Josh Marshall says Obama doesn’t really have a problem with “hard-working people” — you know, white people. But he does have a problem in Appalachia:
There’s been a lot of talk in this campaign about Barack Obama’s problem with working class white voters or rural voters. But these claims are both inaccurate because they are incomplete. You can look at states like Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and other states and see the different numbers and they are all explained by one basic fact. Obama’s problem isn’t with white working class voters or rural voters. It’s Appalachia. That explains why Obama had a difficult time in Ohio and Pennsylvania and why he’s getting crushed in West Virginia and Kentucky.
If it were just a matter of rural voters or the white working class, the pattern would show up in other regions. But by and large it does not.
In so many words, Pennsylvania and Ohio have big chunks of Appalachia within their borders. But those regions are heavily offset by non-Appalachian sections that are cultural and demographically distinct. West Virginia is 100% Appalachian. If you look at southeastern Ohio or the middle chunk of Pennsylvania, Obama did about the same as he’s doing tonight in West Virginia.
Josh includes maps of Appalachia and of areas where Hillary Clinton has done especially well, and the fit is pretty impressive.
Each of these regions was fiercely anti-Slavery. And most ended up raising regiments that fought in the Union Army. But they were as anti-slave as they were anti-slavery, both of which they viewed as the lynchpins of the aristocratic and inegalitarian society they loathed. It was a society that was both more violent and more self-reliant.
This is history. But it shapes the region.
The region is overwhelmingly populated by the same demographic groups who have been Clinton’s strongest supporters, and Josh writes “it’s really no surprise that Barack Obama would have a very hard time running in this region.”
That may be true, but Appalachia would be a mighty big swath of voters to write off in November. How do we win them over?
Spink Nogales | 14-May-08 at 9:36 pm | Permalink
“How do we win them over?”
Evan Bayh 2012
Michael Burton | 15-May-08 at 1:39 am | Permalink
Nah. Let’s win them over this year.
Let’s try a new kind of politics. Let’s stop sweeping problems under the rug, and start confronting them and dealing with them like grown-ups. It’s true we haven’t seen politicians do this for a very long time, but I think the idea is just crazy enough to work.
Spink Nogales | 15-May-08 at 10:33 am | Permalink
Okay, you big strong grown-up.
Blog the wind to blow and the rain to fall.
Hamlet Act 1. Scene V :
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”