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| quote: | Originally posted by jerZ07002
come on, that's ridiculous. It is a class problem. Appalachia has a large white uneducated population where the people border the parties. Find that demographic elsewhere and you will see the same trend. people don't vote for a specific presidential candidate because they live in a particular location. the people of a particular location tend to vote for the same presidential candidate because they tend to share the same economic status, values, religion, etc... You take a person out of west virginia and move him into philly he isn't going to decide to vote for obama because now he is out of appalachia. The reason you think its an appalachia problem is actually because a specific demographic that doesn't vote for obama is concentrated in appalachia (specifically uneducated-lower-income-white-moderate-democrats - which i have been saying for months). However, similar people are surely located throughout the country. |
Did you bother to read the articles I posted? Take a look at how Obama did among lower-to-middle class white folk in Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Oregon, Colorado, Texas, etc.
Particular locations carry particular cultural histories.
| quote: | More on Appalachia (and Obama)
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By Donald Weightman - May 15, 2008, 9:40AM
I'm glad to see discussions about Appalachia and the Scotch-Irish anti-Obama voting patterns, partly because I think it's an issue the Obama campaign needs to deal with, partly because I've written about it elsewhere (in Ta-Nehisi Coates's blog) and partly because it's really interesting.
Here's more. The Appalachian back-country sees political leadership as personal. Think Andrew Jackson. I think this means that political campaigning is about presence. You have to be there. Hillary was there; Obama was not, barely seen in W.Va. last week. Personal style matters, and Obama's suit and tie didn't help him in an anti-aristocratic political culture.
Intense identification also means that politics is also about loyalty. Once you sign up with a leader, you stay signed up. Hillary wins on this one too, riding in on her husband's name and history. Too bad for Obama.
Loyalty means no dissent, and a politics of political change, brought in by an outsider, gets little reception.
Obama has been swimming upstream in more subtle ways. Appalachia is an oral culture, built on ballads and folktales transmitted from generation to generation. I would think that this would disfavor ads, and favor speeches and face-time. Guess who did which?
It's harder to introduce new messages into such a political environment, especially when the messages, Obama's messages, are universal inclusion -- as opposed to the clannish local society -- and solidarity -- as opposed to the local libertarianism.
Finally, we're talking not only low educational levels brought in with immigration (in parts of Scotland there were few schools at all, going back to before the 18th century). We're talking about a culture where schoolmasters literally had to fight their way into the classrooms to teach. The custom was called "barring out": to get some time off, students would block the teachers from the school doors. Little sympathy here for the visibly larned Obama.
McCain -- "maverick" border style and Scotch name -- is going to have a leg up.
If I were the Obama people I would make the local campaign read Albion's Seed (where I cribbed most of this), have Webb and Edwards camp out in the Blue Ridge and the Smokies, and have one of them appear on the stage every time the candidate shows up.
And have him go early and often.
No tie. |
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.co...a-and-obama.php
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