The conservative Appalachian heartlands voted overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton and will switch to McCain in November
Paul Harris in Williamson, http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=4780
The Observer
Johnny Telvor was not happy about http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=4755 becoming the Democratic presidential nominee. Not happy at all.
Standing outside the sturdy courthouse in the sweltering heat of a http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=548 afternoon in the small town of Williamson, Telvor smoked a cigarette and bluntly gave his opinion of Obama’s historic mission to be America’s first black president.
‘We’ll end up slaves. We’ll be made slaves just like they was once slaves,’ he said. Telvor, a white Democrat who supported Hillary Clinton in West Virginia’s primary, said he planned to vote for Republican John McCain in November. ‘At least he’s an American,’ he added with a disarmingly friendly smile.
Such http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=4868 have eagerly discussed how Obama’s unique candidacy will put America’s racially charged past behind it. The United States, they have argued, is finally prepared to elect a black president and absolve its historic sins of slavery and Jim Crow. But the uglier truth is that part of white America remains secretly – or sometimes openly – deeply distrustful of the idea of a black president.Nowhere is this more evident than in the vastness of the Appalachian mountains that run from Maine through West Virginia and all the way down to Georgia. Here Obama faces his greatest problem in convincing poor white citizens to vote for him. They certainly have not backed him so far. In West Virginia Clinton trounced Obama by more than 30 points. It is a place of deep poverty and astonishing natural beauty – and it is overwhelmingly white. Outsiders deride it as ‘hillbilly’ country. But it is also somewhere that has a special place in America’s heart. Appalachia is where the TV series The Waltons was set. It is a place of deep family values, where clannish folk have created a vibrant mountain culture of God and guns. It is also a place not used to voting for a black politician. ‘McCain will win here,’ said Telvor. ‘No doubt about it.’
Williamson is a typical slice of Appalachia. The town of 3,000 souls lies on the banks of the Tug Fork River, overshadowed by the mountains that surround it. A railway runs through the centre of town, which has long been used to hard times as the coal industry faded away.
The town is in the heart of Mingo County in West Virginia. In last month’s Democratic primary, a staggering 88 per cent of people in Mingo County voted for Clinton – the highest number in the whole state – compared with just 8 per cent willing to put a cross by Obama’s name. Those are landslide numbers that even some third world dictators would be embarrassed to record. ‘This state is white, elderly and working class. This is not natural Obama country. People are not used to having black politicians on the ballot,’ said Professor Allan Hammock, a political scientist at West Virginia University.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/08/barackobama.hillaryclinton