So many great quotes in that article:
``What people don't understand about Appalachia is that we've heard all this `hope' and `change' stuff since the English kicked the Scotch-Irish out in the 1700s. We're `hoped' out. Nothing ever changes out here,'' Dave ``Mudcat'' Saunders, a Virginia political strategist who worked on John Edwards' campaign, told The Politico on the eve of the West Virginia vote."
So these are the people we need to pander to as we pick the leader of our entire republic, cynical burnouts with a centuries-old chip on their shoulder?
Does anyone else in the country want to live with that outlook on politics and life? Not me.
"For those keeping score, seven of the 10 whitest states in the nation have held their primaries or caucuses. The Illinois senator has won five and the New York senator two _ New Hampshire by an inch and now West Virginia by a country mile.
Stretch it to the 20 whitest states and the tally is 12 for Obama and five for Clinton, with three to go. If you limit it to primary and not caucus states, of the 20 whitest states, Obama has won four _ Vermont, Wisconsin, Utah and Missouri _ and Clinton has won five _ New Hampshire, West Virginia, Indiana, Pennsylvania and Ohio.
Those numbers speak for themselves. Put them with the head-to-head numbers with McCain against Clinton or Obama and the same equivalence emerges.
Appalachia reaches from western New York and Pennsylvania down through eastern Ohio, all of West Virginia, stretches of western Virginia and the Carolinas, eastern Kentucky and Tennessee and on into north Georgia and Alabama and northeastern Mississippi. As Josh Marshall noted in posting on Talking Points Memo after the West Virginia results were in, the map of Appalachia lines up pretty well with a map of counties where Clinton has won more than 60 percent of the vote.
``She's won the Appalachian region of every state contested,'' wrote Dana Houle, who in his postings on Daily Kos has dissected how Obama's difficulty in Appalachia does not necessarily translate into a broader or more permanent problem with white voters.
``No, Obama doesn't have a racial problem,'' Houle concluded. ``It appears that Appalachia has an Obama problem.''
And that is that. When you look at all the electoral strategies Obama can pursue - and both sides will have an electoral strategy - running in the heart of Appalachia is not necessary. It's a fantasy that both candidates will run in every part of all 50 states and count on them all to support them. |
