Obama’s Appalachian Trail of Tears (Read it & Weep, Democrats!)

Human Events ^ | May 20, 2008 | William Moloney

[2ndDivisionVet]

It isn’t just West Virginia. We saw those same lopsided majorities for Clinton -- three and four to one -- in southwestern Pennsylvania, western counties in Virginia, and eastern Tennessee. We’ll see more such blowouts in Kentucky’s eastern counties on May 20.

Who are these people and what are they thinking?

They live along a geographical belt of the country roughly corresponding to the Appalachian Mountains stretching from upstate New York to Alabama. Many call the area Appalachia and describe the people as “backward”. Such characterizations are both unfair and inaccurate.

These people have been there a long time. Migration is outward not inward. Overwhelmingly they are Protestant and largely of Scots-Irish descent. Many came from Northern Ireland when the British Parliament banned Presbyterians from holding office; others emigrated from the Scottish Highlands following the bloody defeat of “Bonny Prince Charlie” in 1745.

Though most of these people are geographically “Southern” they disproportionally enlisted in the Union Army because they detested slavery. West Virginia seceded from Virginia in 1861 over that very issue.

It would be fair to say -- as Barack Obama did -- that these people “cling” to God, guns, and patriotism, but not because they’re “bitter”, but because they believe that these are things central to the values that define their lives.

Accordingly they make fine soldiers. Characteristically America’s greatest hero in World War I was an uneducated sharp shooting woodsman from the Tennessee hills named Alvin York. In the age of the all volunteer military enlistment rates in Appalachia lead the nation. Given this reverence for things military West Virginians could not forget Al Gore’s invention of combat experience in Vietnam or forgive John Kerry’s slander of his fellow soldiers as “war criminals”.

In the wake of Obama’s wipeout in West Virginia the liberal media has not actually used the term “racist hillbillys” but clearly that’s what they mean as they try to explain away this “little setback”.

While race was certainly a factor in West Virginia it was not the decisive issue in 2008 anymore than religion was in 1960.

In each of these seminal primaries -- half a century apart -- the decisive issue was Patriotism with a capital P.

Those of us with distant memories of on the ground realities from the West Virginia of 1960 recall conversations in American Legion halls, VFW posts, and other places where gritty coal miners and hardscrabble farmers gathered to talk about who should succeed Dwight Eisenhower as leader of the Free World.

West Virginians decided they could forgive Jack Kennedy’s Catholicism and forget he went to Harvard because what sealed the deal was his undeniable heroism in saving his men in the South Pacific after the sinking of PT-109.

No doubt in countless attics in Wheeling and Charleston you can find yellowing political flyers with a picture of an emaciated young Lieutenant at the helm of his boat. Probably in the same dusty box are the pins and other memorabilia -- distributed by the thousands -- that reminded West Virginians that the handsome but still shy candidate before them had gone in harms way with their own sons, and brothers, and fathers.

In 2008 West Virginians used the same scale to measure Barack Obama and they found him seriously wanting by a stunning 69 to 28 percent margin.

But wait. You’re asking “How could Obama win so big in a 94 % white state (Iowa) and then lose so bad in another 94 % white state (West Virginia) unless the reason is racism?

The answer is that Iowans -- unlike West Virginians -- didn’t know things about Barack Obama that raise the gravest doubts about his patriotism. Iowans never heard of Reverend Wright; they didn’t know about Obama’s “friendly relations” with Bill Ayers; they weren’t aware that Michelle Obama had never been “proud of her country”; they hadn’t noticed the missing flag pin; and most damning of all they never heard the audiotape of Obama speaking to liberal fat cats in San Francisco in tones of obvious condescension describing rural lower income whites in a manner that made them seem ignorant, pathetic, and of course “bitter”.

These recently revealed pieces of the “Who Is Barack Obama” puzzle will haunt him from now through November as they very well should.

[af_vet_rr]

Oregon doesn’t count - they chose Obama over Hillary. Only Kentucky counted yesterday ;-)

[af_vet_rr]

I still think the Clintons are dragging this out for a reason.

Never count the Clintons out - She's going to the convention - it's not that she's an idiot - on the contrary, her campaign is millions in debt and she'll be personally liable for it if she's not careful. She has two reasons to drag this all the way out - the debt, which she is probably hoping somebody will try to buy her off and help her get rid of it somehow, and she's a Clinton - if they can make a scandal stick to Obama, she's still got a chance.

McCain should be worried though - everything the GOP could use against Obama (and then some), Hillary has tried, and unlike Hillary, McCain is not competing for a lot of the same voters - McCain has to motivate Republicans to get out and vote and he has to try and sway moderates and independents (many of whom have been going Obama's way), but otherwise the majority of voters in each party are not going to cross over to the other.

In a sense, it's almost like McCain is competing with himself - similar to Bush and Gore in 2000 - there were more than enough voters from both sides that could have put the loser over the top in other states (thereby making them the winner), but Bush and Gore had a hard time convincing people to come out and vote for them. McCain has the same problem.