Posted on 10/09/2008 10:25:09 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
WASHINGTON -- If you're a Democrat who needs help getting the votes of rural white folks, the go-to guy is David "Mudcat" Saunders, a central-casting political consultant recently made famous by a parade of magazine writers led by The Weekly Standard's Matt Labash.
But sometimes you can learn more about a people and their place through literature than by hiring consultants. So I called Ron Rash, poet, author and purebred Appalachian whose newest novel, "Serena," should be at the top of Barack Obama's reading list.
Sarah Palin might enjoy it as well. Described by one blurber as "an Appalachian retelling of Macbeth," the story features a strong woman who hunts rattlesnakes with an eagle. An Academy Award nomination awaits the woman who plays Serena, predicts novelist Pat Conroy.
I asked Rash, with whom I've visited on occasion: What does Obama need to do to win the hearts and votes of Appalachia?
Rash is a lean, wiry man who has trouble sitting in a chair with both feet on the ground, usually pulling one knee to his chest like a yogi. He speaks in quick bursts like an engine spitting in the cold -- or a man more accustomed to thinking than talking.
Though an Obama man, Rash is quick to condemn the snobbery he has observed toward Palin. He cringes when he hears a news anchor refer to his home turf as "redneck country." Or when the bad guy in movies too often has a Southern accent.
But, he says, "One thing about Appalachian people is they don't bitch and moan."
Rash's Appalachian roots run 200 years deep, and he has the tales to prove it. One that may prove helpful to Obama in understanding the character of his people tells of a Confederate soldier who dropped by Rash's family farm near Boone, N.C., to confiscate their only horse for the Confederacy.
As the soldier left whistling "Dixie," the lady of the house shouted: "Before morning, you'll be whistling 'Dixie' in hell."
Indeed, the next morning, the fellow was found face down in a creek two miles away -- and the horse was back in the barn.
Moral: Don't mess with Appalachia.
Obama has more in common with the mountain people than he may realize, says Rash, who is the Parris distinguished professor in Appalachian cultural studies at Western Carolina University in Cullowee, N.C.
African-Americans built this country and got nothing back, he says. So did Appalachians. What Obama may not know is that most mountain communities were pro-Union during the Civil War. These often-impoverished descendants of the Scots-Irish weren't slaveholders, after all. In a sense, blacks and Appalachians are natural allies.
As Virginia Sen. Jim Webb wrote in The Wall Street Journal: "The greatest realignment in modern politics would take place rather quickly if the right national leader found a way to bring the Scots-Irish and African-Americans to the same table."
Moreover, the civil rights and anti-slavery movements were long a part of Appalachia, says Rash. "Rosa Parks attended a workshop in Appalachia before she sat on that bus."
Thus, when Obama visits the region, Rash recommends that he say the following:
"I know that for well over a century, the only time people come to Appalachia is when they want something. They want your coal, your timber and they want your vote. They take what they want and they leave and they don't come back until they want some more. I'm not going to do that.
"I'll make a vow to you today that a year from now, I'll be back. And we'll discuss what I've done and whether you feel like I've honored what I've said here today. I'll come back this time of year for as long as I am president."
Obama should also say that though he is different in many ways, he is much the same. He didn't grow up with wealth, and had to work hard, as they do. On the war -- a prickly point in these parts -- Obama should recognize that Appalachia has contributed more than its fair share to America's wars. He should say:
"We may disagree about this war, but one reason I disagree is because this region more than any other has sent soldiers into battle for this country. And part of honoring that is not sending them into a war that has not been well thought-out."
Straight talk without condescension is all anyone asks. It may be all Obama needs to finish the race.
Perhaps dyslexic rather than disjointed might have been a better term.
I find Parker most interesting when she sticks to the small issues; only read her when the local rag sticks her in.
King was a true artist of the ascerbic genre; left her foes bleeding from every pore, sticky little left when she was done.
Unfortunately, here in middle TN the liberals are alive and well. I have a really good friend, a good Christian woman, who is voting for O. Her daughter and I have been issuing a “daily beating” and she just plain doesn’t care! She has chosen to believe the lies he spews, and refuses to believe the bad stuff, and just the opposite with McCain Palin. She *hates* Palin.
Another friend was at the debate, and even though she is also a Christian and pro-life, she is still seriously leaning Obama. I am just so frustrated at the willful stupidity I am seeing!!!! It is like they took a stupid pill! Facts don’t matter a whit! The candidates own words or voting records don’t matter.
With the first friend I said that Obama had introduced a bill that would have taxed her bracket, not the $250 thousand he is now saying. She said that would matter to her, since it would affect her. But the truth is she doesn’t really care. She won’t read anything I send her that talks about it. I said “how about if I send you the bill with his name on it?” She won’t read it. Facts don’t matter any more, it is all emotion.
So, I give up. Maybe all those unsophisticated hicks (my kinfolk) will save our bacon this year.
I have to agree. Florence King is out of her mind, but she is a brilliant writer. I almost need CPR while her reading her imitation of Ayn Rand.
Kathleen Parker can write coherent sentences with subjects and verbs and all that. So can my 12-year-old. His are about reptiles while hers are about Obama ... and about how women “need” abortion on demand.
Her column on the Ignos -- those bizarre entities who share our space and overlap (some of) our times, but apparently none of our culture -- was one of the best commentaries on modern human nature ever. Her description of telling an Igno that she saw "the handwriting on the wall" prompting the poor clueless little thing to literally look at the wall was a true howler, and unfortunately so typical of several of my own experiences with twentysomethings.
I find Parker's writing tedious, myself. She's mastered a style (or a style sheet) favored by Northeastern columnists that's so cookie-cutter it's not even interesting when she actually has something interesting to say. That's gotten rarer and rarer in the current cycle.
Do you have a link? I'd love to read it. I don't get "National Review" anymore. Too liberal :-).
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