Posted on 10/01/2012 12:23:41 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
DEAD possums litter the roads of the southern United States and whenever Bernie Smith encounters another fallen marsupial he pulls over and hurls the corpse into the back of his truck.
One man's detritus is another man's feast: cooked slowly with potato, carrot and celery, the meat becomes tender in a rich and spicy stew known as burgoo.
Mr Smith, 67, was showing off this traditional technique at the annual Road Kill Cook-Off festival in Marlinton, West Virginia, an isolated town nestled in the Appalachian mountains. Thousands were on hand this weekend to compare his casserole with barbecue squirrel, bear meatloaf and grilled porcupine skewers.
For the Republican Party organisers fanning out across the event, this ought to be fertile ground. These rural, white Christians, once dismissed as "hillbillies", have been central to the party's electoral success since the Nixon era.
Certainly, the hostility towards President Barack Obama was near universal. Mr Smith, a pharmacist from North Carolina, began his critique along policy lines; he dislikes the Administration's desire to raise tax and hates the White House vision on energy and coal. In a lowered voice, he also confided that he thought Mr Obama was a secret believer in the Islamic faith.
"It's obvious he is," he whispered. "The reading I've done: the way he talks about the Koran, you wouldn't do that unless you were a Muslim." Mr Smith, who pronounced the Islamic holy book "key-ran", said people were still distrustful of Mr Obama but there was less talk about his race now than there had been four years ago.
But in a recent Reuters/Ipsos survey of the Bible Belt, which stretches from Texas to Virginia, 20 per cent of white lower and middle income voters still said they would be less likely to vote for an African-American candidate.
Despite this, Mitt Romney engendered little excitement. Lane Jack, 38, who was browsing the stalls with his wife and a small pig on a leash, said he was unsure how to vote in November.
"With everything Romney's been caught saying, I don't see how you could trust him," he said. "I don't think he understands us." Mr Jack, who owns a small T-shirt printing company, agrees with 38 per cent of voters in the survey who said they would be less likely to vote for a "very wealthy" candidate. Another 35 per cent said they were less likely to vote for a Mormon.
"We're so damn poor around here we didn't know there was a recession," said Mike Hollingsworth, a self-employed handyman and logger. "I was taught growing up that anyone could be president. Looking at people like Romney I don't know if I believe that any more."
While Mr Romney is likely to pick up most states below the Mason-Dixon line, he is struggling in Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, key swing states along the Appalachian trail. Speaking as she sauteed wild deer for her deep-fried venison balls, Shawn Smith said the US President must put faith at the heart of the White House. She was unconvinced that Mr Romney's Mormonism would suffice. "There's a dark side to Romney that I don't think we can trust," she said.
With the state leaving space on the ballot box for people to write what they want, the winner of the Miss Road Kill, West Virginia contest, Joy Hammond, knew exactly how she would be voting, and said she was lobbying friends to do the same. "I'm writing in 'Clint Eastwood'," she said.
I don’t believe anyone that mines coal would vote for Obama. I would be surprised.
What an idiot....the folks in VA and NC who aren’t melanin enriched and don’t support Romney are not native
They are the usual scourge ...northern libtards or Kali libturds
That is what killed Florida
While Australia may have a number of rough outbackers, I doubt that they have any clue about US southern and mountain folk, or that the south was traditional Democrat back in the OLD KKK Byrd days, but no longer.
The yellow dog democrats have died off, leaving the party to the blacks.
why was this article posted?
Kee Ran?
Seriously?
Not buying it.
Australia is in the thrall of the unions, to a degree that would be unfamiliar to most of us in the the US. That said. we’re the ones who elected Obama.
This article is just a slur piece against Romney, entirely concocted. It could just as well have been titled “Obama Struggles to get Hillbilly Vote”. But the author want to portray “hillbillys”, i.e. ignorant yahoos, as the natural electorate of Republicans.
Since when?
Hillbillys have traditionally been Democrats, to the best of my memory. I can recall when the West Virginia primary was a must-place-well for any Democrat aspirant to the presidency.
I live in a very rural county in southeastern TN, right along the edge of the mountains. Though most folks around here may not be all that excited about Romney, he’ll win this county hands-down. Too many are more concerned about what will happen to this country if we have 4 more years of The Occupier in the WH. Almost everyone who has walked into our Republican Women’s headquarters for signs, buttons, etc. has said they are scared to death by the thought of Obama being re-elected.
We’ve also given out a lot of voter registration forms. Some to folks who have recently moved to the area and some to folks who just haven’t bothered to vote in the past but are determined to do their part to boot Obama out this year.
One old feller in bib overalls showed up last weekend and said he’d always voted demoncrat but not this time. He walked out with an armload of Romney/Ryan signs, t-shirts, and buttons and a big smile on his face.
No struggle for Romney to get the hillbilly vote in my neck o’ the woods. :-)
Thanks for posting this.
The author’s a wanker.
So the hillbillies are clinging to their guns and their God and...Obama? If true we’re totally screwed.
You’re welcome.
I just couldn’t sit back and let that Aussie paint all hillbillies as ignorant. LOL! A lot of us do have brains that function quite well.
What a crock! Why do people that don’t live here continue to spread this kind of trash? I don’t know anybody personally that eats possum or lives in a home with no utilities and a dirt floor. I know there are poor people here that live on Welfare but there are people like that all over. People that don’t live here don’t know what they are talking about. We HAVE moved into the 21st century. Southerners are the friendliest people you will ever meet. The Southern culture is the best anywhere. Tennessee does have the road kill law but that means that if you hit a deer on the road out of season that it is legal for you to pick it up and have it processed without fear of being fined rather than leave it to rot. It’s a good law but of course people that don’t live here intentionally take it out of context.
I am also in S.E. Tennessee and I agree. I don’t like Romney at all but anybody is better than what we have.
About the only thing I can say is that this reporter must have talked to the “hillbillys” that are on TANF, EITC, Section 8, WICs, EBT, etc. In my little north Georgia county, we have a lot of them, but they are still outnumbered 2 to 1.
I worked as a poll clerk for several years and the elections always went conservative here, even in 2008. We have “hills”, and we have “billys, billybobs, and billyjoes” but not all that many “billyBaracks.”
Right. We’re expected to believe that ‘hillbillies’ (potential Christian clingers) feel a natural affinity to urban liberal elites?
They're all over the damn roads....in pieces....with nuts rolling around nearby.
I guess they get all excited and just run into the road.
I hate the sound of thump, thump in the morning. Evening...not so much...
Mr. Hines
I don’t have an “Obama Phone” so I can’t call ya.. But, if I did, I’d tell ya that the hillbilly vote will go overwhelmingly for Romney. How do I know? Unlike you, I am a hillbilly from the South and I know just how much Obama is despised and is held in deep disdain down here.
Most Southern hillibilies like myself have nothing but contemp for Barry. We are smart enough to see the charlatan for what he is....A FRAUD!
But, being that we aren’t as “ENLIGHTENED” in the ways of ignorance, stupidity, liberalism, and communism as you nitwits in the press, we don’t expect you to understand.
Anything else I can “DO FER YE”?
Ya’ll come back now...ya hear....!
I was born and raised in Kentucky and never heard of anyone eating roadkill in my life. Why eat roadkill when you can open your back door and shoot dinner? My sister’s Thanksgiving invitations always conclude with the statement “Bring a gun, we’ll kill something and eat it”.
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