WHC gonzo, who is "they?" Who are "those people?"

"Those people" are only interested in money and they rule the world.

"Those people" only want to molest children and pass on their AIDS.

"Those people" only want to be in gangs and cause crime and be pimps and hos.

"Those people" are only terrorists and suicide bombers.

"Those people" are lazy and won't speak our language and just want to take our jobs.

"Those people" are inbred and ignorant and racist.

All kinds of "those people in the world." You're just contributing to the prejudice.

I've explained before and I"ll explain again. It's not Hillary they like. It's Bill. People here LOVE Bill Clinton. They stood by him throughout the 90s when conservatives were trashing him. He's seen as a homeboy.

Personally I like Obama best. If he'd get his butt out this way, people here would take to him too, I think. But if he doesn't show forget it.

By the way, people with short memories -- Jesse Jackson ran very very well in his day. So much for the race thing. Jesse was the same as Bill - came across as a populist homeboy. People loved it.

Sorry, you may know rural people but you clearly don't know Appalachian people. Anyone who blames mountain people for mountaintop removal is just plain wrong. Go blame the out of state perpetrators and the federal government, not the people who are the victims.

To say none of those programs have worked is short sighted. They may not have ended poverty but if you look before and after, they made a huge difference. I am old enough to remember before the War on Poverty. You wouldn't want to see that again.

Why does poverty continue in the region? It's systemic and no program will change it - not because of the people but because of the economics. Appalachia is a colony. Most of the land is owned by outside corporations and there is no tax base. Simple as that. It's Guatemala, it's Honduras. The only thing that will change that is an overhaul of our entire corporate system, and then land reform like in parts of South America.

Well, you're entitled to your simplistic version of the American Revolution if that's all you can handle. But you've got a bit of a stretch turning Jefferson into a tidewater planter. Can you find Charlottesville on a map? Have you ever been there? Have you seen the mountains there? Oh, but that can't be Appalachia. Those people have money. The stereotype requires that they be poor and ignorant.

What truly amazes is your insistence that it is east coast city dwellers who are the real victims of bigotry and not the other way around. Unless you're African-American, that is a joke to claim. You ought to try being absolutely misunderstood and hated, as Appalachian people are.

But at least you're suggesting I fuck myself instead of assuming I fuck my brother.

One silver lining -- I don't suppose there's any chance of your moving here. Thank God.

Sure Oregon went for Obama. But if you click on the interactive county map on the New York Times website, you'll see lots of rural counties in Oregon that went for Clinton, just as you'll see Louisville and Lexington going for Obama. It is a rural problem, not just Appalachia.

But as a native West Virginian who supports Obama, I am not prepared to give the state to McCain. It will only go McCain if Obama ignores it. Kentucky may be a little tougher but could also come around.

Obama could start by not sucking up to the coal industry, which he was inclined to do as a Senator from Illinois. Give some hope to people who want to move beyond coal.

You wondered in another post what person of color might run well in Appalachia. Answer -- Jesse Jackson did very well in WV and KY when he ran for president. Partly because he actually came here and talked to people about local issues in a folksy way. Someone else mentioned that Obama needs to get a little feistier. That would play very very well here. He needs to show some fire. I liked, for example, when he defended his wife against the Tennessee GOP. He needs to do more of that.

Obama doesn't need to come across as "one of our own." Kennedy didn't - couldn't have been more different, wrong accent etc. But he came and he acted like he cared. And he talked about actual problems not just vague platitudes.

Everybody's who's run here is an outsider, though Bill Clinton was the closest to not being, so I'd say an outsider can do well.

But why don't people here like Obama? They don't dislike him. They just DON'T KNOW HIM. He hasn't been around that long, really. I doubt if most people here knew he was on the planet until, say, six months ago. It needs more time.

Thanks. I have found reading posts since the WV primary a distressing experience -- and wonder why I continue except it is wrong to simply let such contempt for an entire group of people pass without comment. And I will stand up for my home - which for over a century has been exploited by this nation economically and ridiculed as well. So many of the posts show a range from condescension to contempt. I think being a liberal means empowering the powerless. That's what I'm hoping for from a certain former community organizer from Chicago. If he ignores huge swaths of the country in the general election I'll be terribly disappointed.