A lot of the Pat Buchananesque (and Hillary Clinton’s own analysis and this reference is not a knock on her but on her analysis) assumes that there cannot be a paradigm shift in Democratic voter turnout and black voter turnout. Obama may well need it because I believe that 25% of HRC backers will vote for McCain and I believe that is incredibly foolish and I could write books about why (whether people would buy them is a whole other thing.

I realize this about West Virginia because I have been lobbying friends in a place where I grew up and know well–Kentucky–the most urban part of it–Louisville–to vote for Obama. One of my friends from there got elected to the House in 2006–exactly the kind of person I like to see there.

Many of the people in West Virginia are demographic replicates of people in small towns and a large percentage of the population in Louisville, Kentucky (I ventured to make up this word after I saw EW’s imaginative use of paradigm on the fly but realize hers is probably 100% gramatically correct and I have doubts about mine).

Interestingly while I would have thought the vast majority of people who are going to vote in Kentucky and the remaining states’ primaries have their minds made up by now, I found out that’s not entirely the case last night, including my own mom.

I have learned though over the months that many people who are voting for Hillary–and this certainly spans demographic and educational backgrounds are nullifying many of the things that Hillary is saying that the cerebral part of their makeup knows to be patently false and impossible because they are waging a perceived fight against what they feel is gender bias.

I dare say Jeralyn Merritt has a very good grip on how Congress works and knows damn well not only is the gas tax pander a false ploy for a multitude of reasons but simply couldn’t pass with the Blue Dog Dems, most Dems in the House if not all, and all Dems in the Senate if there were no Republicans in Congress or the Senate and Bush had no Veto power.

But to read her blog, Hillary is the only way/does no wrong and Obama is a bumbling fool. My guess is Jeralyn, like a lot of women has seen a lot of gender bias, and she’s making her statement based on this. My impression is also that many women are voting after comparing notes with their friends more than men do, (and I could be all wet on this)whether they are voting for Hillary or Barack.

The dynamics of gender voting are discussed in this article in this morning’s NYT:

Jodi Kantor’s Gender Issue Lives On as Clinton’s Hopes Dim

During the primary in West Virginia the comments that permeated the talking heads in the MSM about this region digusted and fascinated me. Pat Buchanan was the only one to bring up this not so subtle prejudice. Endless comments about the “un, less, under” educated people in these regions. Most of these talking heads fail to recognize the history and complicated psychology of many of the people in this region.

What I know is that if this country ever completely implodes many of these people will survive. They may not be “formerly” educated but “otherly” educated they are. They are the survivors. Many can hunt, fix anything (cars, plumbing, electric etc) farm, garden, can food timber etc.

Many of the doors I have knocked on during elections over the last 25 years have two adult family members working for pitiful wages and often have family members who have put their asses on the line “allegedly” for this country. I have stood on the porch of many of these homes in Glouster, Chauncey, Trimble, Pomeroy Ohio etc talking with mothers and fathers of young soldiers who are serving in Iraq and have had their lives destroyed via depression or injuries because they believed what the Bush administration has been telling (LIES LIES) them. MANY ARE UNBELIEVABLY PISSED OFF. I MEAN REALLY PISSED OFF ( I cannot even repeat what I have heard some of them say on this blog)

Obama should not write them off, he should work these regions hard with General Wesley Clark, Senator Webb and anyone else who has served in the military and is well aware of how these peoples lives and faith have been abused by the Bush administration. Many are salt of the earth, hard working, deeply devoted, common sense, “otherly” educated people.

The black/white division has been cultivated in odd ways, it is complicated. Keep people focused on racism instead of CLASSISM and you keep poorer and underprivilied people divided.

Obviously the MSM does not even realize they have participated in our classist society by making demeaning comments about Appalachia

I think you’ve been drinking Nancy Pelosi’s Kool-aide. What impeachment by the House does is to provide virtually unlimited powers to document impeachable offenses. This is especially critical with the DOJ crippled by political corruption of the lowest order. In fact, at this point in the calendar, impeachment is the BEST route forward, even if it ends in the House before a vote on the floor and never gets to the Senate.

Bob in HI

That one NEVER gets left out.

Those ads are a characature or a satire and I have thought they were a farce from the first one I ever saw. The reasons for the side effects that are rattled off like an auctioneer on way too much speed are the language in some law Congress passed that I’m too lazy to look up mandating that side effects have to be uttered in all ads to the public on the air or made available in print so you end up with that. *g*

Of course the public should have unlimited access to med information, but it gets absurd when the side effects take up more of the commercial than the information on the drug and the way they are delivered is pretty meaningless for anyone who listens.

One of the benefits of the web which a sizable chunk of the population still can’t access is that there it has a wealth of good quality info on it sometimes camouflaged by bad, but it has been far better overall than I expected at first.

The conventional wisdom on Appalacia has been badly distorted and misrepresented and picked up by people who have their scripts written for them by people who can’t report like Noron O’Donald and Mrs. Greenspan and a lot of the talking heads that are fixtures repeating the same time and don’t have a clue.

Charles Blow ran graphics at NYT which has involved a lot more than being a good artist, and he has evolved to doing not only graphic analysis but political analysis conveyed by graphics.

Here are two of his latest articles including one that is a lot more sophisticated than you’re going to hear replicated ad nauseam on MSNBC or CNN, and particularly on Fox.

It’s information way above Buchanan and Scarborough’s ability to comprehend.

Skirting Apalacia:

A Blacklash?

Mrs. Clinton has campaigned on an amusing and totally false premise which is that since more of Appalacia went for Bill Clinton, that the exact same people would vote for her. To her surprise and chagrin, as Mr. Blow points out, she hasn’t been the Bill Clinton of 2008 and Obama has.

Part of Clinton’s win-while-losing argument is that her husband won more than half the region’s states in both elections, and so can she. Unfortunately, she is not the Bill Clinton of 2008. Obama is, and his candidacy could energize enough young voters and African-Americans to shift the landscape of swing states.

Obama is unlikely to win the heart of Appalachia in the general election, but he may not need to if he can make up ground on its northern frontier. If he wins New York and Pennsylvania (he lost both in the primaries) and flip-flopping Ohio (another primary loss) he will be in good position.

The electoral votes of the other heavily Appalachian states could be offset. For instance, if he wins Virginia (where a corner sits in Appalachia and which seems to be in play although it hasn’t swung Democratic in more than 40 years) and Florida (which almost swung — or maybe did swing — Democratic in 2000), he will have won more electoral votes than in Tennessee, North Carolina, Kentucky and West Virginia combined.

Eschewing Appalachia might be risky but by no means suicidal. Clinton said in her victory speech on Tuesday night that no Democrat has won the White House since 1916 without taking West Virginia. True. But they all could have won without it. The margins of victory in those races ranged from 23 to 515 electoral votes. West Virginia has five.

So, when she stops casting the nomination as a standoff between the Dukes of Hazzard and the Huxtables and accepts the outcome as a fait accompli, the party can unite, and there will be a better sense as to which states are in play.