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By Moe Lane Posted in 2008 | Appalachia | Barack Obama | The Best Democratic Primary EVER — Comments (19) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Do you know what's more fun than giving good advice to Democrats, when you know that they'll ignore it? Watching a Democrat do it to fellow-Democrats. It's doubly fun when it's Salon doing it. Via RCP:

Why don't those hillbillies like Obama?

Obama's "Appalachian problem" is a symptom of his party's larger "rural problem." But a new poll offers hope for the fall -- provided the Democrats show rural voters some respect.

May 20, 2008 | WHITESBURG, Ky. -- In analyzing the returns from last week's West Virginia Democratic primary, a phalanx of reporters and commentators have explained Hillary Clinton's landslide victory by pointing out that West Virginians are a special set of Democrats, white, low income and undereducated. Some, like Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo and Jonathan Tilove of the Newhouse papers, have linked the lackluster performance of Barack Obama in West Virginia to a larger Appalachian problem. These writers connect the presumptive nominee's defeat in West Virginia, his previous losses in Ohio and Pennsylvania, and an anticipated poor outing in Tuesday's Kentucky primary, to the historical, geographic and cultural imperatives shared by Appalachian mountain people.

The legions of pseudonym-laden online posters who follow in political punditry's wake are less restrained in describing the shortcomings of Sen. Clinton's Appalachian supporters. They suggest it has to do with her voters being racist, toothless, shoeless, and prone to marrying their cousins. In short, they characterize these "special" Democrats in much the same terms they used in quieter times to describe Republicans.

Ouch.

Read on.

The crux of Ms. (presumably) Davis's argument is that there seems to be a growing shift away from rural voters and towards urban ones. She goes less into the reasons for this, but you get the definite impression that in her (and for that matter, my) mind one critical factor is that the Democrats are increasingly being run by people who don't like rural areas very much. Or (to be nicer, although I can't imagine why I'm bothering) at least being run by people who don't really understand rural voters. It's most obvious in the Appalachian area, but it's no secret that Obama's support is based on urban/suburban, affluent white people and African Americans; he does badly with rural and working class white people, and he's not getting particularly better at it as the race goes on and on and on and on and on.

Which is a real problem for the Democrats, because they can't win elections without the rural vote. From the article:

In 2004, Kerry lost the rural battleground by about 20 percent and with it a close election. The rural vote was particularly telling in the pivotal state of Ohio, where a massive Democratic get-out-the-vote effort in cities and suburbs was more than offset by increased Republican success with rural voters. Many of those rural voters were Appalachian and blue collar, people who back before the name-calling were reliable Democrats. They gave Bush a second term.

Ms. Davis is hopeful that Senator Obama can reverse this: while I am of course biased, I still think that she's ignoring the peculiar emotional appeal that rural-baiting has for the urban population - particularly that of the younger urban/suburban vote that is disproportionately for the junior Senator from Illinois. They aren't particularly interested in playing nice with others, thank God, and while they mostly don't vote they do give money (just as good, right?), so the Democrats as a whole have to treat them carefully. So you get situations like this:

How Obama fares in rural America may, in the end, have to do with whether he shows up. In politics not showing up and losing are kissing cousins. Obama made three visits to West Virginia. In Kentucky, he limited himself to appearances in the state's two biggest cities, Louisville and Lexington. He didn't come to my part of the state, or try to make any friends in rural areas.

...and before you object, note that Harold Ford Jr. had the exact same complaint (Via Instapundit). What Davis and Ford either don't recognize, or just won't say is that this isn't the strategy of a man who's clinched the nomination: this is the strategy of a man who's maintaining a primary election strategy and worrying about the general election one later. He would have been - and would be - better off thinking in terms of November, as well as August.

But never mind me. No, really. Much obliged.

Moe Lane