Sherry Chandler » Obama and Appalachia
Obama and Appalachia
Linda Blackford, writing in the Lexington Herald-Leader:
It’s hard to imagine now, says Charlie Peters, but back in 1960, the Catholicism of John F. Kennedy was every bit as big a problem for Appalachian voters as Barack Obama’s race appears to be today.
When Peters, Kennedy’s Kanawha County campaign chairman, first took him around Charleston, W.Va, at least 20 percent of the people refused to shake his hand. So Kennedy spent 16 of the 30 days before the primary showing West Virginians “he wasn’t wearing the Pope’s clothes,” Peters said.
The campaign brought in Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr., distributed 40,000 copies of a Reader’s Digest story about Kennedy’s heroism in World War II, and spread around plenty of money. Kennedy won the primary, which helped propel him to the nomination.
The Obama campaign chose a different route – a smattering of TV commercials and fliers about his Christian faith, but just one visit by the candidate to Kentucky and West Virginia this year. There was little direct conversation about voters’ misconceptions of his religion, or about concerns related to divisive remarks by his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
He lost to Hillary Clinton in both states by more than 30 points.
The question now is whether Obama, as the expected nominee, will continue writing off Appalachia or return and try to make his case to white, rural voters.
“I worry about them gliding past a problem like that,” said Peters, who went on to found the Washington Monthly magazine and is now an Obama supporter. “There are people like this all over the country, and if you don’t reach out, they would have stayed in West Virginia thinking Jack would have done what the Pope said, just like now they’ll think Obama will do what Rev. Wright says. It calls for dramatic action.”
Read the whole thing. It’s an excellent piece that asks the question do you fight racism or call the people racist and write them off? I know my answer to that question.
Reading this article tempts me to conclude that, as a culture, we may have learned the wrong lesson from JFK’s run for the presidency. Everybody focused on his superior television presence, so that now our candidates spend obscene millions on saturation television advertising, a shameful percentage of which is negative. Not to mention debates that are more about theater than policy.
Bad media coverage and lack of money has forced Hillary Clinton to run a campaign more like Kennedy ran in West Virginia, based on grass roots, face-to-face politics. This strategy, which the Clintons have always liked, has been more successful for her than the powers that be like to admit.
Huckabee, like him or not, did some of the same thing and was rewarded with some success with very little money. The difference being, I’d hazard, that Huckabee was never a candidate who was going to have broad appeal.
What that proves, it seems to me, is that people are ready to by-pass television. They want to see and hear the candidates direct.
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Good news: Missouri’s voter ID law failed.
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Update: Then there’s this from The Daily Yonder: Julie Ardery’s City Voters & the Unfairer Sex
Uncomfortable as it may make us all, it’s time to own up to what the primary election results are bearing out.
City people are misogynistic. It’s not clear whether urbanites fear the idea of female leadership or (like T.S. Eliot, who was from St. Louis, by the way) they just don’t like the way women smell.
Read the rest.
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8 Comments
1. mike lovell replies at 28th May 2008, 4:13 pm :
Helen was right…very well written!
This is more in response to your footnote about MO voter ID law. I’m honestly curious here, not trying to spark anything, but I don’t see an issue with requiring that people be ID’d when voting. I get that it isn’t really a problem in MO, just as it isn’t here in IA, but obtaining an ID is as simple as reaching the local area DMV. A non-driver ID is just as easy, if not easier, to obtain than a Driver’s license, and would be qualification enough.
On a side note… I voted in the ‘04 Presidential elections, however in our ‘06 gubernatorial and legislative elections I was no longer in the voter records despite having my ID, 3 credit cards, my bank card, my voter registration, my state issued security officer ID, and my selective service card. Nothing had changed in the interim, and my wife was on their records. Subsequently my alternate voter card (I forget the technical name)was rejected because I was not in their system. I would like to add you to my blog roll if that’s okay. Feel free to email me with or without permission.
2. Josselyn replies at 28th May 2008, 4:40 pm :
“It’s an excellent piece that asks the question do you fight racism or call the people racist and write them off?”
It is an interesting piece an one the Obama campaign would be wise to study and apply for the general election, but I would argue that they did not contest WV and KY for many, many reasons, none of them having to do with them “calling the people racist and writing them off” as you imply.
3. Inaru replies at 28th May 2008, 8:56 pm :
Josselyn’s right. Among many reasons, Obama gave Hillary those two states so she could bow out gracefully, and because they’re as likely to go Democratic in Nov as I am to go Republican - not at all. KY and WV aren’t even on the battleground states grid. There’s limited time and resources, and he’s already got more states in play than anyone else, to fund and campaign in.
Obama has and will continue to reach out to so many white people it’s absurd to aim that charge at him, and esp over 2 states out of 50 and the territories. Deciding to go after McSame instead was brilliant, it makes the primary seem done except for the celebration. Plenty of people who do not want to vote for him for being black will be approached, as they have been for almost 18 months now. I’ve been occasionally yelled at and hung up on, but listened to much more often, by them since Iowa. The most yelling of insults I got was in WV and PA. It was an education.
4. Koshembos replies at 29th May 2008, 1:06 am :
Linda Blackford’s article is terrible. It makes incorrect assumptions about racism. About 20% of the voters in Appalachia are bothered by Obama’s race. In Wisconsin, where Obama won handily, the percentage was 13%.
Obama’s main problem with blue collar voters is not race, it’s his indifference to them, his arrogance and he hardly even tries to appeal to this segment of the population.
5. sherry replies at 29th May 2008, 9:55 am :
Hey Mike! That’s quite a voter-registration horror story. Did you ever get back on the rolls?
The problem with voter ID laws is that they suppress the vote. See this article at the NYTimes. As a liberal, I think we should increase the franchise and not suppress it, so I am against voter ID laws.
I am inferring that your concern is with illegal immigrants voting or something like that? Research has shown, though, that fraudulent voting is actually pretty rare.
I would be delighted to be on your blogroll. And I hope you’ll read here often and comment. Blogs thrive on conversation.
6. sherry replies at 29th May 2008, 12:48 pm :
Koshembos, I agree that racism isn’t the main problem Barack Obama has with the white working class and that it is not just Appalachia where he has this problem. Turkana does a good job of taking on that meme at The Left Coaster. Also, I’d point again to Julie Ardery’s rather brilliant satire pointing out the absurdities of drawing that conclusion.
However, the local paper has been playing our vote as a race issue all along. I’ve written letters to the editor and blog posts, but I guess maybe they just finally wore me down.
Still, it would be absurd to pretend that racism is not playing a role in this primary. Obama has played the race card early and often. What made sense to me in this article is the idea that, instead of standing off and crying race, a real leader would do as Kennedy did and confront and defuse the issue.
And, also, as I said, the limited effectiveness of television.
7. mike lovell replies at 29th May 2008, 1:48 pm :
Sherry,
You’ve been added to my blogroll. As a conservative (NOT a republican), I still enjoy keeping an open mind and offering others a chance to see the viewpoints from other perspectives.
I enjoyed the NY Times Article. I did notice that depsite voter ID requirements in IN, the results of turnout increased. As I stated in an email to you, my main point really is:
Why is it such a big deal to ask someone to carry their ID with them? most people have them, they are not hard to obtain, and considering most people drive to their local polling places, they legally require an ID to make that drive in the first place.
Oh and yes….two weeks after the election I received a new and improved voter registration card along with the notice that my provisional ballot would not be counted since they had no record of me in their system. Luckily “my guy” lost by a landslide and not by a single vote!
8. sherry replies at 29th May 2008, 4:46 pm :
Thanks, Mike.
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