Posted on 07/20/2008 4:23:24 AM PDT by Kaslin
“The Appalachian voting bloc will be critical in the … 2008 presidential election,” former Democratic National Committee executive director Mark Siegel says.
Yet his broad statement comes with its own geopolitical caveat: location.
“It all depends on what part of Appalachia you are talking about,” says Siegel. “If they live in Pennsylvania and Ohio, then, yes, without a doubt they are the key voters. If they live in West Virginia, then no, because for the Democrats that is not a state that is in play.”
Appalachia is not a single state but a region that has its own unique frame (or perhaps frames) of mind that extend well past the borders of West Virginia and Kentucky, the states most often associated with the term.
As a geographical entity, Appalachia cuts a diagonal path from western New York to Alabama and Mississippi. The regions and cultures that go along with it include big swaths of Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee.
Who are the people that live, work, raise families, go to church, defend their country and die in this region?
According to U.S. Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., the bulk of them descended from Ulster Scots (lowland Scots who migrated to the Ulster plantation in Ireland) -- a hybrid people, “strong and unfulfilled,” who came to America looking for a new start.
Descendents of the great Scottish warrior William Wallace, these immigrants brought with them a distrust of a heavy-handed government, a demand to worship God as they saw fit, the right to bear arms and the zeal to protect their country -- far more than any other ethnicity.
Many of those core values remained with these people as they settled in Appalachia, even as they married other early settlers such as Germans, Welsh and Native Americans.
Exactly who are these voters today?
In the Democrats’ primaries, they were the white lower- to middle-class voters in Ohio, Western Pennsylvania, Western Virginia, Kentucky and West Virginia who went heavily for Sen. Hillary Clinton.
They are not activists who attend rallies and speak out -- but they will vote.
They are hurting economically, the people most impacted by spiraling gas prices because they drive -- to work, to shop, to the doctor, or to care for an elderly parent -- and they have no alternatives.
Government has forgotten them in many ways and taken them for granted in others.
These voters are dedicated to family, country and God. That is not to say they wear those things on their sleeve for all to see; they don't talk about those things unless asked.
They are simple people who want their leaders to be honest with them.
All of which is why they became Reagan Democrats: Reagan sided with them on love of country and on economics. Today, the question is whether they will give that same level of support to John McCain.
Many of them respect McCain’s service and dedication to country -- but their pocketbooks have been emptied, and it happened on the Republicans’ watch.
“Economically, they should be voting Democratic,” says Siegel. “In terms of social values, they should be trending Republican. They are a very difficult political target.”
Political analyst and numbers-cruncher Michael Barone has noticed problems for Obama among this voting bloc, which he refers to as “Jacksonian” -- for the famed Scots-Irish president who was a friend to the warrior class in Appalachia.
“I don’t know if it is enough of a problem yet, time will tell,” Barone says. But he believes the challenge for Obama is that he is viewed as an elitist by many of these people.
Along with that, a tinge of racism is at play. But clearly it goes beyond that, to Obama’s style, his substance and the way he carries himself.
Everyone thought Karl Rove and George W. Bush were crazy to spend time and money in West Virginia in 2000; a Democrat-blue state, it only went Republican in 1972 and 1984. What Democrats missed was the change in their party from Bill Clinton to elite -- and it cooked Al Gore and sank John Kerry.
No academic has scientifically determined if Appalachia’s Scots-Irish heritage can predict its natives’ voting patterns.
That means the hows and whys of their vote remain wildly unpredictable -- as well as crucial to Obama and McCain, both of whom can claim Scots-Irish heritage.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
And John McCain even less so.
Obama has already promised to raise taxes. Voting Democrat this year is economic suicide. I’d like to remind them that our pocketbooks have emptied under a Democrat controlled congress that promised to cut gas prices in some magical way, but have done NOTHING as gas prices doubled.
PA won’t be a problem for Obama: PA will write in Perot - err, Paul -r Hillary to teach the Republicans a “lesson”, which will ensure an Obama victory.
But they went heavily for Hillary Clinton.
FOFLOL!!
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Obama “can” claim Scots-Irish heritage, but he has not and likely will not. He is trying to convince African-Americans that he is Black-enough to be embraced by them. When he does discuss his being partially White, it is in jest. Like he is Dick Cheney’s cousin, or his grandmother is a typical white person (afraid of Blacks). etc.
His identity politics leaves him without an identity.
I get to talk to a lot of old ladies here in PA, the Alabama part of PA. They are not writing in Clinton. They’re ok with voting for McCain in protest against Obama’s nomination.
They’re Dems, been Dems since Roosevelt, some of them, but it seems that McCain is a special case. Whether it’s because of his POW history or his centrist (Demophile) behavior in the Senate, these old folks will cast their vote for McCain without even a clothespin.
One of my neighbors was the kingpin of the local Hillary organization. He’s a vet of Korea and Vietnam. Never voted R in his life. He’s voting for McCain too.
Philly and P’burgh skew the results, but most of PA is bitter God ‘n’ Guns. Obama will not win PA.
I don’t doubt McCain will win WV. I’m just saying that Scots-Irish isn’t what it used to be, if they bought the Clinton snake oil.
Just the IDEA of Obama the Magic Negro claiming Scots-Irish heritage after playing the race card every day for the past two years is hysterically funny.
I’ve met more Democrats - union members, no less - who plan on voting for McCain as a vote against Obama than I have PA “conservatives”. Up here by the NYS border, there are still Ron Paul signs everywhere, and most people still think Bush is to blame for high gas prices because of his “oil buddies”.
Lot of Chicago city workers I’ve run into who will speak in hushed tones about it, but they too will vote McCain. First time I heard sense outta many of them.
Exactly the same here. It’s really weird.
I'm going to just come out and say it: Appalachians are just not going to vote for a black man, period.
In Southwest Virginia, coal mining country, Hillary took 90% of the vote during the Rat primary. That's overwhelming. My dad, who's a retired coal miner and a life-long New Deal Democrat can't even mention Obama by name---he just refers to him as "THAT," as in I'm not going to vote for "THAT!"
And just because Westy Virginia has traditionally voted Democrat and is the home of "Sheets" Byrd (not coincidental, BTW), does NOT mean that the state will line up behind Obama.
Just my .02 worth of ranting this mroning...
And still W.Va. elects that Rockafella turd.
Its residents are pro-God, pro-gun, pro-life, pro-military, pro-energy, but boy, are they also pro-gubmint cheese and pro-ambulance chaser.
Obama has no chance here but someone like John Edwards would have won in a landslide.
“O.K. me and my family come from the deepest, darkest depths of Appalachia. I know the people and I know the culture since they are mine. So I think that I can speak with some authority on the subject.”
Well then, given your criteria, I can say that, in my neck of the woods, the color of the man’s skin has nothing to do with it.
What *does* have to do with it, is that he couldn’t be bothered to set foot in the state, as much as called us *all* racists (contrary to popular belief, there are black people living in WV ;) and insulted our deeply held mores and values (contrary to another popular belief, “education” is highly valued ;). And then he expects people to vote for him? “Not hardly!” ;)
And while we’re talking about it, there *are* Republicans in WV too. :)
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