Many Obama supporters here have expressed disdain and disgust for "hillbillies" who they regard as racist, poor, white, less-well-educated Democratic voters who populate rural areas.

Well, many of those Clinton voters look with disdain and disgust at those urbanites who dislike them, i.e., inner-city denizens who are poor, black, less-well-educated Democratic voters who also exhibit the same brand of intolerent racism.

They might remember Matthew 7:5: "You hypocrite! First, remove the beam in your own eye and then you will see clearly enough to remove the speck from your brother's eye".

I'm just sayin'...

Thank you for your reply. There are a couple of different reasons I have read, one is tone and communication ability on the level most understood, one is familiarity.

I am not sure there is going to be much done about communication ability. Obama is communicating well with most of the country. But familiarity can be addressed.

Obama is only 1 person and needs to focus his attention on where it will pay off to secure the nomination. Until that is done and Hillary moves off the stage, he can't focus on those "pockets" he has not reached yet. We are losing weeks of familiarity time and work horsing around with this.

Do you seriously think that anything close to a majority of those in WV who vote for Rahall have clue about his ancestry? or could find Lebanon on a map? His pork has been wonderful for WV (as has Byrd's). By focusing on his heritage, you do Rahall no great service.

I have not said anything negative about you or your post. Your attempt to portray this area as anything other than a backwards nest of snakehandlers is your choice, of course.

How attacking me for my opinions, sarcasm, sexual orientation, or vapidness in other posts (oh, please, vapid is the best you can do? surely you can come up with something a little more insulting? I fawn over violinists. I'm fat, if that helps. I also can't name all the presidents in order. maybe you can work with one of those) really doesn't say much for your cause that Appalachians are really good-hearted folks who just need a chance. BTW, I don't hate Clinton at all. She has been poorly served by her campaign and the media. Sucks for her. I will vote FOR Obama, not AGAINST McCain/Bush. so piss off.

Cynthia Ward

John Edwards wanted to talk about poverty in America. He was unquestionably the best of all the candidates here - the one with the real ideas and a real sense of what was important in this country. He would have been the best candidate for the party because of his ability to connect with all kinds of people and his grasp of real issues affecting us. Then came the same goofs that gave us Dukakis and McGovern, and look what we've got - a chance to win 10 states, max. Shame on all of us for not seeing what we could have had.

Yours were the posts that first showed me just how nasty Hillary supporters could actually be (before the KKK brigade showed up).

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http://letters.salon.com/news/feature/2008/02/07/delegates/permalink/6fd85db90ff7da06b49ecb48d4db2dee.html

Janet Huckabee. I'm sorry; she looks like an ugly man in Wal-Mart drag. The make-up is from Jethro of Little Rock; the hair color is straight out of a box. However, I bet she can bake a delicious possum pie, though! Yum!

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Hypocrite? You bet Mr.

I live in the Philly exburbs, in the gray area where you go from Philadelphia to Pennsyltucky and Obama is right, these people cling to the old rather than embrace the new. Change is looked on with suspicion, familiarity as an old friend. He's is also correct in his assessment that they are bitter, but that bitterness is about something more than just economic disparity, it's a bitterness about how America has changed and how it is no longer their America.

Their America is one where you weren't rich but had a decent job, either in the steel mills, coal mines, some factory or on a warehouse floor. Dad worked, Mom raised the kids and the life was simple. You didn't need a lot of education to make a decent living in the world. That paradigm doesn't exist anymore. They no longer have what they once did or see that they cannot have what their parents had. Well, that's not exactly true. Good jobs can still be had, I sit in a town that has two major pharmaceutical companies located here and a tiny smathering of support industries and is within short driving distance of several other large pharmaceutical plants and centers. But those jobs take education and if education wasn't placed on an alter in your household when growing up, because a good job could be had without one (and I mean post high school here) then you're at a huge disadvantage in today's market.

But not only has the work environment changed so to the social fabric. The neighborhoods are a little less white, a bit more brown and sometimes even a shade of yellow. It's troubling because in the past there wasn't a need for cultural acceptance. All the customs were the same, all the holidays celebrated the same way, all the religious worship similar. That familiarity is gone.

Now, not only are there these different people nudging into their once monochromatic enclaves, and not only are they changing the culture but they are competing for the low hanging fruit jobs, those with easy entry barriers, that don't require a lot of education to get. They are a threat. They don't seem to love America in the same fashion either, hell, they don't even speak the language.

And along comes Obama, the dude with the funny name, unfamiliar, like the names of the people pushing their way into the old neighborhoods. He's a different shade as well, brown, maybe yellow, just like those folks. Some say he's a Muslim and well, we're at war with Muslims and that kid on the other side of town was killed over in Iraq. And you can tell by looking at his soft hands he's never worked the land or turned a wrench a day in his life. He's a lawyer for God sake, from Harvard or some other fancy school, the man has no connection to me what-so-ever.

Now Hillary, sure, she went to some fancy schools but she's also from around here, Dad owned some sort of business up around Scranton and he worked hard to put his girl through college. I know a guy, who knows a guy, who went to the same church as her cousin. And when her husband was in office by God times were good, or at least we think they were. So, if she is in office, times will be good again, cause she'll have the same team he husband had and hell, you know ole Bill is going to be working things behind the scene anyway. And even if not, well, at least there's a cultural tie to her as opposed to him, I can relate to her.

The real question of the article shouldn't be why isn't Obama connecting to the folks in Appalachia, it should be how long are the folks of Appalachia going to "cling" to their old ways in a hopes that whatever better times there once were will return.

That's the crux of the election to me. The world has changed, it's a new century and Obama presents a way forward to embrace the change and bring it about to our benefit, Clinton wants things to remain the same, but we can't live in 1996 forever. The impetus isn't on Obama now, he's given the option, it's on the mountain folk themselves, remain and slide further into obscurity and insignificance or realize that life is different now and in order to survive and succeed in this new world, you need to be different too.