Since I have this beautiful election day off, this afternoon I walked to my local polling place to cast my votes. I also took a walk along Kanawha Boulevard toward the capitol, since the weather is so nice today. I stopped when I got to the capitol to see if I could spot Andrea Mitchell from MSNBC, who has been reporting from the University of Charleston all day today, with the shiny capitol dome across the river behind her. I’m not sure, but if you squint real hard, I think I caught a photo of her here:
We’re important! West Virginia is important, dammit!
So, did y’all vote?
I was out of state over the weekend caught the Manch going on and on about how he was certain that one of the two democratic candidates was the next president. Don’t get me wrong, I believe it too; but I’ve never see such obvious fence riding in my life. It hurt a little.
I saw the CNN bus the other day and I don’t think I’ve geeked out so much since I got to hop on board the Book TV bus.
Andrea Mitchell??? SQUEEEEE ……
It WAS a lovely day to vote, was it not? I walked down the street to my polling place (Rock Lake Presby), then got on my bicycle and rode into Charleston, then walked for a few miles along the brown Kanawha River just like you! Who knows, I may have just missed you!
But this morning I’m afraid I feel just a bit ashamed to be a West Virginian. After talking with many people about their feelings about the Democratic candidates leading up to yesterday’s primary, I’m convinced that many, MANY West Virginians are still convinced that Obama is secretly a Muslim, and they absolutely will not vote for a Muslim. It’s downright embarrassing. And of course there are some rather pesky racial attitudes that still persist in this state.
Yeah, I saw a couple of Manchin interviews yesterday, and the idea (that some people have) that he’s a possible VP nominee is pretty laughable. He’s not ready for a national audience.
Chuck, I’m embarrassed too. I do think that if Obama had really campaigned here he could have done a little better, but he still would have been trounced. (Not that I’m saying he should have campaigned here, since this thing is over, but if he had, I think he would have done better.) I feel pretty confident that the main reason Clinton won by so much is just plain racism. I don’t think he has a shot at winning this state in November. But I definitely don’t think that means he can’t win overall.
Word from the Obama campaign… This came off Yahoo news.
“At Obama’s Chicago headquarters, advisers said there was no reason to worry — West Virginia was demographically suited to Clinton and won’t be part of their general election plans.”
So, I’m pretty pissed. I don’t usually bother with primary elections and knew this one was going to Clinton. I don’t like the Clintons. I can’t stand how Hillary Clinton is always trying to coin phrases. My least favorite is still “The politics of personal destruction,” but I’m completely and utterly tuned out over Obama. At this point, I’ll vote for the spoiler, any spoiler.
I don’t agree with you on the racism call. You win WV by showing up. That’s how Bush won both elections in WV. Neither Gore or Kerry bothered with it. They made token appearances, like one each and usually at big top fund raisers at 100 bucks a plate. Bush was here seemingly every couple of weeks. I know people he spoke with, not just threw buzz words at, but actually had conversations with.
The Clintons campaigned heavily here. They sent Bubba to Bluefield. Chelsea they turned loose everywhere they could. They were visiting here over a year ago.
Obama made two trips during the primaries (one was a whole six hours on Monday), made zero effort to either let people see him or get to know the people of the state. He discarded the state. His people have branded rural, working class and poor voters as racists as an excuse for not bothering with us. It’s easier to do that than accept any responsibility for not giving a damn.
He gets nothing from me.
We’ll just have to agree to disagree about how much racism may have contributed to yesterday’s result, since there’s no way for either of us to prove it anyway.
I do agree that Obama would have done better had he really campaigned in WV, but I think it’s pretty obvious that he couldn’t have won this state. The Clintons didn’t campaign like crazy in WV because they think we’re just that special–it was campaign strategy, just like it was campaign strategy for Obama to concentrate on other upcoming primaries that he’s more likely to win. I wouldn’t take it personally. It was smart for him to just go ahead and start campaigning for the general too.
Obama had far more of a nationwide campaign for the primaries than Clinton did. She ignored far more states, totally writing off many states that she thought Obama would win, so he won them by even greater margins. She dismissed all of the states & voters that Obama won while claiming that the states & voters that she won were the important ones.
It’s just not true that Obama is writing off all rural, working class, and poor voters. But you go ahead and vote for a spoiler–maybe Bob Barr’s your man. Luckily, there aren’t enough people left who actually believe there’s no difference between Democrats & Republicans to affect the outcome of another presidential election.
How do I know that racism played a factor in Tuesday’s election results?
Because that’s what the voters actually said.
Bill Lynch doesn’t like Obama because he didn’t come here to pander beg for his vote. Boo fucking hoo.
It’s just like the way you bitch and moan when washed up rock stars won’t let you interview them. Well, just because the Trisha Yearwood or whoever won’t give you and interview, that doesn’t automatically mean they’re snobs. Maybe it’s because you’re a new writer for a small and insignificant paper, and it’s really not worth their trouble.
I don’t think Obama had any obligation to set up camp here and spend millions of dollars to beg for a bunch of ignorant racists to vote for him. It really wasn’t worth his trouble, either.
Yeah, Bill’s the first time I’ve ever seen somebody develop abandonment issues from a presidential primary.
Well I’m not sure about begging, pandering, or abandonment issues. If my pal Bill Lynch wants Ms. Clinton to be the nominee, fine. And if she’s lucky enough to GET the nomination, I’ll be more than happy to vote for her. It’s like I tell people: A Presidency is for only four years, but a Supreme Court appointment is for LIFE. And the prospect yet anothe Republican choosing the next two or three Supreme Court justices is horrifying to me.
But I think Waylon pretty much hit the nail on the head. All indications were that Ms. Clinton was going to win the election quite handily, and I don’t think ANY amount of fevered campaigning by Mr. Obama would have made much of a difference in that. And in the grand scheme of things West Virginia was never going to play a particularly pivotal role in this primary season anyway, so why should Obama go throwing good money after bad in THIS state?
I also think that Bill underestimates the true depth of racial antipathy in this state. When I first moved from the D.C. area to West Virginia in 1974, I was pretty shocked by the number of fellow classmates at Bluefield High School that threw the term “nigger” around so casually. And those unfortunate racial attitudes aren’t changing all that fast; people may have become more, er, TACTFUL at supressing them, but they still linger … maybe not so much among the white wine and brie set here in Charleston, but out in the hinterlands it’s still pretty common.
And what has REALLY dismayed me is the whole Muslim angle. I don’t know what’s going on with that! There have been people I’ve known for a while, people I genuinely like, who have shocked me by insisting that Barack Obama is some sort of stealth Muslim, and they absolutely will not vote for a Muslim. Are they really convinced of this? Or are they just saying this to SPOOK people more in favor of Ms. Clinton? One older gentleman I’ve played NTN trivia with at the Cold Spot, a man who I think of as being quite intelligent and articulate, recently told me that ALL Muslims are bent on killing the infidel, that even those Muslims who I consider friends secretly wish me dead. I mean, if there is THAT much veiled hatred toward Muslims in this country, and Barack Obama is indeed the nominee, how will things pan out in November?
Where are my PILLS, dammit???