So poor bitter people don't support Obama?

"low information voters" ?

You Obama folk make me sick.

Great diary.  MyDD could be inching back toward more objective analysis of candidates and issues rather than bashing/hero worship diaries that have come to dominate.

i'll give you kudo's for writing a positive diary . I disagree with some of your points but you deserve credit.

An excellent and thoughtful diary. I do think there was a conscious decision in the Obama campaign not to contest these areas. As in all campaigns decisions need to be made where to allocate resources. The Obama camp had a near-perfect strategy based on its projections. While he no doubt could have made a play for some of these areas, and done much better there, there would have been a cost involved in taking resources from other contests.

because I think you make some good points and you have some understanding of the region.  However I wish you could see what I do, that people know Obama doesn't like, understand or respect them.
There is no doubt some ignorance and even racism.  But mostly people will not vote for a candidate who doesn't like them and to like someone you have to stop thinking of them as "ignorant and unable to hear a message of hope because it comes from a Black man".

Obama really is an elitist edrod and I think you know that.  I am an elitist too, but on different grounds and so I recognize one when I see one.  His problem is that he will not address his own snob problem. He has a very narrow parochial view of the country and it could have changed if he had spent more time in the senate before running, but I think it has doomed him in the GE this year.

And people's concerns about his Church are real and valid. No white candidate can get elected by going to a church that said the things about blacks that reverend said about whites.  Trying to deny it is a problem is just hiding one's head in the sand. No amount of time spent discussing the non-effect of reverse racism is going to change that people will not vote for a candidate who seems to be out of the mainstream and not willing to take their concerns seriously, who brushes them off as too beaten down to understand.

So why didn't Obama go meet and talk to the people of WV?  Why didn't he spend more time in PA?  He lost the advanced degree crowd in PA, Does he know why?  I do not think he does because it is easier to group people who are not voting for him in to some unflattering groups designation than question himself and his own views.

It actually makes the people of appalachia sound (somewhat) rational, just like everywhere else in this country.  I agree that the democrats (not just Obama) should give the region more attention. Otherwise the republicans are going to continue to use social wedge issues (i.e., Bill's term for bitter) to mislead them into voting for people who just are not going to help them.

Elrod thanks for sharing your thoughts. The bigger question is - can this be changed before Nov? Or should we just let go Appalachia and focus the money and effort on other regions?

I still feel Obama is a weaker candidate but we have to do with what we got and make things happen for Nov.

I am curious to hear your thoughts since it seems like you have your ears to the ground when it comes to Appalachia.

It's really hard to compare campaign stops by the Clinton and Obama camps. The Clintons have two stars to field and Barack just has himself. The President can roll into these small towns and he is the biggest name in decades. It's hard for Obama to counter that and keep up with press requests, fund raisers, big campaign stops, etc.

In my state he's been all over the place including costal towns like North Bend. North Bend is big by Oregon costal town standards but it's really quite small and out of the way, not the kind of stop that is an economical use of Obama's time.

What is the difference between

3) All of that said, the cultural barriers are real here. Historically, those with lower education levels have been more suspicious of cultural difference. Barack Obama is about as exotic a candidate as you can get. His name, his race, his family's origin, his path to Christianity, etc. are nothing like that experienced by most folks in Appalachia.

If Hillary's name was Siobhan, do you think people would be saying they wouldn't vote for her because her name didn't sound right for an American?  

Thanks for the thoughtful analysis.  I'll admit that I tend to believe that Hillary's lead in Appalachia is due to some...uh...less charitable characteristics of Appalachia.  But I'd be delighted to be wrong about that.

Also, I grew up in NW PA and was astonished to see (somewhere) that it is considered part of Appalachia.  Do you know if this is true or how I could find out?

Thanks again.

ABC News asks why Obama can't win West Virginia:

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/ 2008/05/why-shouldnt-ob.html

I appreciate your thoughtful diary, and I agree with many of your points.  So many readers seem to be going directly to race without passing go at outsider.  The two are not synonymous, and if one are not familiar with the history of Appalachia and/or the traditional nature of the culture here,  one is much less likely to grasp that the two are definitely not synonymous.  Since Rockefeller's endorsement of Obama, I've heard some of his big supporters remarking on Rockefeller's "foreignness" lately: how little time he spends here; how rarely Sharon visits the state; how and why he came here in the first place, not because he endorsed Obama, but because the endorsement is so out of step with his constituents.  

That said, I don't entirely agree that union culture is dead in WV, or that the phenomenon of Bush Republicans in WV is the result of the death of union culture in WV.

I believe that the biggest job losses in coal country happened from 1950 to the 1980s, not in the 1990s.  I don't have any data to back it up, of course.  

There was also a big union push in the WV democratic gubanatorial primary in 1996 for Charlotte Pritt - are you familiar with that campaign at all? - who beat our present governor in the primary, but was abandoned by conservative Democrats (basically, the Manchin voters) in the general and lost to a genial old dude, Cecil Underwood, with whom many WVians were familiar because he was governor in the 1950s.  

Pritt had alot of support from "progressive" activists/environmentalists in the state AND from unions.  I think she was the last candidate to have a significant base in WV that included both out and out liberals and major union support.  

I believe that Gore lost WV for two reasons: 1. guns; 2. the environment.  Look, when it comes to the long-term viability of the coal industry, the UMWA has to side with big coal; it's in the interests of both the coal miners and the mining companies.  And there are loads of union- and or union-minded people who are indirectly involved in mining, if not directly involved.  Meanwhile, environmentalists make their pitches for regulation without the kind of nuance and committment to the local economy that would at least make their positions more palatable.  

I am definitely opposed to mountaintop removal mining.  I also think that most talk of "clean coal" is a crock.  But it is much easier to demand an end to mining and the coal industry when you live in NYC or Washington than it is when you live in Bloomingrose, West Virginia, especially in the absence of a genuine committment on the part of the country (and many environmentalists) to the economic viability of small-town Appalachia.

I think you make some excellent points, and, yes, it is a pleasure to read an election diary that is sincere, well-informed, thoughtful, and balanced.

At the same time, I think the issue (of Obama's lack of support) goes a bit deeper than you suggest.  Basically, his positions (focusing on process, corruption, etc.) are ones that typically appeal of high-income intellectuals.  Clinton's experience, approach, and positions are ones that have stronger appeal to the working class.  (This class split has been largely mitigated by Obama's strong appeal to African-Americans, many of whom appear to be voting for him out of racial solidarity.)  However, it still exists, so even if Obama spent a good deal of time campaigning in West Virginia, he could increase his support there, but perhaps by not too much.

Self-loathing whites he have the need to paint white people who support Hillary as racist?

Do you also call the massive voting block of black voters who vote for Barack racist?

Clinton lived for years in Arkansas and knows the hard scrabble lives of rural southerners in her bones.

Obama's real time political experience is in urban Chicago and he hasn't spent enough time in the senate to even begin to absorb the stories and values of the rest of the countries from his fellow senators, much less the lessons from living life in those parts.

If he had delayed his presidential run for 4 or 8 years he would have been a little more aware of what he didn't know.

But he's always been an impatient man, who didn't let on-the-job training get in the way of his ambition.

And because of a brilliant speech in 2004 at the convention, he became the new matinee idol for the democratic elite, who wanted a shiny new product for the big campaign.  

What does this say for the Democratic party, when they put image before expertise?

Fantastic diary, thanks elrod.

Nice analysis Elrod.  I think you're right:  the margins we're seeing in WV and KY would be smaller had Obama made greater efforts to connect with voters in these regions.

Recc'd.

I grew up in southern Ohio, directly across the Ohio River from Huntington, WV.  My wife grew up about 15 miles west of there, near Ashland, KY.  These people are the salt of the earth, but I can't imagine Obama doing well there even if he had spent a solid week in the area.  Two months ago, HRC carried the southernmost counties of Ohio with 70-80% of the vote, and West Virginia and Kentucky (the eastern part of it, anyway) won't be much different.

Racism is undoubtedly part of it, but it's probably a minor factor.  These people value the tried and true, and Obama is probably a bit too new and different for their taste.  As the diarist noted, people in this part of the country have every reason to be suspicious of outsiders.  Not only is there a long, sad history of exploitation of the people and the land (and its resources), but they are also justifiably sensitive to any hint of condescension.  (Remember the Beverly Hillbillies?  How about Deliverance?)

Most important, Obama has done poorly among less-educated working-class whites all along, and if there is a more less-educated working-class white region of the country, I don't know where it is.  West Virginia's two largest cities only have about 50,000 people each, so there is no large urban population.  Finally, the young people among whom Obama has done so well are in relatively short supply due to lack of economic opportunity.  Many young people - especially bright young people - either leave the area to attend college or leave the area after college to find work.  (I speak from experience on this point.)

There are many areas of the Country that went significantly against Obama for a lot of reasons, but the focus on that only goes to states that are mostly white. People want to find racism as the reason because they are too lazy or uninformed on complexities of culture to really find out the real reasons.  You can't tell me there aren't large numbers of people in other large population areas deciding upon their vote based on race.  Even in the middle of large cities, there are people who find change hard and don't feel good toward outsiders. Calling racism is the easy way out for onlookers who have a bone to pick to come to a ready conclusion about why others don't like their candidate.

If Back can master the Appalachian accent like Hillary so thickly does, he might get a few more points.  Seriously though, did anybody hear her speech today on the McNeil NewsHour?  Whoo boy!  It is embarrassingly painful to listen to, and to appreciate the depth of pandering that this candidate will sink to.

And my parents are voting for Hillary tomorrow.

The irony here is that Obama really does have an opening in these states and I don't understand why he didn't try to take advantage of it.  A lot of blue-collar workers associate President Clinton with a good economy but a lot also associate him with NAFTA and GATT.  Many feel that Democrats tossed them aside with these trade deals in the 1990s.  Why, then, should they vote for Democrats now?  My parents are supporting Hillary because they like the fact that she is specific and she seems better prepared for the job than Obama.  My relentless advocacy may have something to do with that.

My parents aren't racist and they aren't afraid of outsiders.  They will support Obama if he is the nominee because they think the GOP is going to sink the country.  As union activists, they deeply distrust Republicans.  But they don't think that either party will do anything to help the blue-collar workers.  When I called my father yesterday to make sure he was still voting for Hillary, he said that he would but it was a waste of time.  Not because the media had written her off, but because nobody would do anything anyway.

In 2000, WV, to my horror, went for Bush.  I knew it was coming, but I was still devastated.   In 1992, during the general election campaign, Gore visited a town near my home and he promised to enforce trade laws that prevented steel dumping.  In 1999 & 2000, when China, Japan, and Brazil were accused of dumping steel and US manufacturers were losing money, closing plants, and laying-off workers, Secretary of the Treasury Rubin convinced President Clinton not to do anything.  It may have been for the greater good, but the community where I lived was outraged at having been lied to.

How could you expect these people to turn around and support Vice President Gore after that?

Well, they didn't.  Bush won the state, and he went on to levy tariffs on steel imports that save the steel mills in my hometown, including my father's.  It is a very painful irony for me that the man who led us into the nightmare that is Iraq also saved my father's job.  I sometimes think about how the world would be so much better if Gore had been elected.  Yet, my father would have lost his job, his pension, and his health insurance.  My parents probably would have lost their home.  And who knows what else.

The issue in my community is not that the unions aren't around to remind people of economic issues.  The economic issues are all around them.  Closing factories and coal mines.  Children moving away.  Aging populations.  Declining infrastructure.  The Democrats blame international trade (and do nothing).  The Republicans blame environmental laws, over-regulation, and immigration.  The voters there don't trust anybody.  The don't have any reason to expect that Democrats or Republicans will do anything to improve the economy.  

When these blue-collar workers vote for Republicans, many say they are voting against their economic self interest.  Why are they so irrational?  Why are they falling for the culture wars BS?  They aren't irrational.  Based on recent history, they have no reason to expect good things from either party.  They go Republican because of social issues.

How do we get them back?  Local Democrats have been pandering for years about international trade and bringing back the jobs.  These people aren't stupid.  They didn't fall for the BS from Clinton and Obama about renegotiating NAFTA.  If we want to bring back the white, blue-collar workers, they need action and results, not more promises.  Green-collar jobs?  Universal health care?

West Virginia like all of the rust belt states that voted heavily for Hillary, is a perfect example of the troubles that Obama has with White working class voters across the country. This is one of the main reasons that he will have great difficulty in winning a GE if he gets the nomination, without WV, Ohio, Pennsylvania or Florida, he has no chance of becoming President.

As a Tennessean myself, I appreciate your thoughts, Elrod, on the culture and voting patterns of the region. Great Diary, thank you. Highly recommended.

Jim Webb wrote this article in 2004 questioning why Democrats don't make more of an effort to win them as voters--and particularly why Democrats really need to do so:

The Scots-Irish are derived from a mass migration from Northern Ireland in the 1700s, when the Calvinist "Ulster Scots" decided they'd had enough of fighting Anglican England's battles against Irish Catholics. One group settled initially in New Hampshire, spilling over into modern-day Vermont and Maine. The overwhelming majority -- 95% -- migrated to the Appalachians in a series of frontier communities that stretched from Pennsylvania to northern Alabama and Georgia. They eventually became the dominant culture of the South and much of the Midwest.

True American-style democracy had its origins in this culture. Its values emanated from the Scottish Kirk, which had thrown out the top-down hierarchy of the Catholic Church and replaced it with governing councils made up of ordinary citizens. This mix of fundamentalist religion and social populism grew from a people who for 16 centuries had been tested through constant rebellions against centralized authority. The Scots who headed into the feuds of 17th-century Ulster, and then into the backlands of the American frontier, hardened further into a radicalism that proclaimed that no man had a duty to obey a government if its edicts violated his moral conscience.

Matched with this rebelliousness was a network of extended family "clans," still evident among the Scots-Irish, built on an egalitarianism that measured a person by their own code of honor, courage, loyalty and audacious leadership. Noted Scottish professor T.C. Smout said it best when he observed that these relationships were "compounded both of egalitarian and patriarchal features, full of respect for birth while being free from humility." They demanded strong leaders, but would never tolerate one who considered himself above his fellows. Andrew Jackson, the first president of Scots-Irish descent, forever changed the style of American politics, creating a movement that even today is characterized as Jacksonian democracy.

The Scots-Irish comprised a large percentage of Reagan Democrats, and contributed heavily to the "red state" votes that gave Mr. Bush the presidency in 2000. The areas with the highest Scots-Irish populations include New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, northern Florida, Mississippi, Arkansas, northern Louisiana, Missouri, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, southern Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and parts of California, particularly Bakersfield. The "factory belt," especially around Detroit, also has a strong Scots-Irish mix.

The Scots-Irish political culture is populist and inclusive, which has caused other ethnic groups to gravitate toward it. Country music is its cultural emblem. It is family-oriented. Its members are values-based rather than economics-based: they often vote on emotional issues rather than their pocket books. Because of their heritage of "kinship," they're strangely unenvious of wealth, and measure leaders by their personal strength and values rather than economic position. They have a 2,000-year-old military tradition based on genealogy, are the dominant culture of the military and the Christian Right, and define the character of blue-collar America. They are deeply patriotic, having consistently supported every war America has fought, and intensely opposed to gun control -- an issue that probably cost Mr. Gore both his home state of Tennessee and traditionally Democratic West Virginia in 2000.

The GOP strategy is heavily directed toward keeping peace with this culture, which every four years is seduced by the siren song of guns, God, flag, opposition to abortion and success in war. By contrast, over the past generation the Democrats have consistently alienated this group, to their detriment.

The Democrats lost their affinity with the Scots-Irish during the Civil Rights era, when -- because it was the dominant culture in the South -- its "redneck" idiosyncrasies provided an easy target during their shift toward minorities as the foundation of their national electoral strategy. Their long-term problem in having done so is twofold. First, it hampers their efforts to carry almost any Southern state. And second, the Scots-Irish culture has strong impact outside the South. This is especially strong in many battleground states. It is no accident that many political observers call the central region in Pennsylvania "Northern Alabama."

Scots-Irish traditions play heavily in New Hampshire -- the only New England state that Mr. Bush carried in 2000. Large numbers of Scots-Irish settled in the southern regions of Ohio (called "Northern Kentucky"), Indiana and Illinois. They were among the principal groups to settle Missouri and Colorado. They migrated heavily to the industrial areas in Michigan, which is one reason that George Wallace, ran so strongly in that state in 1968 and 1972.

But other than with those who identify with the Christian Right, it would be wrong to think that the Republicans have their firm loyalty. For every Lee Atwater or Karl Rove who understands the Scots-Irish, there are others who privately disdain them. And sometimes not so privately -- the most vicious ethnic slur of the presidential campaign came from Charles Krauthammer, after Howard Dean suggested that the Democrats needed to reach out to the "guys with the Confederate flags on their pickup trucks." Mr. Krauthammer, who has never complained about this ethnic group when it has marched off to fight the wars he wishes upon us, wrote that Mr. Dean "wants the white trash vote . . . that's clearly what he meant," and that he was pandering to "rebel-yelling racist rednecks."

As with other ethnic groups, those inside the culture know how to read such code words, and there may come a time when the right Democratic strategist knows how to counter them in the manner that Mr. Dean contemplated. John Edwards is at his visceral best when his campaign rhetoric seems directed at doing that.

The decline in public education and the outsourcing of jobs has hit this culture hard. Diversity programs designed to assist minorities have had an unequal impact on white ethnic groups and particularly this one, whose roots are in a poverty-stricken South. Their sons and daughters serve in large numbers in a war whose validity is increasingly coming into question. In fact, the greatest realignment in modern politics would take place rather quickly if the right national leader found a way to bring the Scots-Irish and African Americans to the same table, and so to redefine a formula that has consciously set them apart for the past two centuries.

http://www.jameswebb.com/articles/wallst jrnl/scotsirishvote.htm

Despite its voting preferences and its religious traditions that differ from mine, I love Appalachia. I was reminded of it again when I went out with some friends tonight for dinner and beers and heard a couple guys playing bluegrass music. The crowd - both middle and working class - was genuinely in to it. The music is as native to this region as any other - the Carter Family grew up down the road outside Kingsport (Lori's hometown...) The Stanley Brothers, Roy Acuff, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Ricky Scaggs, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, Carl Smith, Doc Watson - all of them came from the area. Despite everything, I'm proud to call Appalachia home.