Grundy, Virginia and the $200 Million Bridge to Nowhere
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.
That's not my insinuation, it is an insinuation of the enemedia-- which is why the examples I used was to hoist them on their own petards.
The motivations behind joining the Confederate or the Union side during the Civil War (or remaining neutral) were almost as varied as the people who made those choices.
Two bits of history the political elite love to suppress are these two facts:
I don't know anything about those three counties, but I suspect that although they are Appalachian Counties, they have not been as culturally isolated over the years from the national political scene as Southwest Virginia has, and are more much accepting of a black candidate.
SWVA is a region of extremes, and unfortunately, like I said in my last post, its people are still living in JFK and Lyndon Johnson's time politically, but have never gotten past the Civil Rights laws that were shoved down their throats. I know that it is a big contradiction since it was JFK and LBJ that did the shoving, but again, that's just the way it is there.
The patriarch of my family, Devil Anse Hatfield, would roll in his grave if he knew any of his kin voted for a gun-grabber like Obama. I’m sure most of my friends in the McCoy family feel the same way.
I wouldn’t count on the Webb voters to go lock-step for McCain. I met one last night. He proudly explained he would vote for a black man, then in the next sentence postulated that Clinton left the country in the best economic shape it had ever been in (he obviously never heard the words “dot com bubble”) and then launched into full-bore BDS.
Many democrats are gonna vote democrat no matter who the candidate is. “Mah Daddy wuz a Democrat, his Daddy wuz a Democrat, and I’m a Democrat”.
Gag.
Maryland “Freak State” PING!
And what was FDR?
That's a pretty empty statement. Care to explain it? By the way you need to explain why citizens of Appalachia have no “kindred spirit” with McCain, “even less” than with Obama. NOT why Glenn doesn't like McCain.
A fellow Freeper called the predominate political leanings there Redneck Socialists.
Did I say I didn't like McCain? Geez. You guys are so sensitive to any comment.
My "people" from western PA and the hills of West By God hate Bush. Really hate Bush. The local predominant newspapers hate Bush. The governors are Democrats. The senators are democrats. When it comes to national elections, they always find their blue collar roots and vote that way. What do you think they see in McCain, sans military service, that they are anxious to latch on to? His spending cut promises? That's the last thing they want to hear.
“Though I will vote for McCain only because he is (barely) the lesser of two evils I’m not convinced that elections in this country either on local, state or federal levels aren’t rigged. “
I agree. One way or another, they’re going to get their man in there.
Are you saying on a whole "your people" are incapable of holding a thought independent of the local rags?
Folks in rural regions can and will latch onto JSM not because of his military service {see jimmah carter} but because of his national security vision for our republic {see surge and plan for Iran}
And then there is that issue of energy, JSM wants to drill; and BHO's only problem with high gas prices is that they jumped too quickly.... before the election.
There is no essential difference between dope-smoking, gun-toting, Global Warming, ‘where is our $%#^& Pipeline’, PFD, tax cap, 10 cylinder pickup truck, big dog Alaskans and any other kind of Alaskans.
Racism may or may not be a factor—seems to me that the folks I’ve met from down in that redneck of the woods are a lot LESS racist than other Virginians I knew growing up. I grew up over near Lynchburg, in an area with some of the last school systems in the state to fully integrate (mine didn’t until 1968, Prince Edward County until 1970 or 1971). Folks back up in the hollers didn’t seem as hung up on race in general...but then again, there’s really not that many black people once you get southwest of the NRV, right? Not compared to other parts of the state.
I will agree with this article that folks in Appalachia, to an extent, are the perfect McCain Democrat. They’re patriotic, feisty, fanatically pro-2A, largely church-going (but certainly not teetotalers!). On the flip-side, they’re still Rats. The Ninth District (all of far southwest Virginia) elects a Democrat back to Congress every year—Rick “Mr. Peepers” Boucher—despite going for George Allen over Jim Webb in the 2006 election. In coal country in particular, they are hardcore pro-union. The UMW is huge there, and those boys do not mess around.
}:-)4
Grundy, Virginia and the $200 Million Bridge to Nowhere
Ah, yes, good old Grundy. Four miles long, fifty yards wide. I understand it’s quite the boondoggle, but I’m not sure what else could be done to keep the town from flooding out every so often, given the rugged topography down there. It’s a neat town.
}:-)4
Not anymore...it's long gone!
“I’m going to just come out and say it: Appalachians are just not going to vote for a black man, period.”
....I live in the mountains of NC and they won’t vote black here either...matter of fact, many of them fought for the Union during the CW because they didn’t see any sense in fighting on behalf of the plantation class and “their damned ni**ers”...mountain people are savagely independent and PCness means nothing to them.
Oh, yeah. Obama is very proud of his "typical" Scots-Irish heritage.
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