Thanks "O¿O in the crowd"

I have been trying in my own feeble way to express these same sentiments. Please see my previous posts. A survey taken by a Repub in WV a week or so ago showed McCain 44%, Obama 39% and undecided 17%.

The best thing going is that most around here are tired of the last eight years of Bushies. I believe that will be the last thought on most voters' minds around here as they mark their ballots. Wv could prove to be a surprise.

I think the length of the campaign -- primary season and now the GE -- has been a good thing in this regard. There is enough time, and enough information, and enough exposure to allow folks that had an immediate, fixed reaction to set that aside and look at other things while waiting for it to be over. And when you set something like racism to the side, even temporarily, it's just not as powerful when you pick it up again.

I'm familiar with Appalachia and don't know of an area of the country where there is a greater need for 'hope' - or a candidate who is going to be more receptive to the situation and concerns of that area. Palin may be small town -- but it's small Alaska, wilderness, frontier, 'limitless possibilities' small: not the situation in Appalachia at all. South side Chicago after the steel mills left is a much better training ground for working on the problems facing WV and elsewhere.

While I live in Seattle, I grew up in Kansas, got my B.A. at KU, and still consider myself a 'Kansan.' I still have a lot of friends back in Lawrence.

My point? Well, while Kansas may be a die-hard conservative state, it isn't filled with a legion of idiots who preach that the Gays will burn in hell (Fred "Missing Link" Phelps notwithstanding), and it is a genuinely tolerant place. OK, it's easy to be tolerant when there aren't very many minorities around, but it would be cynical and very unfair to ignore this. Most of the people you'll meet tend to be Republicans, but they're decent, benevolent, and reasonable folks who would disabuse anyone of the notion that all conservatives goose-step to the tune of the Hannitys/Limbaughs/Savages of the world. At the risk of ending on a warm and fuzzy, cornball note, Obama is right: we are not as divided as the media make us out to be.

Robert

Thank you for your post. I have long believed that the citizens you describe have been unfairly stereotyped as badly as some other groups have. In the current climate, it is increasingly difficult for Americans to miss the fact that they have been harmed over the past 8 years, and the repug scare tactics will hopefully be much less effective.

My parents, lifelong Democrats, still live in a part of Indiana that is deeply and profoundly redneck and hillbilly (but the terms refer to different kinds of people). They have observed that in recent weeks criticism and putdowns of Obama have radically subsided. They suspect a sort of reverse political correctness may be at work: a bunch of old white guys will say in public they will vote McCain because they cannot admit they will vote for a Black candidate. But in the privacy of the voting booth, they will vote their pocketbooks. As far as feelings about Palin, most of the old white rednecks think their wives would make better candidates than she has turned out to be!

Thank you. I live in florida, so there are not that many stereotypical rednecks because we have all kinda of integrated. But, it pisses me off, when people do these stories- it's like if Obama loses its because he is black- or Obama can't win these people over because he is black- heads I win tails you lose. I would like all these reporters to get a life and do journalistic works not opinion pages. I am reminded of watching this guy in WV that said I am going to vote for the colored guy cause I don't think a woman is up for the job. There are MANY people voting against McCain because he is old. The MSM love feeding a narrative- they think that if they feed it, it will grow. Sadly, thank God there was a financial meltdown- maybe now they will stop doing their tabloid stories.

I moved to Kentucky 18 years ago, living in the bluegrass but working for a nonprofit that needed me to cover the state, including our eastern mountain counties.

I've learned to expect Eastern Kentucky folks to be a bit wary on first encounter, and then warm up very quickly. The warmth seems to arrive once it's clear that I know I have things to learn, I want to pull my own weight in the project, and I can see both the challenge and the humor in whatever mess we're working on together. (Other places I've worked, people would seem friendly earlier, but not get truly welcoming for much longer.)

The stories above, along with Kentucky polling and conversations, all suggest to me that, slowly, a fair number of people are deciding that Obama is, in fact, alright. The Harvard degree and the big city career notwithstanding, he's got good sense and wants to do right by folks. The balance isn't tipping fast enough to change Kentucky's electoral votes, but it's moving.

Plus, they're warming to him while he's avoiding them, dodging their West Virginia cousins, and downright insulting the good folk of Arkansas. They're paying attention to the issues, the campaigns, and the man. They're figuring the Senator out when he can't be bothered to come visit.

That suggests to me that while race is a factor, being a stranger has been a bigger factor and one that's slowly melting. It also suggests that modest efforts in July and August might have made an amazing difference.

Obama's my guy, but he's badly underestimating a lot of Appalachian voters.

Hope this makes you feel a little better about all us "hillbillies!"

Darlin, I'm from Texas. I already understand the prejudices against us rednecks.

;)

Nice post. Nice to hear cool-headed commentary in the midst of all this. Not that I'm not hot-headed myself.

There was a post over on HuffPo the other week that listed Obama's strategic 'errors' as he saw them. One of them was the 50-state strategy. I strongly disagreed - I saw it as a long-term effort to reach out and gain some trust from red staters, regardless of whether there was a chance of winning there. I still admire and applaud it. Yet I understand the need to focus on the win at this point.

I like your post cos it puts a face on all the people who get disenfranchised by the electoral system, and the potentially cynical strategies that it engenders. And certainly, I hope that more is done to reach all voters that are still weighing their options.

This post has been on the Rec list for far too long and Is ANYONE else getting that sinking feeling their posts aren't getting ANYWHERE?

O¿O in the crowd

Found your site from a post on the http://clistersbackchannel.wordpress.com blog. Notice you are from SE Ohio. That is where I grew up. Very Repug area. I've always been a Dem, though, and working for Obama this time as so many others are. Most of my family are still in SE OH and they have always been Dems, but I'm wondering what they will do this year with so much bigotry still there.

Notice you mention Meigs County. That's where my late husband grew up and was from. I grew up in Gallia. You've probably heard of some of my family. Very depressed area of the state and country. Can't understand why anyone would want four more years of what they've had with Bush, but some in that area just don't want to know anything about the issues and how they affect their lives.

I wrote a piece yesterday about McCain's "fundamentally sound economics" on BackChannel.

http://clistersbackchannel.wordpress.com/2008/09/19/%e2%80%9cour-economy-is-fundamentally-strong%e2%80%9d-%e2%80%93-really-we%e2%80%99ve-heard-that-before-by-karolenna/