voices who proclaim loudly their lack of racist intent and innocent minds. Whatever works for ya.
I prefer reality.
Tomorrow, WV will render itself irrelavent no matter what the white middle class pixie dust and fairy tale crowd believe.
SagH, What you fail to understand still is: Perceptions are realities.
The way any individual defines a thing (be it a cake, a stone, or a state) is based on that individual's experience with that thing.
While you believe that my experiences are some kind of pixie dust myth, they are my experiences and they are no less valid than anyone else's experience.
While you may believe that I grew up in area devoid of black people, you didn't experience my area yourself so you are jumping to conclusions. I did grow up around some black people. They were certainly outnumbered by the white people, but we all played, worked, and went to school together. We not only got along, my dad (who grew up with all the old uses of the N-word still seen as acceptable) told us that if we ever saw someone treating a person from that family poorly because of they were black if we didn't step in and take up for them he would personally kick our asses worse than whoever was doing the picking ever could have.
And while this explanation will cause you some cognative dissonance (which you will feel the need to alleviate by denegrating me and my experience in order to continue to nurture your own), I understand that your experiences will still shape your definitions of reality.
The difference between us is: I don't need to try to belittle you, others, or even the inhabitants of an entire state in order to protect my own experience as the only correct one.
BTW, I do need to ask: If you say all West Virginians are small-minded bigots and you live in West Virginia, does this mean you are saying that you're a small-minded bigot?
I think it does because that is how blanket statements work.
The problem is that even though all places have racists to certain degree, we do not have many people of color to counteract ours.
The 2000 census has the national African-American population at 12.3% and we have 3.2%. (The same census had Boone County with 167 blacks out of 25,160 people.)
That's not to say that we're all bigots - that's a form of bigotry in itself - but the average non-racist white person isn't going to fight the ones who are anywhere near as vigorously as someone who would be the recipient of said malevolent ignorance.
See what I mean? The 1 African-American in Webster County in 2000 has it twice as hard as the 2 in Tyler County. (Surprisingly, McDowell County was the only one that was close to the national average with 11.9% and only 5 of the 55 had percentages above 5%.)
Wow Buzz. Please provide the link where I said "all West Virginians are small-minded bigots."
Most of my people live in WV. Many of them south of the Kanawha in places like Mingo and Boone County. I spent a huge portion of my life and raised my kids where Boone, Lincoln and Kanawha meet. I know lots. . . well, some very fine and open minded people from that area just as I'm sure you did from your childhood. That does not define the reality of the demographics.
If I perceive the sky to be a light shade of green, that doesn't make it reality. Perceptions are simply that, perceptions. They are not reality. If you believe that Boone County, or any other county in So. WV is some stronghold of open minded non bigotted people, that's fine, but that aint reality and you're delusional.
No, I don't make blanket statements, I have simply reported trends attitudes and demographics.
WV dems love Billary because she aint the black guy. That's reality. Get over it and quit making excuses.
WV will overwhelmingly go for McCain.
Bobzim, Thanks for the info. :)
SagH, When you say simply "WVians are showing their true colors" that would imply all WVians, even if you did take the time to spell out that you were only talking about the "ignorant uneducated white working class proles of WV" in later sentences.
As for the rest of your most recent comment, does this overstating/misstating the claims of whomever you disagree with strategy work for you often? From the number of times you rely on it, that would seem to be the case. If so, you really must stop arguing with ignorant uneducated proles because they're dulling your already flat debating skills even further.
In case you miss my point, I've never said or implied that any place on the face of this earth is "an open minded wonderland." And, pointing out that your view of reality is not the benchmark for others' views of reality is not the same as condemning your view. I'm condemning the narrow-minded approach you take to the subject, which to date has been to put people down.
In order to prove race is the only reason people would not vote for a candidate, you must prove that all other things between the available candidates (save race) are equal. In this case, the campaigning has not been equal. Or are you going to try to convince me it has?
Not that it matters, but I've lived in four states (AL, GA, KS and WV). I've found WV to be overwhelmingly more tolerant than the Southern states when it comes to race issues. Maybe that's because I've lived in and around "the big city" (Charleston), but my husband's family are all from Boone County. I've been to many functions there and I've never heard the n word or anything like that. In fact, I've heard more racist comments come from the city folks than the rural ones.
The fact remains that Obama hasn't done much in the way of trying to get the WV vote. It makes him look disinterested in the Mountain State and that's something that WVians WILl take personally (more so than the color of his skin - which in reality he's biracial, so he's as much white as he is black).
BB - I totally knew you'd love me to stir things up a bit for you. LOL.
Hey did you know Obama was black?
Buzz, I'm not worrying about my "debating skills" when I define reality. I just state the facts.
I'm sorry that you're having trouble with the reality of the demographics and sociology of WVians or the reality of the natural scents of the trees in your neighborhood.
You seem to be hving a VERY tough time with reality.
ETW, Always. I love a good stirring. And you're right. He is biracial. And it still doesn't mean that he came here to court votes. Because he didn't. Until the very last day.
Malach, I think I'm in totally cerebral love. LMAO
SagH, And you seem to be having a VERY big problem understanding.
The reality is: Obama did not stump in West Virginia until the day before the election. He did not send surrogates to stump for him in West Virginia until the day before the election.
The rest is you showing your dislike for anyone who doesn't write that WV is an inbred backwoods racist cesspool dragging the human gene pool down by its very existence.
You're never going to find that here, so why do you keep arguing for it.
That IS reality. Just not your reality.
Buzz, I understand facts and reality. You only believe in your fantasies.
Yea, if only the O Man had wasted more time here in WV I'm sure bubba from up Coal R. would have voted for him.
HAR!
Keep dreamin.
SagH, I'm not saying there are no racists in West Virginia. Hell, I think there are racists in every state, and that's a shame.
I don't think anyone is going to convince a racist to vote for someone not of the racist's race.
However, for all the folks here who are not racist, coming here to stump more would make a difference. How can you not see that?
Thanks for stopping by and reading my politickin' on my blog lately. :-)
Nice post you have here BTW. Oh, and that lady that Clinton went off on was hanging around at the Capitol passing out weird Obama literature to those standing in line to see Hillary speak Thursday morning. We had to keep telling people it wasn't from us because it was not clearly from Obama. Interesting that she would show up later that day to heckle Bill in Fayetteville.
Almost 25% of WV voters in exit polls said that the race of the candidate was important. That's the largest percentage of any state that has held primaries this year.
ABC's reporting that number as "2 out of 10" voters which would be 20% if they're right. Second highest to Mississippi.
I find it interesting that ABC led with that percentage under the heading about how "race was a factor". I don't know what the threshold is for a number to be significant (i.e., large enough to be a significant factor and therefore warranting further study). I know in research in order to be significant, that number needs to be more in the .7 range.
When you lead with race being a factor and show that it only affected 20 percent of white voters, it is misleading. Yes, 20% did look to race in their decision, but 80% did not. Eighty freaking percent!
Do you see what I'm saying.
".7" of what? In what type of research? You aint talkin about science, that's fer sure.
If 1 of 4 or 1 of 5 people do something in a society, that is significant. It indicates more than a few random acts. Also, when polling for a negative act, one can assume that a significant number of folks are not going to own up to it.
Come on Buzz, is the rest of the world wrong and a few WVians trying desperately to defend their state's honor right?
Denial of the obvious is a very uncomfortable thing to watch.
SH - out
SagH, This is my last comment on this post. LAST on this post.
How does a belief that 20% of people poleed (not a random sample of people either...a captive sample) overshadow 80% of that same sample.
So, if 1 in 5 US citizens do not pay taxes....
Yes, that's a problem that needs to be rectified, but....
NO it does not mean that all US citizens are tax-evading commies.
(Notice how there was no proof whatsoever of commies either, but it was really easy to tack that commie label on the end because bigots who jump to conclusions and label and entire people based on the actions of a much smaller percentage than the majority pad their arguments by doing just that.)
BTW, MSN has a thing up about the 12 plants to avoid in your landscape. Shit trees are one of them. You see, there are some people in this world who don't just sit back and say "nature stinks, so I just have to get used to stinking in my yard."
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