Hillary Supporters for McCain: West Virginia Democrats aren't warming up to Obama.

Chestnut Hill, West Virginia---West Virginia's registered Democrats, like their cousins in western Pennsylvania and eastern and southern Ohio, are having a hard time fitting anywhere within Barack Obama's vision of the Democratic party.

"Obama and his message just do not gel with me," said Mark Lamp as he climbed into his utility truck. Lamp, 47, from neighboring Weirton, is a registered Democrat who voted for Clinton in the May primary.

Lamp has worked in construction all of his life, and the company he works for builds houses in the tri-state area. "We have been busy all year." He sees very few signs of the economy or gas prices hurting him, and they are not what drives his vote.

"I vote leadership. That is why I voted for Hillary and why I will vote McCain."

Al Gore failed to connect with West Virginia voters in 2000--the state had gone Democratic since Reagan's 1984 reelection campaign. John Kerry carried that tradition forward by only getting 43 percent of the vote in 2004.

"I will admit we have an uphill battle," said Tom Vogel, West Virginia's Democratic state party executive director, "but I haven't given up yet."

"West Virginia went big for Hillary Clinton in this spring's primary," admits Vogel. "They love her, and they loved her husband."

Vogel's field director Derek Scarbro says part of the problem Obama has is the same problem that any national Democrat has coming to West Virginia: "West Virginians have to get to know you and develop a relationship with you."

Getting to know Obama may be a problem. Once thought to be a battleground state, all indications are that West Virginia is off Obama's campaign map. Turn on the television today and you won't find any Obama ads running, and he has no trips to the state planned in the immediate future. (Sources within the campaign say they are keeping their eye on the state.)

West Virginia is still home to the Jacksonian Democrats, those descendants of Scots-Irish immigrants who vote God, country, and guns, and have a stronger than average distrust of government. They are white, lower middle-class union members who work hard, play by the rules, have faith in God and a hefty dose of patriotism.

In a change election when the country goes one way, a few states always trend the other. Kansas went Republican during the liberal trend of the 1960s, and West Virginia may go conservative during the liberal swing of today.

In a state that has just one area code (in Jackson County everyone shares the same exchange, so when you ask for a number they only give you the last four digits), the geopolitical breakdown is monolithic. The only section that has proven liberal Democratic is the eastern panhandle which is fast becoming a suburb of Washington, D.C.

But from the southern coalfields to the northern panhandle (which is really southwestern Pennsylvania, and Catholic Democrat country) you are entering the land that the national Democratic party forgot.

Conversely on the state level there is only one party that controls everything: Democrats, old school Democrats. The state's long-time senator, Robert Byrd, is the perfect example. He endorsed Obama, but only after Obama was pummeled by Hillary in his state's primary. He joined West Virginia's other senator, John D. Rockefeller IV, who was an early supporter of the Illinois senator.

You might have thought that the endorsement of a former governor and sitting senator, and the institutional support that comes with it, would have carried more weight and votes. It did not.

Rockefeller's appeal is based on spending lots of money to win his office. "When he ran for governor and then later for senator," Purdue political scientist Bert Rockman explains, "one would have thought he was running from Pennsylvania since he blanketed the Pittsburgh television stations. He spent money as though he was, er, a Rockefeller."

Rockman says that is how he got there and stays there. Which makes it hard to call someone from, say, southern West Virginia a "Rockefeller Democrat." Voters may vote for him, but they don't identify with him.

The only Republican who looks a likely challenger to this Democratic hegemony is Representative Shelly Moore Capito. The daughter of a former governor, Arch Moore, she will likely run for senator or governor by 2010 or 2012.

Vogel has his eyes on Capito's seat, though; he thinks he can take her out with an Obama win in West -Virginia. "She came in on Bush's coat tails and will go out with Obama's," said Vogel, who pauses and then says, "hopefully."

Kent Gates, a GOP strategist working on Capito's House race, dismisses Vogel's weak optimism. "Democrats in West Virginia are just not in line with the national Democratic party."

Gates says Bush's victory in 2000 and the election of Capito show the state is moving right.

Vogel is from western Pennsylvania, and he sees similarities between his Democrats and the ones he grew up with. "There are large pockets of Ohio and Pennsylvania where the mindset and voting patterns are very similar." "If [Obama] comes here, it will make a difference," insists Vogel.

Mark Lamp doesn't see multiple visits making a dent in anyone's view of Obama in West Virginia: "He just does not display any of the qualities that gave Hillary my vote."

I’ve only lived here six years, but I think the words of Homer Hickham at the Sago Miners’ Memorial is a better discription of West virginians.

January 15, 2006

Families of the Sago miners, Governor Manchin, Mrs. Manchin, Senator Byrd, Senator Rockefeller, West Virginians, friends, neighbors, all who have come here today to remember those brave men who have gone on before us, who ventured into the darkness but instead showed us the light, a light that shines on all West Virginians and the nation today:

It is a great honor to be here. I am accompanied by three men I grew up with, the rocket boys of Coalwood: Roy Lee Cooke, Jimmie O’Dell Carroll, and Billy Rose. My wife Linda, an Alabama girl, is here with me as well.

As this tragedy unfolded, the national media kept asking me: Who are these men? And why are they coal miners? And what kind of men would still mine the deep coal?

One answer came early after the miners were recovered. It was revealed that, as his life dwindled, Martin Toler had written this: It wasn’t bad. I just went to sleep. Tell all I’ll see them on the other side. I love you.

In all the books I have written, I have never captured in so few words a message so powerful or eloquent: It wasn’t bad. I just went to sleep. Tell all I’ll see them on the other side. I love you.

I believe Mr. Toler was writing for all of the men who were with him that day. These were obviously not ordinary men.

But what made these men so extraordinary? And how did they become the men they were? Men of honor. Men you could trust. Men who practiced a dangerous profession. Men who dug coal from beneath a jealous mountain.

Part of the answer is where they lived. Look around you. This is a place where many lessons are learned, of true things that shape people as surely as rivers carve valleys, or rain melts mountains, or currents push apart the sea. Here, miners still walk with a trudging grace to and from vast, deep mines. And in the schools, the children still learn and the teachers teach, and, in snowy white churches built on hillside cuts, the preachers still preach, and God, who we have no doubt is also a West Virginian, still does his work, too. The people endure here as they always have for they understand that God has determined that there is no joy greater than hard work, and that there is no water holier than the sweat off a man’s brow.

In such a place as this, a dozen men may die, but death can never destroy how they lived their lives, or why.

As I watched the events of this tragedy unfold, I kept being reminded of Coalwood, the mining town where I grew up. Back then, I thought life in that little town was pretty ordinary, even though nearly all the men who lived there worked in the mine and, all too often, some of them died or were hurt. My grandfather lost both his legs in the Coalwood mine and lived in pain until the day he died. My father lost the sight in an eye while trying to rescue trapped miners. After that he worked in the mine for fifteen more years. He died of black lung.

When I began to write my books about growing up in West Virginia, I was surprised to discover, upon reflection, that maybe it wasn’t such an ordinary place at all. I realized that in a place where maybe everybody should be afraid-after all, every day the men went off to work in a deep, dark, and dangerous coal mine- instead they had adopted a philosophy of life that consisted of these basic attitudes:

We are proud of who we are. We stand up for what we believe. We keep our families together. We trust in God but rely on ourselves.

By adhering to these simple approaches to life, they became a people who were not afraid to do what had to be done, to mine the deep coal, and to do it with integrity and honor.

The first time my dad ever took me in the mine was when I was in high school. He wanted to show me where he worked, what he did for a living. I have to confess I was pretty impressed. But what I recall most of all was what he said to me while we were down there. He put his spot of light in my face and explained to me what mining meant to him. He said, “Every day, I ride the mantrip down the main line, get out and walk back into the gob and feel the air pressure on my face. I know the mine like I know a man, can sense things about it that aren’t right even when everything on paper says it is. Every day there’s something that needs to be done, because men will be hurt if it isn’t done, or the coal the company’s promised to load won’t get loaded. Coal is the life blood of this country. If we fail, the country fails.”

And then he said, “There’s no men in the world like miners, Sonny. They’re good men, strong men. The best there is. I think no matter what you do with your life, no matter where you go or who you know, you will never know such good and strong men.”

Over time, though I would meet many famous people from astronauts to actors to Presidents, I came to realize my father was right. There are no better men than coal miners. And he was right about something else, too:

If coal fails, our country fails.

The American economy rests on the back of the coal miner. We could not prosper without him. God in His wisdom provided this country with an abundance of coal, and he also gave us the American coal miner who glories in his work. A television interviewer asked me to describe work in a coal mine and I called it “beautiful.” He was astonished that I would say such a thing so I went on to explain that, yes, it’s hard work but, when it all comes together, it’s like watching and listening to a great symphony: the continuous mining machines, the shuttle cars, the roof bolters, the ventilation brattices, the conveyor belts, all in concert, all accomplishing their great task. Yes, it is a beautiful thing to see.

There is a beauty in anything well done, and that goes for a life well lived.

How and why these men died will be studied now and in the future. Many lessons will be learned. And many other miners will live because of what is learned. This is right and proper.

But how and why these men lived, that is perhaps the more important thing to be studied. We know this much for certain: They were men who loved their families. They were men who worked hard. They were men of integrity, and honor. And they were also men who laughed and knew how to tell a good story. Of course they could. They were West Virginians!

And so we come together on this day to recall these men, and to glory in their presence among us, if only for a little while. We also come in hope that this service will help the families with their great loss and to know the honor we wish to accord them.

No matter what else might be said or done concerning these events, let us forever be reminded of who these men really were and what they believed, and who their families are, and who West Virginians are, and what we believe, too.

There are those now in the world who would turn our nation into a land of fear and the frightened. It’s laughable, really. How little they understand who we are, that we are still the home of the brave. They need look no further than right here in this state for proof.

For in this place, this old place, this ancient place, this glorious and beautiful and sometimes fearsome place of mountains and mines, there still lives a people like the miners of Sago and their families, people who yet believe in the old ways, the old virtues, the old truths; who still lift their heads from the darkness to the light, and say for the nation and all the world to hear:

We are proud of who we are.
We stand up for what we believe.
We keep our families together.
We trust in God.

We do what needs to be done.

We are not afraid.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.