HuffPost: Keith Judd, Texas Inmate, Gets 40 Percent Of Votes Against Obama In West Virginia Democratic Primary

[Teller]

Genuine question - how do you explain the fact that Hillary got almost 70 percent of the WV vote in the primary before the 2008 election, while Obama got only 25%? Obama had not put forth any policies toward coal that were any different from Hillary's, as I recall.

A far better question would be "When Reagan lambasted Carter in 1980, why did WV go for Carter?"

No, no. I know the answer.

Reagan had the better tan.

[Predicto]

No one is answering the question. I have not once said that it was because Obama is black. I'm looking for some other explanation.

Clearly something about Obama really turns those voters off, so much so that this "strong Democratic state" has zero interest in voting for him, and whatever it was, it turned them off long before the regulation of coal was a hot-button issue.

I might be willing to accept the idea that it is because he is a liberal urban professor type who is outside their realm of experience, but then again so is Hillary, really.

---------- Post added May-9th-2012 at 05:21 PM ----------

A far better question would be "When Reagan lambasted Carter in 1980, why did WV go for Carter?"

No, no. I know the answer.

Reagan had the better tan.

I'm guessing it is because 1) West Virginia was heavily unionized at the time, and 2) Carter identified as a southerner, culturally.

[deejaydana]

I would say it's Obama's anti-coal stance driving this. That and perhaps his clinging to guns and religion comments. Maybe his dismal record too.

[Predicto]

I would say it's Obama's anti-coal stance driving this. That and perhaps his clinging to guns and religion comments. Maybe his dismal record too.

Nevertheless, they didn't like him in 2008 either. Before he had an "anti-coal" stance. And before he had a record.

And the guns and religion thing was a small part of a talk to his campaign workers about how to reach out to small town, working class voters and how those voters were not racists, just upset about being abandoned by the modern American economy.

So, it depends on where you are, but I think it’s fair to say that the places where we are going to have to do the most work are the places where people feel most cynical about government. The people are mis-appre…I think they’re misunderstanding why the demographics in our, in this contest have broken out as they are. Because everybody just ascribes it to ‘white working-class don’t wanna work — don’t wanna vote for the black guy.’ That’s…there were intimations of that in an article in the Sunday New York Times today – kind of implies that it’s sort of a race thing.

Here’s how it is: in a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so long, and they feel so betrayed by government, and when they hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, then a part of them just doesn’t buy it. And when it’s delivered by — it’s true that when it’s delivered by a 46-year-old black man named Barack Obama (laugher), then that adds another layer of skepticism (laughter).

But — so the questions you’re most likely to get about me, ‘Well, what is this guy going to do for me? What’s the concrete thing?’ What they wanna hear is — so, we’ll give you talking points about what we’re proposing — close tax loopholes, roll back, you know, the tax cuts for the top 1 percent. Obama’s gonna give tax breaks to middle-class folks and we’re gonna provide health care for every American. So we’ll go down a series of talking points.

But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there’s not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

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I guess I'm too much of an elitist to understand why what he said there was so bad, or even how it was inaccurate in any way.

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[Major Harris]

predicto, i know enough to know that obama misspoke there. it didn't make me mad. but if you can't see why it would make some people angry, then you just might be right about yourself.

[Burgold]

predicto, i know enough to know that obama misspoke there. it didn't make me mad. but if you can't see why it would make some people angry, then you just might be right about yourself.

It really only makes you mad if you are looking for reasons to be mad. Just like the people who got up in arms about the quote about Romney's wife. Everyone know what she was saying, but pretended that it was an assault against mothers just so that they could all righteous and grumpy about someone they want to dislike.

It's an excuse or it's laziness.

[Major Harris]

It really only makes you mad if you are looking for reasons to be mad. Just like the people who got up in arms about the quote about Romney's wife. Everyone know what she was saying, but pretended that it was an assault against mothers just so that they could all righteous and grumpy about someone they want to dislike.

It's an excuse or it's laziness.

i won't dispute that at all. but that doesn't change the fact that it's obvious that statement will make some people mad, regardless of why it makes it people mad. stupid, lazy people vote too (though very few that would get really mad were going to vote for him on a good day). i don't think it was a wise choice of words.

[Burgold]

We don't really disagree. I won't even say that off-mic stuff shouldn't count. Sometimes, you get more candor that way even though it is a little unfair to be en garde all the time.