No, I Won't Ever Let It Go

Ok, if you know me at all you know I am somewhat obsessed with Hillary Clinton. I took off school in DC to fly home to MN to caucus for her in the primary. I campaigned for her in some fashion in 6 states and the District. I have t-shirts, books, sweat-shirts, hats, bags, The Nutcracker, the comic book, campaign signs, pins, everything but that really expensive DVD that I couldn't afford (still a little bitter. Oh well, someday I'll be rich and I'll find it on ebay). Actually, obsessed might be too weak a word.

Needless to say, the primaries are never far from my mind. So, I was working on this paper/presentation for my health care reform class. I opted to compare state-initiated reforms in 2 states: Massachusetts and West Virginia. I'm looking at the social, political, and economic differences in the states and trying to use that data to explain the different reform paths each state is taking. (Short version: MA is rich, white-collar liberals who went with an insurance mandate and state based insurance system; WV is poor, unhealthy, leans moderate/conservative and opted for a very slow piecemeal reform package that did not involve state based insurance or a mandate)

Anyway, since WV passed their reform plan in 2009 and MA passed theirs in 2006, I figured I'd use the 2004 and 2008 presidential results as a way to show political affiliation in the (10 minute) oral presentation. The statistics are quick, to the point, and don't take a lot of explaining. Given what a powerful year it was for Democrats, I expected Obama to have out-performed Kerry in Massachusetts. Nope. They nabbed the exact same percentage of the vote--62%.

In West Virginia, I expected Kerry to have out-performed Obama. After all. WV went strongly for Hillary (of course, so did Massachusetts, but WV knocked it out of the park for her). The really clincher for me was the discussion of the "racism factor" in the WV primary. It was all over the news: Clinton won because West Virginians are racist. The pundits were yelling it from all the blogs and all the "news" shows. CNN was even selling "headline t-shirts" reading "Clinton Should Reject White, Racist Vote." (Objectivity Fail). Anyway, given all the hype, I really expected Kerry to outperform Obama. I mean, wouldn't all those racist West Virginia democrats vote for McCain? Or, at the very least, stay home? Maybe not all of them, but a good percentage. I checked the 2008 and 2004 results and guess what I found? WV looked a lot like MA. In 2004, Bush won West Virginia 56-43%. In 2008, McCain won West Virginia 56-43%.

Now, I lived in WV for a time, and I'll be the first to admit that racism is alive and well there. I'm pretty convinced that it is alive and well everywhere. Maybe party trumps race in a general election but not a primary (where the candidates are rather similar politically). Maybe all the racist Democrats in West Virginia woke up sometime in September and decided that racism was old news. I don't know, but, honestly, the results make me question the racism hype. Maybe, just maybe, West Virginians are no more racist than any other voters; they're just more willing to say stupid things about it on TV. If that's the case, then I think the media owes the state an apology.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-may-14-2008/indecision-2008---west-virginia