Hillary Clinton’s “working, hard working, White American” supporters

It is clear that Obama is going to get smeared in West Virginia and Kentucky. That’s life; not every group of voters will like you. BHO won South Carolina big; now it is their turn to win big.

But who are these Hillary Clinton supporters; these “hard working White Americans”?

A British Newspaper ran an article that Daily Kos member lost pointed us towards:

This article titled, “Democratic country keeps its distance from Obama,” sheds some light on some very disheartening information.

Like most people in Mingo County, West Virginia, Leonard Simpson is a lifelong Democrat. But given a choice between Barack Obama and John McCain in November, the 67-year-old retired coalminer would vote Republican.

“I heard that Obama is a Muslim and his wife’s an atheist,” said Mr Simpson, drawing on a cigarette outside the fire station in Williamson, a coalmining town of 3,400 people surrounded by lush wooded hillsides.

Michelle’s an atheist? Well, that’s a new one for me—but I’m not surprised to read that. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised to read that some people think she’s a Klingon. Because they read it on the Internet.

“If he is the nominee, the Democrats have no chance of winning West Virginia,” said Missy Endicott, a 40- year-old school administrator. “He doesn’t understand ordinary Americans.”

That breaks my heart. I wish Missy Endicott really understood the Obama I know and that his concerns and platforms for a better life for all Americans have little to do with further enriching the already wealthy.

It only gets worse:

None of the 22 Democrats interviewed by the Financial Times at the Clinton rally would commit themselves to voting for Mr Obama if he became the nominee, and half said they definitely would not. The depth of opposition is particularly striking considering that Mingo County is one of the most Democratic places in West Virginia, having cast about 85 per cent of its votes for the party in the 2006 midterm elections. If Mr Obama cannot win there in November, he has little chance of carrying the state.

Most people questioned said they mistrusted Mr Obama because of doubts about his patriotism and “values”, stemming from his cosmopolitan background, his exotic name and the controversy surrounding “anti-American” sermons by Jeremiah Wright, his former pastor. Several people said they believed he was a Muslim – an unfounded rumour that has circulated on the internet for months – despite the contradiction with his 20-year membership of Mr Wright’s church in Chicago. Others mentioned his refusal to wear a Stars and Stripes badge and controversial remarks by his wife, Mich­elle, who des­cribed America as “mean” and implied that she had never been proud of the US until her husband ran for president.

Obama has a “cosmopolitan” background? What about Hillary? Do these voters know nothing of her background?

And finally, what might possibly be the saddest quote of all:

Josh Fry, a 24-year-old ambulance driver from Williamson, insisted he was not racist but said he would feel more comfortable with Mr McCain, the 71-year-old Vietnam war hero, in the White House. “I want someone who is a full-blooded American as president,” he said.

I don’t even know what to say about that.

But you know what? You don’t see Barack Obama or any of his official surrogates putting these Hillary Clinton supporters down, even though they richly deserve scorn and ridicule. Yes, people like myself get constantly put down by the Clinton campaign and their official surrogates.

I do want to issue one caution though: the source for this dairy was a British Newspaper, and sometimes foreign newspapers want Americans to look as stupid and ignorant as possible. It is entirely possible that they cherry picked their interviewees so as to make all of us (yes, “us”) look like ignorant, inbred genetic misfires.

Still, it appears to me that recent Clinton campaign rhetoric has attempted to play on such people’s ignorance, and I don’t approve of that.