If coal isn't going away, the Appalachian Mountains are.

Hillary Clinton just lost any chance she had for my vote, even in the general election.

I am not a Huckabee supporter. I'm for Obama. But does anyone consider that Mr. Huckabee feels he has a call to run? As in a religious call? People of faith from all political perspectives can respect that even when we don't agree with the policies.

Here's why I will not vote for Hillary Clinton. When she came to my town to speak, several hundred of this town's mainstream and religious people stood outside the hotel where she was to speak and held a block-long sign with the names of all our Iraq war dead. We stood outside for four hours. Hillary sneaked in the back door of the hotel to avoid us. She refused, despite repeated requests, to come outside and meet with us. She refused to stand at the door or the window and wave to us. Our governor came out, but she would not. It was no differnent than when George W Bush spoke at the same hotel last year and went in the back door to avoid our wall of names.

When Obama came to my town, he spoke at a local university. The stage behind him was packed with veterans against the war, some of them the people who organized our homemade wall.

If it is McCain vs Clinton I will not vote. There is no difference.

Last African-American still working for Clinton please turn out the lights as you leave.

This is more than borderline - it IS racism.

I live in West Virginia, the oldest, whitest and most rural state in the union. I have to tell you, I see way more Obama signs (including the one in my front yard) and bumper stickers than for Hillary. Granted I live in what passes for a more urban area of the state. But tell you what, Obama is even now opening up new campaign offices, including one in my area where I have never ever seen a presidential campaign HQ before.

If Obama stays even semi- close on Tuesday, it will be a victory. And don't be surprised if it happens.

As a West Virginian for Obama I am appalled at some of the comments here. You are bigots, pure and simple. I hope you are not Obama supporters - we don't want you. Go back to your ignorant little worlds and stop making racist comments about Appalachian people.

Thank you Joan.

I am an Obama supporter (voted, bumper sticker, lawn sign). I am also a West Virginian. The posts in response here bear out Joan's point. Bigotry is bigotry. The hateful responses and lies and ignorance about West Virginia and Appalachia are astonishing. I feel them as hate directed toward me.

West Virginia is no more racist than any place else, in fact it is less so. We weren't a slave state. We supported the union. African-Americans always had the vote here, unlike the south. Unlike the north we don't have ghettos. I live in a neighborhood that is more integrated than yours, I bet. (Fifty-fifty black and white.)

Hillary won because Bill Clinton is very popular here. Period.

If you want Obama to win in November, the elitist attitudes of his supporters must be addressed. He was received enthusiastically here in WV the two times he came. He should have been here more often. I hope he will be before November.

I am for Obama and I am a West Virginian. There are a lot of anti-West Virginia, anti-Appalachia, bigots posting here.

Bigotry is bigotry. Hate is hate. You people are sick. I am astonished that Salon allows such hate speech against Appalachian people to be posted when it would not be allowed against other groups.

If you want Obama to win in November, you should cool the hate speech.

I'm not giving you praise like an earlier poster. You're a bigot. Here's what you said.

"But right now, we are talking about Appalachia, for god's sake"

Tell me about it. You then cite a bomb threat in Indiana. What, pray tell, does that have to do with West Virginia. Do you see what ypu're doing. You're pointing to something that actually happened elsewhere, and then you're just assuming that we West Virginians will be worse.

I'm sick of it. I support Obama. But that's despite some of his other supporters, not because of them.

Jeez I can't stand Hillary.

She talks about the inspiration of mountaintops and yet she supports destroying the mountains of West Virginia.

Unfortunately, so does Obama.

Does anyone out there oppose destroying the oldest mountains in the world?

By the way, though I voted for Obama and have a yard sign, I also have good lesbian friends, very liberal, who vote for Hillary today. You want to trash them as being inbred hillbillies?

Stop the Appalachian preujudice.

Though I voted for Obama and have a yard sign, I also have good lesbian friends who vote for Hillary today. You want to trash them as being inbred hillbillies?

Stop the Appalachian prejudice

I don't need to read a history book, history is my major and I read them all the time. I even write them.

West Virginia broke away from Virginia because it was against slavery and wanted to stay in the union, and you know it.

I can't help it if your relatives are idiots. Mine aren't.

Sorry, your history is wrong. West Virginia became a state in 1863. That's DURING the Civil War, not reconstruction. WV was already a state during Reconstruction, so how could it have become a state to avoid reconstruction? And except for the southern border counties the state was strongly pro-union. Go back to school.