Sigh:
An obscure federal prison inmate gave President Obama an unexpected run for his money in the West Virginia Democratic Primary Tuesday, highlighting the deep dislike for the president in the Appalachian heartland.
With 88% of the precincts reporting Tuesday night, Keith Judd was holding steady at 40% of the vote and had won six counties.
Judd is also known as federal prison inmate Number 11593-051 at the Beaumont Federal Correctional Institution in Beaumont, Texas, where Judd is serving a 210-month sentence for extortion and
making threats at the University of New Mexico in 1999.According to both state and national Democratic Party rules, Keith Russell Judd is entitled to receive at least one delegate from West Virginia for the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C. because he received 15% of the vote.
Judd ran particularly strong in West Virginia’s coal country, carrying the labor stronghold of Mingo County, among others.
I haven’t seen the exit polling, but I will go out on a limb and guess he won the meth using, mountain dancing, moonshine run through the finest radiator in radiator in Randolph county demographic.
Also, too, a giant middle finger to everyone who said race wouldn’t matter in the 2008 election in WV and accused me of just preemptively screaming racism.
A flashback:
Nothing has changed. He’s still black. Except for when he is half-white.
gaz
It was the ponytail mullet. He won the “listens to Motley Crue” demographic
OzoneR
This is clearly because Obama didn’t use the bully pulpit to pass the public option.
Comrade Mary
Does WV has open primaries, or are only registered Democrats allowed to vote?
Hill Dweller
Lowest median IQ: WV or Mississippi?
Davis X. Machina
@Comrade Mary: Many registered Democrats in West Virginia are Republicans — certainly one of their Senators is.
bend
From his résumé
http://votesmart.org/candidate/biography/15574
Abstruse
Can’t spin this. I’m embarrassed.
Felinious Wench
Hey, this is a sexy, sexy man. He obviously tied up the woman vote on looks alone.
John, at least living there is good for a lot of humor potential. Back mountain West Virginia is the world naval of redneckidness.
gaz
Now I know where all the Dixiecrats that are still (mouth) breathing live. Clears that up.
Thanks guys, for lending some truth to the wingnut trope that “TEH DUMBOCRATS R TEH REEL RAACISTS”..
jesus wept.
Mike S.
@OzoneR:
The public option would have been good policy, and good politics.
Are some people racist to the point of being willing to overlook good policy?
Sure, but your attempted snark suggests that’s not your point.
So what exactly was your point?
Phil Perspective
John:
How did this guy get on the ballot? I know in many states that felons can’t vote. Can they in WV?
gaz
@Phil Perspective: That’s a good question, and one I was sort of kicking around myself. How can he even run? Apparently, he can somehow.
Although… I am curious as to what happens if the guy is actually not eligible to run after all (I doubt this, if it got this far, but it crossed my mind as well)
OzoneR
@Mike S.:
That none of these dog and pony show we call elections have a lick to do with policy. He could cure cancer and West Virginia wouldn’t vote for him, but we act like all he needs to do is fight for good policy that won’t pass and the people will be eating out of his hands.
General Stuck
Jeebus, I don’t think even Kentucky would pull something that lame.
maven
I listen to kpfa
all day every Sunday.
What has happened to the USA?.
Gosh-I don’t know what is going on any more………..
freelancer
4FS. Take the camera away and the Ni-CLANG! clock moves to five minutes after midnight.
texascowgirl
I guess WV delegation will be way back in the back at the Democratic Convention this year. Probably next to Wyoming. Damn this country is still so unbelievably racist.
Davis X. Machina
@OzoneR: It’s King Pyrrhus of Epirus in reverse — “Another such defeat, and we are triumphant”.
Ash Can
I’d say this answers my (and everyone else’s) question of whether WV could possibly do any better than Joe Manchin.
The Moar You Know
17 and a half years. Now I’m really curious as to what this guy did to land a sentence like that.
AxelFoley
@Davis X. Machina:
ZING!
Brachiator
I was trying to use the NBC Politics app for iPad, but it kept crashing on me. The WaPo app behaved much better. It gave state primary results and also a link to a news story about the 2008 Democratic primary, where Hillary Clinton trounced Obama in the state. There was this little nugget:
There’s a long way to go until the general election, even if the road gets a little bumpy.
AxelFoley
Sad thing about this–well, aside from a convict doing well against a sitting President in a primary–is that WV was on the side of the Union during the Civil War.
What the fuck happened between 1865 and now?
Jade Jordan
SPEECHLESS! They should have allowed Tunch, Rosie, and Lily to vote. The WV Intelligencia.
The Moar You Know
I clicked on the “mountain dancing” link. Wow, wow, wow. Quite a state you’ve got there.
Suffern ACE
Ok. How did this guy get on the ballot in the first place. Also, it does make the primary Obama über progressives like Cornel West and Ralph Nader look even a little more small.
devtob
WV is, according to the video clip, “one of the poorest and whitest states in the Union.”
As in the other poor, somewhat-less-white states in the Confederacy, WV voters have come to support white Republicans who are devoted to screwing them economically.
Even if Obama were more populist, it wouldn’t matter.
They’re not voting for a black man.
MattR
So what was turnout like? 40% is pretty embarrassing no matter what, but I am curious what the total vote looks like.
Citizen_X
Nice attempt at covering up, Cole. You invite your frat brothers up, start drinking Gawd-knows-what heinous concoctions, and BAM! Supermullet gets elected.
Wag
OT, but can any of you imagine the shit storm that would ensue if a Democratic Representitive announced that they had dual America /Swiss citizenship?
Michell Bachman announces that she now has dual citizenship.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0512/76072.html
jwb
@MattR: Obama only has a 45% approval rating among WV Democrats, so this is no surprise except for the fact the guy is a convicted felon. It does tell you that there is a very large portion of the Democratic electorate in that part of the country is really not happy.
texascowgirl
@Mike S.:
No, it’s not just some people, it’s a lot of fucking people. If it weren’t for minorities voting largely for Democrats every election cycle would like the Teabagger wave of 2012. Most white people in America are voting their whiteness and always have been. It’s all tribalism all the time. Even with a public option the health care bill would be at 50% popularity. Hell only half the country wouldn’t favor Medicare if it had never existed and Barack Obama proposed it. Any program for the social good reads “giving white people’s money to lazy, no good black/brown people” to half the country.You’re crazy if you think otherwise.
John said it best
Hatred, resentment and bigotry is all that drives the these people. It ain’t about policy and it ain’t just some people. It’s half the goddamn country. Which is actually an improvement.
Villago Delenda Est
@General Stuck:
Well, here’s the thing. Even Oregon, that supposedly deepest blue of states, has its own Keith Judd, a kid named Matt Robinson, who is running in the primary against the popular Peter DeFazio who, as a member of the progressive caucus, is, according vile war criminal shitstain Allan West a card carrying communist.
Robinson is the son of ultra-loon Art Robinson, who is running in the Rethuglican primary for the same office.
So, the stupid isn’t just isolated in a few places. Every state has them.
Citizen_X
Also, too, he’s a Texas inmate, er, resident. What do y’all think you’re doing, stealing our loony redneck candidates?
MattR
@jwb: I bet most people have no idea who Keith Judd is or the fact that he is in prison. They are simply voting against Obama.
I was more curious if there was any reason for pro-Obama voters to come out in the primary (or any effort to GOTV for any down ticket races) or if the 40% number is so high because total turnout was so low.
jwb
@texascowgirl: And they want to provoke us into hating them back in order to justify that hatred.
Hill Dweller
@Suffern ACE:
Years from now, people are going to look back at Obama’s term(s), and marvel at the shit Republicans got away with.
Senate Republicans especially have literally engaged in unprecedented obstructionism. They’ve shattered the filibuster record for a congress; brought the confirmation process to a screeching halt; tried to shut down the government on multiple occasions; threatened to intentional default on our debt; and have generally treat Obama with disdain. All while we were in a catastrophic collapse caused by their policies.
The bought and sold MSM doesn’t give a shit.
gaz
@Citizen_X:
Shit, I must have missed that. How does that even work?
I thought you had to be a wingnut like Santorum to pull off attempting to represent a state you don’t live in.
Strange days.
Spaghetti Lee
Judd ran particularly strong in West Virginia’s coal country, carrying the labor stronghold of Mingo County, among others.
Oh for fuck’s sake. Speaking as a staunch supporter of organized labor and someone who came to the Democratic Party because I thought they were better for workers, shit like this makes me wonder if there’s not a reason why national Dems have kind of drifted from getting behind blue collar workers over the last 30 years-because the blue collar workers will run away screaming when they see a black guy, gay guy, etc. and vote for the guys who want to crush their union, export their job, and leave them in poverty. Yes, I know there are plenty of union workers out there who aren’t reactionaries: Could they please tell their brothers and sisters to stop being such fuckwits?
If you make less than 6 figures a year, and sometimes more, the Republicans want you to starve. It’s that simple. But, oh, I ain’t voting for the black fella, so I guess I’ll vote for the sociopath! Way to go, assholes.
texascowgirl
@jwb:
We don’t have to love them or hate them we just have to beat them and never forget who they are. They tell us all the time.
Villago Delenda Est
@devtob:
The irony here is that West Virginia was NOT part of the Confederacy. Oh, at first, as part of Virginia, it was, but during the Civil War the counties that make up West VA seceded from Virginia, and were admitted to the Union as West Virginia.
Doesn’t change the fact that so many of them who are nominal Democrats voted against the ni*CLANG* for no other reason than he’s a ni*CLANG*.
gaz
@Citizen_X:
Fucking LOL! I’m shipping your internetz to you as we speak.
kwAwk
I know this is off topic, and it’s not specifically a Rachel Maddow criticism, but in watching Rachel Maddow tonight it strikes me that our left wing friends on radio and TV and even in the Obama campaign are approaching the fight with Mitt Romney backwards.
Stop of trying to paint Romney as a flip flopping opportunist, which he is, simply because most Americans expect politicians to be lying opportunists.
Instead what we should do is take Mitt Romney at his 2010-2011 word. Don’t give people pause to think that Romney might be a moderate dressing himself up as a radical rightist to win an election, who’ll return to the center once the election is over.
Make him defend his new found self. Join Mitt Romney is pretending that Governor Mitt Romney never existed.
If he thinks the EPA has too much power, make him explain how he’ll ensure we have drinkable water and breathable air without an EPA.
If he thinks that we should adopt the Ryan plan, make him defend how he can justify gutting Medicare and Medicaid while at the same time giving tax cuts for the rich.
If he thinks that regulations of business should be conducted by the states and not the federal government, make him explain how this is supposed to happen when Exxon-Mobil alone has 5.5x the yearly revenues of the state government of California.
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
Holy shit. I mean…what? Seriously, what?
Fuck, this is enough to make me renounced my beloved Mountaineers because goddamn. My home state embarrasses me beyond all respects right now.
And to think it used to be a reasonably Democratic state without the Blue Dog caveat.
Felinious Wench
Mitt Romney invented the mullet.
Sorry, still in Mitt Romney Meme Mode
texascowgirl
@Villago Delenda Est:
If it weren’t for the desire to vote against ni*CLANG*s, the modern GOP wouldn’t exist. This next election is all about them reasserting themselves as the dominant tribe. Nothing matter more the them than that. Absolutely nothing. If we are going to beat them we can never forget their real motivation.
Steve
Maybe this joke candidate had lots of press coverage in WV prior to the election, but I suspect in reality not more than 2 or 3 people had any idea who he was. It’s not like the ballot featured pictures of him and Obama side-by-side. They’re simply a bunch of conservative Democrats voting for not-Obama.
middlewest
OT: This Guardian chart of gay rights in the US is really neat.
Spaghetti Lee
Was that dead ferret on his shoulder gonna be his running mate?
I didn’t find any turnout results after a quick search (although that search did reveal that dipshits like Jim Hoft are already all over this), but I did see on TPM that the GOP primary turnout was less than 100,000 and I have to assume the Democratic one was less. This in a state of about 2 million people. It seems almost small enough to a coordinated ratfucking among GOPers and conservative Dems to make Obama look bad, but I’m probably just paranoid.
gaz
@middlewest:
Pretty proud of my little backwater of a state (WA). Thanks for the link!
Spaghetti Lee
@middlewest:
Yeah, interesting. What strikes me is that for gay marriage itself, it seems like it’s either already there or explicitly banned. There’s only a handful of states where it could still go either way. I wouldn’t be surprised if my Illinois was the next. There’s a bill in the legislature, which is controlled by Democrats, and the governor supports it. And civil unions were just recognized a while back.
mattH
Just another day explained by Choctaw Bingo.
Martin
@Spaghetti Lee: Well, almost every part of the economy is getting an attaboy from Obama except coal.
Nat gas is so goddamn cheap right now that coal demand Is 20% below last year and continuing to fall and the truth is that everyone except for the folks whose only possible livelihood is mining it are happy to see it happen. The folks that voted for super mullet are watching their already shitty jobs die before their eyes with no real hope for anything else. Chrysler isn’t about to build a factory out in Deliverance County.
I don’t think there’s really a vote those people could make that’s long-term in their economic interests. It’s all shit.
Kinky Beats
@devtob:
West Virginia wasn’t part of the confederacy.
FlipYrWhig
@Spaghetti Lee: And when everyone gets all excited about the potential for economic populism to alter the electoral map, something I have fallen prey to myself, we need to keep in mind that a lot of the people who would be galvanized by economic populism are straight-up racists, homophobes, and worse. Hedge fundies and Wall Streeters suck, but at least they don’t care who’s doing what with whose genitals.
RalfW
Speaking of classy, ladies and gentlemen, your “modern” GOP:
So dysfunction, bill-blocking, failing to do the people’s business, and general @*#holery prevails in yet another state with a GOP legislature. What a cluster of a night…
RalfW
I ranted on another BJ thread but will sum up here: I bet the CO GOP got some firm marching orders to by no means pass a civil unions bill on the night N.C. squashed teh gheys like bugs.
Can’t give an inch in the holiest of holy wars.
magurakurin
the Blazing Saddles scene reference to the president is sorta getting old. I think it is enough to simply point out that people hate Obama because he is African American or if one wants to get all 70’s about it, black. But the constant use of the BS euphemism brings to mind this Lewis CK bit
Linnaeus
@FlipYrWhig:
I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Upper-class types might be more discreet or genteel about it, but they’re not necessarily above racism and homophobia themselves.
Mnemosyne
@Phil Perspective:
Your eligibility to run for office and your eligibility to vote are two completely different things. That’s why Victoria Woodhull was able to run for president even though women could not legally vote for president until almost 50 years later.
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
@RalfW:
And they get to pretty much get away with it and ensure jackshit is done for at least a decade because the GOP pretty much owns the entire fucking country state-level.
Spaghetti Lee
@Linnaeus:
And even the ones who do support it, I think it goes pretty quickly under the bus. Does Richie Rich on the Upper West Side care if poor women in the South can’t get birth control? Hell, his wife can always get what she needs. These libertarian types who say their both socially liberal and economically conservative, I’ve seen the “socially liberal” part vanish in an instant when the chips are down. They never get prioritized. And that’s not even counting libertarian types who actually are social conservatives and only in the libertarian gig for the gold and the guns. (i.e. Ron and Rand Paul) or the rich folks who haven’t budged from the social conservatism they grew up with (admittedly maybe less common on Wall Street itself, but Tom Monahan comes to mind.)
Thymezone
I’m going to give this item the same attention that the Obama campaign gives it: None.
Linnaeus
@Spaghetti Lee:
‘Zactly.
burnspbesq
If those folks in coal country wanted to cast a protest vote, they could have voted for Brad Paisley, or Bob Huggins, or (gasp!) John Cole. They could even have voted for a native West Virginian who is on their side and is using her celebrity to fight for their interests, Kathy Mattea.
But NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO …
Sigh.
MikeJ
@Mnemosyne:
It really shouldn’t;t have had anything to do with his eligibility to run for president. The state Democratic party shouldn’t have allowed him on the Democratic ballot.
Spaghetti Lee
@FlipYrWhig:
It’s a problem. More than once I’ve run across a quote by some old Southern Democrat that’s an eloquent defense of working-class populism, and then I have to remind myself that it’s Ben Tillman, or someone else who was a complete turd in the rest of his politics. And that of course gives the one percenters of the world a good way to tie populism with reactionary racism-they, of course, will be nice and polite as they shiv middle-class people of any color. It worked a while in the mid-century I guess, but then all those working-class people who spent years voting for Roosevelt and Truman suddenly ran like hell when LBJ and Kennedy decided to actually give black people some rights. I just don’t get the racist mindset. How is your bullshit theory about racial supremacy so important to you that you’ll sacrifice having a fucking job you can feed your family with just to keep it going?
And the ridiculous thing is that this stuff is, in my opinion, all connected. The poor, minorities, women, gays, etc., they’re all being shit on by the rich and powerful. All it would take would be for poor whites to come to terms with that, but a lot of them just can’t. It’s so fucking frustrating.
Odie Hugh Manatee
You really have to question the intelligence of people who would vote for an imprisoned felon rather than Obama. I mean, hate is one thing but this… it’s… just insane. Maybe they like him because he’s from Texas? I’m sure the hairdo helps too, makes him look more like one of them. Whatever… I really feel for you John, being surrounded by that kind of shit.
An imprisoned felon rather than… just. wow.
Too many Democrats in the south are just fucked up in the head, that’s for sure.
NancyDarling
Shit like this is starting to scare me. This is from page 7 of the linked pdf file of the Greene County Republican Newsletter.
“[W]e shall not have any coarse [sic] but armed revolution should we fail with the power of the vote in November. This Republic cannot survive for 4 more years underneath this political socialist ideologue.”
http://gcrcgop.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/march2012.pdf
devtob
@Villago Delenda Est: WV was part of the Confederacy for two years or so, before it became a separate state in June 1863.
GregB
Cue Wolf Blitzer stating the voters are so poor and so white……
Mnemosyne
@devtob:
That’s so stupid I’m having trouble formulating a response to it. The fact that WV specifically broke away from Virginia because they rejected the Confederacy and wanted to stay part of the Union is proof that they were part of the Confederacy?
burnspbesq
@MikeJ:
Not up to the party. If he filed the right paperwork with the Secretary of State’s office and either paid a fee of $2,500 or submitted petitions with 10,000 signatures, he’s on the ballot.
See W.Va.Code, sec. 3-5-3.
I’d love to know where the $2,500 came from.
Jack Burton
@Spaghetti Lee:
The more things change…..
dead existentialist
Cole’s fellow citizens. (This is a YouTube from 2008, but it seems somethings never change.)
ETA: Oops! They’re his neighbors in eastern Kentucky. Sorry WV, didn’t mean to slander you.
magurakurin
@Spaghetti Lee:
Makes me think of this Gene Hackman scene
Martin
@Odie Hugh Manatee: You assume Democrats in a low turnout primary are better informed than Republicans in low turnout primaries. They aren’t. Mitt lost 30% of the Indiana primary voters to two guys who aren’t even running.
MikeJ
@burnspbesq: What a ridiculous law. The state is allowed to say who the members of an independent organization are? Madness.
burnspbesq
I know I’m being nit-picky, but in order to stay classy, don’t you first have to be classy?
PaulW
…wait. He’s IN JAIL and allowed to run for office?
As a felon he doesn’t even have the right to vote. WTH?
Jack Burton
@magurakurin: Great minds and all…..
magurakurin
@dead existentialist:
Jesus wept.
Cross off that vacation to West Virginia…
Spaghetti Lee
@Martin:
Agreed. As rotten as this is, everyone keep in mind that turnout was maybe in the 50,000-100,000 range, in a state with a population over 2 million. People who care enough to go out and vote in a sitting president’s party primary probably stand a higher chance of being a bit whacked. I am glad enough pro-Obama people got out and voted, though. Actually losing the primary would have had more staying power, I think.
PaulW
@Mnemosyne:
The thing is, West Virginia broke away because they hated the tidewater slave-owners who owned the state gov’t more than they loved the Union.
Martin
@burnspbesq: There were only two names on the ballot. People chose the one that wasn’t Obama. I suspect most of those people would be fairly horrified they voted for a felon. Nobody even knew who the fuck he was.
I’ll say it again. You dont win elections. You fail to lose them.
Dave
Why, how can west Virginia voters be racist when so many of them are uneducated, poor, and unhealthy?
Steve
@MikeJ: You just now realized that primary elections are regulated by the states? Okay. Political parties that want full control of their nominating process remain free to use caucuses, or smoke-filled rooms for that matter.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Martin:
Thanks but I assume nothing when it comes to stupid. In cases like this, both sides really do ‘do it’. The Republicans don’t have a lock on stupid, stupid goes everywhere. The difference is that while the left has pockets of stupid around the country, the right covers whole swaths of our nation.
MikeJ
@Steve: Yeah, that’s what we do here.
Even in states that have elections instead of caucuses, the parties generally have some control over the nominating process. remember when Colbert was running in South Carolina? The Democratic and Republican parties had different requirements for ballot access, it wasn’t controlled by the state.
Frankly I don’t think states should pay to run elections that only matter to members of a private organization.
connie franks
@texascowgirl:
What most of you evidently fail to realize, Obama was voted into office by white people. Blacks make up 14% of this country’s population, so if 100% of them voted for Obama, it would not have gotten him elected.
So while you are busy saying how white folks won’t vote for a black man, please keep that in mind. Many of us are not voting for him this time around because we cannot stand for 4 more years of his running this country into bankruptcy.
Face reality, treehuggers!
TheMightyTrowel
@mattH: Thank you for the song. Having been raised in the Dem Soc Repub of the Northeast I somehow never knew this song existed. Awesome.
pseudonymous in nc
I think the phrase here is “Legacy Democrats”.
It’s a cruel historical irony that Appalachia, which didn’t have enough slaves to throw its lot in with the Confederacy, became the cradle of sunset towns and dumbass kneejerk racism afterwards.
Mnemosyne
@PaulW:
Very few people who fought for the Union were abolitionists on moral grounds. The Civil War was about slavery, but that means it was also about the economic system of slavery and what that meant to free workers. West Virginia decided it was in their best interest to be on the side that supported free labor rather than slave labor.
Sorry, it’s stupid to claim that WV was part of the Confederacy when they specifically rejected the Confederacy. devtob made a sweeping statement without checking his/her facts.
ETA: Note in that link that the counties of Virginia that ended up forming West Virginia organized themselves for secession within a month of the original pro-Confederate secession vote by the rest of the state. The “they were part of the Confederacy for two years” thing is complete and utter bullshit since those counties never considered themselves part of the Confederacy.
Steve
@MikeJ: The fact that we spill so much ink discussing these primaries sort of belies the claim that they matter only to the members of a private organization, to be honest.
Citizen Alan
@jwb:
Well they succeeded. Because I hope they all burn in Hell.
myiq2xu
@MikeJ:
Especially when that private organization ignores the results and assigns delegates to a candidate who wasn’t even on the ballot.
LarsThorwald
@OzoneR: Fucking. Brilliant.
JenJen
Jesco White!
I’ve always known of him but not the entire crazy-ass White Family, until I watched the absolutely engrossing documentary “The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia.”
Shit is fucked up, Cole. But entertaining!
The prophet Nostradumbass
Orly Taitz is on the ballot for Senate in California in the GOP primary. Whatever you do, don’t cross over and vote for her in June. No way.
karen
Let me understand this. Are you saying that in WV Obama will not be the Democratic candidate on the ticket so we’ve already lost WV? How many delegates?
But I’ve been saying all along that Obama had really bad chances. The fact that WV would rather have a mullet meth head prison bitch instead of Obama speaks volumes. But if felons can’t vote, how can a felon be a candidate?
And let’s not forget all the “brown people” and older people who will not be able to vote. All those people Obama needs.
This is what I think happened folks. They didn’t cheat or rig things for once in 2008 and lo and behold, Obama, who they think is subhuman, gets elected.
They decided that it would never happen again so ALEC gave the marching orders and all Republican states basically undid the Civil Rights Act. They couldn’t outright kill it but what they could do is basically make it as hard as possible for the wrong people to vote.
And the youth has abandoned Obama and he’s in between a rock and a hard place for Gay Marriage. On the one hand he loses a huge part of the Democratic vote if he keeps “evolving” with Gay Marriage. But on the other hand, if he embraces Gay Marriage fully, he could lose other parts of the Democratic party and Independents.
I hope that the Democratic party in each of the states affected are either suing because the states are circumventing the Civil Rights Act or coming up with a plan or a program they can implement to help the affected would be voters.
I hope that enough people will hate Romney more than they hate Obama. If Obama loses then he’ll be the guinea pig and if there’s ever another African American President, he can learn from Obama’s Presidency.
I think that Obama was not prepared for the animal hatred he received. And he never recovered until he finally realized that Congress cared more about killing his Presidency than the country and because Obama cared about the country they could hold it hostage.
Alison
@The prophet Nostradumbass: Pretty sure if I tried to as a joke (which I wouldn’t!), my hand would rebel and stab me in the eye with the Sharpie.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@karen: No, this idiot got one or two delegates to the Democratic convention, but Obama will be the person listed on the ballot there in November.
MikeJ
@karen:
No, this was about delegates to the Democratic Convention. When Obama wins the nomination at the convention, he’s the Democratic candidate everywhere in November. But yeah, in November expect Romney to get WV’s 5 evs. It will matter as much as it did in ’08.
Phil Perspective
@burnspbesq: Every one forgets Alvin Greene so fast?
Phil Perspective
@Martin: Why would they be? Look at how many people in South Carolina voted for Alvin Greene when no one knew who the hell he was.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@karen:
Nice story but I think Obama knew what he was getting in to. He didn’t get where he is by underestimating people, that’s for damned sure. Women, especially young women, are paying attention to the War on Women. Heck, older women my wife works with, very conservative women, think the Republican party is crazy for trying to impose their will on women, wiping out all of the gains of the past.
Women’s health issues cross party lines, they always have and always will. With the Republicans pissing on every demographic except the xenophobic, misogynistic, racist white vote, this fall is looking like a long shot for them
The most depressing thing about Obama winning this fall will be that we will have a fairly accurate accounting of where the crazy is dispersed across the country. WV is vying for first place but so are a lot of other shithole states.
This summer is going to be hot.
PeakVT
Very, very stupid. So stupid it will make your teeth hurt.
Citizen_X
@connie franks:
Cuz the votes of those black and brown people don’t count in the total, right?
Yawn. Bush tax cuts. Wars off the books, including a pointless, bloody, completely unnecessary war. Medicare Part D.
Fish in barrel.
ETA: Oh yeah: plus this.
And if you voted for Obama, I’m the Queen of England.
Fuck you.
cat48
Looks like Obama won the primary, so there’s that:
D (i) BARACK OBAMA 105,854 59%
D KEITH JUDD 72,544 41%
BARACK OBAMA leading by 33,310 votes
Baud
@cat48: Romney got 77,000 votes in West Virginia, a state he’ll win in November.
Villago Delenda Est
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
Don’t have a link, but I recall looking at a map showing county by county what areas voted more heavily for McCain in 2008 than voted for the deserting coward in 2004, and it was remarkable in that the areas most associated with the hillbilly stereotype (Appalachia, to include West VA, and the Ozarks) were where this tendency was most pronounced.
Cacti
@connie franks:
Hey everybody, stop the presses! White republican won’t vote for Obama “this time around”.
While your busy contemplating how President blackity black owes everything to white voters, you might ask yourself this…
Why are white men the only group that solidly favors Mitt Romney?
the fugitive uterus
i’m in luuuuurve!
oh well, puts SC in a better light for once at least. we take what we can get, especially these days.
amk
Here is to this racist backwoods achieving more such distinctions.
Patricia Kayden
@kwAwk: Agreed with your comment, but would add that the Dems need to highlight what Romney’s presidency will look like — especially for those of us who are non-Righties. Not going to be a fun 8 years if Romneybot wins. I predict war with Iran and a huge tax cut for the rich which in turn pushes the US back into recession. And a federal amendment to ban gay marriage.
dr. bloor
Hell, if the good folks of WV needed a white guy to run against the prez, they shoulda gone local and put Tunch on the ballot.
Also, too, I guess we should start a pool for bets on which Village idiot will suggest that Ovama dump Biden and put Supermullet on the ticket to make him more competitive in all those Real Murkin states.
A Humble Lurker
How come our good friends like Timmeh, Corner Stone and Wyld Pirate are no where to be found when threads like this pop up? Even when they’re not in time out?
Kay
Protest delegates to the national convention don’t matter.
They don’t matter much in a genuinely contested (close) primary and they matter even less with an incumbent who is going to be the candidate.
You have to win elections in the primary for delegates to matter, and these folks lost the primary in 2008.
The same is true of Ron Paul supporters. The time to win was 6 months ago. National conventions are a media event and a ceremony, in that order. They’re not real. They’re mostly for media, in my observation.
I just think it’s a waste of time and energy they could have used to have some effect on a state issue, state court judge, whatever, but they’re entitled to pretend it matters, I guess.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay:
Given who these people are, it may be a better thing for the rest of us that the spend their effort on quixotic attempts at the big prizes rather than actually doing something.
Southern Beale
Wonder if half of those voters thought Keith Judd was Naomi’s new husband.
wvng
@The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik: WV was never going to vote for a black man. Ever. After these elections, when I find myself out in the community, I drive myself crazy thinking that at least 2 out of every 3 people I see are deeply, stamped-on-their-DNA, racist. And then I try to reconcile that with the fact that I like a lot of these people. Which means that elections here don’t make me at all happy. Plus we have the joy of having Manchin rewarded for his endless and gratuitous slams against the president.
Not a good feeling for an elected Democratic county official like me.
buskertype
oh man, this one hurts.
Yeah, there’s the coal issue, and what H. John Rogers would call the “fuck-you vote”, but in the end this just ain’t pretty. This is why I’m in the Mountain Party, the state D’s just aren’t a club I want to be a part of.
I voted for Board of Ed. and Conservation District manager yesterday.
buskertype
also, too, Kindly refrain from slandering Randolph County moonshine.
wvng
Oh, great. It’s even worse than I thought. In my county, with a 2:1 Dem over repub registration, Judd beat Obama with 58% of the votes.
khead
@buskertype:
Don’t limit it to just Randolph County. Heh.
BTW, this is a good time to visit the stupidest bit of wingnuttery you may read this week. Courtesy of the Bluefield Daily Telegraph in southern WV….
steelercrazy
It’s quite simple: Obama is anti-coal and anti-guns, and that dog won’t hunt in WV. Anyone that says this result is based on racism or hillbillyism is an ignorant dolt.
gocart mozart
@bend:
Interesting guy: Homeless advocate, ACLU, musician, rastafarian . . . Somehow I don’t think those attributes were what caught the eye of the WV voters.
lacp
NADER-JUDD ’12! You saw it here first, people.
Rome Again
@Wag:
I wonder if there is any problem with a Congresswoman holding duel citizenship? Hmmmm! I realize the Constitution is not written to indicate it is (or should be), but do we really trust a Congressperson to not work in favor of her new country? One wonders if this should be addressed in legislation.
burnspbesq
@Southern Beale:
All right-thinking Amurkins now hat the Judds cuz Ashley married a furriner who speaks with a funny accent and he turned her into a pinko wimmin’s rights activist.
karen
@steelercrazy:
Obama isn’t anti-guns. You’re anti-facts.
khead
@steelercrazy:
In 2011, coal jobs were at their highest levels for WV in twenty years.
If that’s what a “War on Coal” looks like, I certainly wish someone would’ve attacked the shit out of coal years ago.
Don’t even get me started on fucking idiots who think Obama is coming for their guns.
russell
I want to see Keith Judd’s birth certificate.
Moderate Urban Champion
When preserving the countryside runs counter to registering your opposition to the black guy…disgraceful.
shortstop
This blows my mind on about 37 different levels.
LAC
@steelercrazy: Anyone who reads that article,looks at that hillbilly, and thinks that this is not about race should retire the hamster running the wheel in his head. Ya done…
Pics on ballots?
So tell me, does West Virginia have photos of the candidates on the ballot? Do they include biographical sketches? Because if they don’t, I fail to see how this could be “racism.” It’s “Anyone But Obama,” and anyone who isn’t projecting his own hillbilly racism should understand it.
Sorry, I know thinking about things logically is hard. Give it a shot sometime, professor.