Save a few unlikely scenarios, pollsters and pundits have declared that Sen. Barack Obama will be on the presidential ticket in November. But despite his lead in delegates, superdelegates and the popular vote, Democrats in the bluegrass state are still turning out to support Sen. Clinton.
As recently as May 15, Clinton polled 36 points ahead of Obama in an American Research Group survey and many media reports attribute her continued lead to nothing more than old-fashioned racism.
"Race is still the elephant in the room, and the Rev. Wright issue hits at remaining racial prejudices and fears that people here might have," Saundra Ardrey, head of the political science department at Western Kentucky University, told The Huffington Post last week.
Donald Gross, who chairs the political science department at the University of Kentucky, agrees that race is a defining factor in this election and that the statements of Rev. Jeremiah Wright could explain why Clinton has widened her lead since the February primary in neighboring state Tennessee.
"Tennessee was before Rev. Wright and in the demographic we're talking about this creates problems for these voters," Gross said.
When Gross discussed Kentucky's demographics on the NPR program The Bryant Park Project last week, the show's Internet message board came to life.
"In a lot of the rural areas, literally a lot of these individuals have never seen African-Americans," Gross told NPR. "They don't interact with them."
Some listeners couldn't believe it was possible to live in the United States and not interact with racial minorities, but a homogenous population is a racial reality in the bluegrass state. Six of the ten least racially diverse cities in the country are in Kentucky, according to City-Data.com. And U.S. Census data shows that African Americans make up just 7.5 percent of the population.
It might be easy to chalk up Clinton's lead to a combination of demographics and racism, but D. Stephen Voss, a political science professor at the University of Kentucky who studies the nexus of race and politics, respectfully disagreed with his colleague.
"Trying to read the preference to Clinton and attribute it to race is unfair to her and the voters," Voss said. "It suggests if you were not a racist, you'd be voting for Obama."
Voss says that Obama's limited name recognition early in the campaign and the absence of an urban, African American base in the state meant he faced an uphill battle with Kentucky's lunch pail Democrats from the start, a hill so steep in fact that the senator has all but ignored Kentucky voters.
"The Obama camp very much carries with it a young, modern, progressive, Starbucks crowd," Voss said. "Kentucky doesn't have that large, progressive, voter group. They're worried about grandma, about jobs, and Clinton has spoken to those concerns more successfully."
David Miller, the chaplain at Union College, a small, Methodist university in the hills of southeastern Kentucky says there may be "some credence" to the race factor, but the character of the two campaigns may be why Kentuckians remain loyal to Clinton even in the face of likely defeat.
"Kentucky Democrats have really been conservatives," Miller said. "In this election, the party machine candidate is Clinton and the progressive candidate is Obama, that's just not resonating with Kentucky voters."
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
Kerry loss big in WV & KY. It's an elitist problem not a race problem.
And I have land for sale in the Everglades. Interested? Come on, Barack Obama's curriculum vitate and financial report resembles HRC's but she is richer and by American standards has a more elitist pedigree. How long will the delusional explanations that this is not about race in WV & KY but about Obama being elitist continue? McCain's wife is so rich she won't even release any information about her wealth. The working class people of the United States have created and supported the candidacy of Senator Obama. They are the people who have been able to see his skin color as inconsequential and his vision as all important. It is time for a change and with or without Ky and WVA God willing, this will be the year that Barack Obama becomes President!
go read: Polls: Registered Dems Still Prefer Clinton...Posted May 22, 2008 | 08:47 AM (EST)...
She got killed with working class whites in Oregon. I know nobody wants to report that, but...
Not exactly killed. Away from the cities and college towns she won by a few points. I think if the campaign to come is able to reveal the true characters and intentions of the candidates without too much swiftboating, people will come around by November.
True. Why so much attention is paid to West VA and Kentucky is beyond me; Obama won whites in many other states. Both West VA and Kentucky are not only conservative and racially divided, the majority of people in both states will vote Republican no matter who the democratic candidate is.
Because the Media is white and are in the Tank for Hillary...what else.
Even though the author's sources suggest that Obama's perceived lack of emphasis on the economy in his campaign may be as large a factor as his race, the title of the piece does not reflect that at all. It's too bad, because it comes off looking like another smug dismissal of struggling people's concerns on the part of a member of the Starbucks set. Whether she will follow through with her ideas or not, Clinton (or perhaps media coverage of her) has given the impression to many--starting in New Hampshire-- that she is the one talking about bread-and-butter issues while Obama is trying to make people feel good.
There is a real need for thoughtful writers here on HuffPost who emphasize Obama's policy proposals (although they might want to hide the health care stuff) rather than repeating the same tired hero-worshipping slogans. The horse-race, in your face, "change! change! change!" stuff has to stop.
Does anyone really think that voters who chose Hillary because of "race" will vote for her in November? No one was campaiging against her. WV and Kentucky conservatives, even if they call themselves Democrats, will not vote for Hillary Clinton when the opponant is bringing up her record on abortion rights and gay rights. However, they probably liked that she voted for the war...but she loses to Mc Cain on that also
"Trying to read the preference to Clinton and attribute it to race is unfair to her and the voters," Voss said. "It suggests if you were not a racist, you'd be voting for Obama."
That is a good point. One very imperfect way to tease out an answer is to look at the number of people who voted Hillary that also said race was a factor in determining there vote.
And African Americans stay with Obama - what's your point?
Here are 2 politically incorrect rhetorical and hypothetical questions about Appalachia which, hopefully, will get posted:
If in the PA, WVA, OH, KY primaries, Obama looks like Edwards and Hillary is Hillary, who would the good folks of these states choose as the winner? And by how much?
If Hillary Rodham was not married to Bill Clinton, how far would she get in the primary election?
For weeks and weeks we have heard talking heads suggest that white working class voters would not support Obama in mid-western states and that blacks are voting for Barack. It became not simply an observation, but a suggested direction or programming for "how voters" then should cast their votes along racial, income, age, education, and sex lines. It went well beyond subliminal suggestion. This, of course, was never done to the Republican Primary when all the candidates were still competing. Unfortunately, it is the American public that has suffered being duped for the lack of clear and full facts and fairness. And whatever prejudices we may have harboured (as everyone has) has been rubbed raw! We are given nothing more than inflamatory soundbites, infuriating irrelevant gossip, sensational headlines, selected talking points, and whatever poll results that fits their point of view... for the moment. It is usually spewd by well paid political pundits who have a scripted agenda. And that agenda is slanted decidely to the right in the majority of cases to protect their own elite interests. Then they ask with their tongues in their cheeks why the Democratic Party is so fractured and racially divided.
If I hear "white working class voters" one more time on the news, I'm going to vomit!! And "Starbuck's crowd" - Please!! I do not drink starbucks, and I'm not young (though I am well educated, and white). They act like it's the (temporarily) cool, popular thing to do - supporting Obama. But yes, people are being brainwashed by these phrases they hear over and over.
Now, "the elephant in the room" and the issue of race in an state like Kentucky, that DOES ring true. The fact that race is not being widely and openly discussed (in my observation, in MSM - not counting the Wright issue) is interesting. I don't know if that is a postive or negative interesting & probably a separate topic. However it is understandable that rural whites who may never seen a person of color would be afraid to vote for someone who appears and sounds different from themselves. But they'll get used to him.
In every poll that I've seen both of them loose fairly largly to McCain. So if hillary wins the nod she doesnt really have a chance in the GE to win KY.
Is Hillary going to say this is a SWING state also and that she can carry Kentucky? Obama does not have the name Clinton so unless people are well-informed about the issues then she will win. He is so busy trying to fend off the lies from McBush lately he couldn't devote too much time to a state that will turn out for Clinton. I don't think they are as bad as W. VA voters, atleast they can comprehend issues and are intelligent but the name Clinton for some brings warm fuzzy feelings. As a woman, it brings back nightmares for me. Especially since she has decided to rip our party apart. The superdelegates are happy to sit back apparently and let her do it. why? because she has the name Clinton. Someone needs some balls in this party.
West Virginia and KY are Republican States. They willl vote Repub as soon as her back is turned! She won't get that crowd once the generals start anyway. So why is everyone getting their panty's all in a bunch over her winning the poor, uneducated white people in those states? the More White, educated people in states that actually live in the twenth century went for Obama just fine. He has no problem here! It's jusst Media hype! Man, how ignorant can people get? That's why he didn't work those states to hard. but he will once they D.N.C. gets offtheir hands and people like polosi begins to throw behind him and he can announce he is the nomanee, and has been for a long time now. Be patient, they have to unite behind him soon or there will be a big roar from the Demacrates and the people who realize it's important to take the fight to Mccain, and right now when he is makeing all these mistakes!
That's simply absurd. Don't you follow politics, or were you too young to remember the 1992 and 1996 elections? Clinton took Kentucky and West Virginia both times. There's no reason to believe they wouldn't vote for a Clinton again.
Really? how about the mess that was 1996 to 2000? An executive branch mired in scandal while the Pubs ran the legislature as they saw fit, rich getting rich off of stock bubbles and Enron type scams, an unauthorized war in Europe etc...
Loading comments…
Posted May 20, 2008 | 12:18 PM (EST)