Published: May 09, 2008 12:22 am            

Clinton shows strength in Appalachia

Gaining support of working-class whites remains Obama’s challenge

FAIRMONT — West Virginia Democrats will not be alone if they follow their counterparts in Appalachia in picking Sen. Hillary Clinton over Sen. Barack Obama on Tuesday, political experts say.

As the map shows, Clinton is showing dramatic strength, county-by-county, throughout the more than 1,000 miles from northern Mississippi to southern New York.

The region includes all of West Virginia.

Appalachia also has parts of 12 other states: Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.

The map has created a buzz on the Internet.

It shows the challenge Obama faced in Ohio and Pennsylvania — and still faces — in wooing working-class whites, most of them in rural areas and small towns. The bluest counties are ones she has won with at least 60 percent of the vote; the greenest ones are ones he has carried by the same margin.

The map’s creator, Sean Oxendine, used it in early April to sketch a scenario that might, at the time, have permitted Clinton to win the popular vote at the end of the 50-state marathon.

Clinton easily won 27 of the 29 counties in Western North Carolina that are in the region on Wednesday.

Oxendine now says her chances have shrunk from a 1-in-10 shot to a 1-in-100 shot in catching Obama in the popular vote.

Using a primary vote formula, he looked at how race and other demographic factors have affected the contest.

Appalachia is much whiter than the rest of the nation, and much more rural. The federal-state Appalachian Regional Commission estimates that about 40 percent of the region’s population is rural.

But two historians who study Appalachian history and culture said Clinton’s support is also based on other factors.

Emphasizing race doesn’t do justice to the region’s residents, they said.

Hillary’s 16-year presence on the national stage, along with her husband, former President Bill Clinton, is a major advantage, they said.

Only two more states in the region have to vote: West Virginia on Tuesday and Kentucky on May 20.

West Virginia is the fourth-whitest state in the nation (94.6 percent white) with a 3.2 percent black population, according to estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS) for 2006.

Kentucky has 37 counties in its eastern portion that are part of Appalachia. Kentucky is the 10th-most white state (89.5 percent white, 7.4 percent black).

Race, of course, has also affected Clinton’s campaign. Black voters in urban areas and in the South strongly back Obama.

Obama now has a 7-4 lead in states which have slices of the region.

Clinton has wins in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Tennessee.

Obama has won North Carolina, Maryland, Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi.

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Oxendine (a pen name) blogs at race42008.com, a Republican Web site. He has a master’s degree in political science.

He is obsessed with political geography, he said in his April 1 post. He has hand-programmed maps for every congressional election since 1972.

His post is entitled “No Really. Hillary Has A Decent Shot.”

He overlaid black population by census tract reports (2000 census) on a digitized national map. He then applied county-by-county returns for the primaries to date.

Using a formula, Oxendine said he found Clinton had a chance to catch Obama in the popular vote. Puerto Rico remains the wild card. How the party handles the Florida and Michigan primaries will also affect her goal, he wrote.

She has to win over 60 percent of the vote in several of the remaining contests, he wrote then.

Pennsylvania hadn’t voted when he posted his analysis. Clinton won Pennsylvania on April 22 with a 10-point margin, 55 percent to 45 percent, however.

In an e-mail this week after the North Carolina and Indiana primaries, Oxendine said “it is very, very tough for her now” to catch Obama in the popular vote.

“It’s gone from a 1-in-10 shot to a 1-in-100 shot.”

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The region’s political patterns have more to do with class and politics, said professor Ronald D. Eller of the University of Kentucky.

Eller and professor Ronald L. Lewis of West Virginia University were asked to comment on Oxendine’s post.

A Beckley native, Eller is an eighth-generation Appalachian. The history professor specializes in American social history, Appalachian history and southern history. His latest book, a study of development and its politics in Appalachia since 1945, comes out in September.

“There is little historical evidence that Appalachia has any different history regarding race than the rest of the country,” he said in an e-mail.

Appalachian voters can be at once “economically liberal and culturally conservative.”

The “largely working class Democrats of central Appalachia have a long history of empathy for unions, cultural conservatism (including patriotism, loyalty, fairness and concern for security) and economic issues facing families.”

“In that regard, the Clintons — and one can not separate the appeal of Bill from that of Hillary — represent familiar cultural values,” he said.

“The Clintons have also been better than Obama in identifying with the ‘us vs. them’ perspective of class that is a very powerful value in Appalachia.”

Obama is having trouble appealing to “the local, family, and place-based concerns of rural voters.”

“Secondly, and perhaps even more importantly, Obama has many fewer contacts within the established Democratic political machinery of rural Appalachia,” he said.

“The Clinton presidency is remembered fondly among many of the local Democratic power brokers within the region, and in Appalachia (because of the role that family and patronage play in the political culture) these traditional connections with local political machines are very important.”

“There is much that appeals to mountain Democrats in Obama’s message of hope and change,” but he has to find a way to connect with them, he said.

Lewis, the holder of the Stuart and Joyce Robbins Chair in History at WVU, agrees with Eller that race is a factor “as it is everywhere.”

Lewis studies Appalachian history and race and ethnicity in the region and nationally. He has written works on the history of black coal miners and on black workers from colonial times until the present.

Economic issues are more important in the contest “and regional voters will be more familiar with Hillary’s longer and stronger track record on this issue.”

“The more affluent, educated voters who fit Obama’s profile can afford to stick with the high-minded politics of hope, but poorer people do not have that luxury,” Lewis said in an e-mail.

“The former wake up in the morning and see a world of opportunities; the latter wake up in the morning to face a world of limitations,” he said.

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A Clinton spokeswoman in Charleston had this statement: “Hillary stands up for working families and is the candidate with the strength and experience to make change happen.”

“She understands the challenges working families face and is ready to deliver real solutions,” said Jessica Santillo, a campaign press secretary.

Tom Bowen, an Obama campaign spokesman, acknowledged he is a new face in national politics.

“Voters in West Virginia are not as familiar with Senator Obama’s life story,” Bowen said. Obama started as a community organizer on the south side of Chicago.

In the Illinois legislature and now in Washington, Obama works for coal miners and the industry, he said.

“Once West Virginians have had a chance to learn about Senator Obama, we’re confident they'll see that he is the one candidate who can change this country.”

E-mail Bill Byrd at bbyrd@timeswv.com.

        

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