I just finished watching the service to america interview type thing. The name is paraphrased. First mccain was on then obama. Mccain was the typical mccain. Of course community organizers are great. Ah what’s her face was just pissed that her experience was dissed. He never said that the snide remarks about service to america were disgusting. I guess he couldn’t unless he disowned his own campaign. Obama got on and I was again amazed at how smart and inspirational he is and what a leader he is. If he was on tv more he'd blow mccain away in this election. Obama is a true leader that inspires and blows the cobwebs out of the minds of old jaded people like myself. JFK though I was a bit young and RFK and MLK were the last ones that made me feel this way. When they were murdered the naiveté was crushed and the ensuing years ground it into bits so small they’re non-existent.

I watched as obama listened to the questioner with all of his attention, his mind working as he took in and understood what the person was asking. This is not some guy that is smart but can’t relate, some arrogant dude that belittles people because they are so stupid. This is a guy who has been there down in the lives we lead, learned, emphasized, and thought of ways to make life better. Sometimes being in the midst of a crappy life is what it takes to see what’s crappy and how you would change it. I’ve been there. I’ve worked at a place where management was intent on screwing you and didn’t know how to manage people. I learned what not to do. Obama has been there down in the trenches, saw and understood what was wrong. Now he’s taking what he learned and what’s to apply it to running this country.

This guy is amazing. I forget how amazing he is when I don’t see him for awhile. Tonight I was reminded in a big way.

Wow…….

So you vote for a person you have some kind of fantasy about them understanding you, when you know damn well their policies are directly against your interests- dimwit. You have looked at their policies, right?

I still remember seeing all these working class Joes saying they were going to vote for silver-spoon Bush because he understood them ... jeeeeeez. And that was in 2004, when they absolutely, definitely knew better.

My husband and I grew up in small southern towns like the ones in this article. What's dispiriting is that the idea of "book learning" being somehow inferior to "common sense" is still alive and well and that one can be rewarded for ignorance both real and feigned. This cavil, along with virulent racism, was part and parcel of my early life. I had thought that we were finally past it.

The news that 19% of rural people believe that Barak Obama is a Muslim simply blows me away. I can't understand how anyone, anywhere could honestly believe that idiotic lie. Especially now that every candidate for any public office has to, literally, put his or her faith out front.

When I look at the real crises facing my country--the dismal state of the economy as yet another major financial institution collapses, the millions of people without health care, the desperate plight of the poor, the shoddy schools and impoverished small towns--I want to sit and cry.

Meanwhile, the most important election in decades has been highjacked by moosehunting, "family values", and bafflegab about lipstick and taking good small town values to Washington. If the American people really believe that having a college degree ( as I recall, quite a few of the most recent American Presidents went to Harvard, including JFK, both Bushes, and FDR) doesn't recommend a person for public office, then we deserve whatever we get and if that includes a two-front war in the Middle East and the crash of our economy (that $407 billion debt is growing)then God help us because nobody else will.

For JohnD2008 (and Whispers),

How about traveling some heavily black places and doing a report on blacks who won't vote for McCain just because he's white.

This is stupid. Blacks don't need a racial reason not to vote for Republicans like McCain. Forty years of being screwed and called welfare queens by Republicans like Reagan, Gingrich, and Bush is enough.

For your analogy to make any sense, you'd need to find black people to whom McCain actually had something to offer -- rich lawyers making over $250,000, homophobes or anti-abortion fanatics -- and then see whether they're voting for Obama based solely on skin color.

There aren't too many of those.

Of course, that wouldn't be PC to do such a study, now would it?

The term "PC" lost all meaning about 10 years ago. These days, "I'm not PC" is just a way of blustering, "I'm an a**hole but you can't call me on it."

Good article, Dan Hoyle, but most people here at Salon are going to dismiss the nuances that you offered and just say these people who won't support Obama are racists.

Not only that, these educated folks here are going to insist that Islam has more to do with race that religion. Wait for it.

As to my own thoughts, I think the reason rural and small town working people liked George Bush is that they believed that, despite two Ivy League degrees, his education didn't *take*. They knew his education didn't really take because "Jesus Christ changed his heart" -- or something like that.

One of the things some of these people fear most if their children go off to college is that they will become intellectuals and heathens.

Part of the reason that they don't like Barack Obama is that they believe his education *took*. Barack Obama talks like an elegant and intellectual man. He is everything that they find threatening.

Plus, he probably doesn't believe in hell. There are few things more important than hell for small town religious folks. That is because they know folks that they want to make sure go there.