Talk About Subtle!

A Washington Post article today describes the deep hole Rep. Rick Boucher (D, Va), a 14 term incumbent representing Virginia’s coal country, finds himself in because of the unpopularity of Obama in his district (not to mention Boucher’s self-destructive vote in favor of cap and trade, which angered his coal-dependent constituents).

Voters in Virginia’s 9th Congressional District are mad that the government has spent hundreds of billions to fix an economy that seems only to deteriorate around them. They’re fearful of a federal takeover of health care. They’re petrified that proposed emissions limits would destroy the coal industry that provides most of the region’s jobs. And they want no part of a president they view as elitist and unlike them….

Residents talk often of their “pridefulness” and independence. But they feel like criminals when politicians try to take their guns away, like children when they’re told they need health care and like villains when coal is blamed for destroying the environment although it provides most of the region’s jobs and half of the nation’s power. They assume that Obama doesn’t get any of this — or doesn’t care.

“He wants to be a damn dictator,” said Alex Hill, 70, a retired miner, police officer and onetime moonshiner, while getting his hair trimmed at Peoples Barber Shop on Main Street in Wise.

Race is also a factor. Sometimes it’s subtle, such as when Obama is described as un-Christian or un-American. Other times, slurs directed at Obama are part of the normal conversation.

That’s so subtle it’s lost on me. Believing that the belief that Obama is un-Christian or un-American is “subtle” racism is a very unsubtle way of accusing rural rubes of all being racist. It’s also baloney. As famed Virginia Democratic political consultant “Mudcat” Saunders observed during Obama’s campaign,

… just because the 9th District is 93 percent white, that doesn’t mean there’s no hope for a black candidate. Doug Wilder did well enough there, taking 48 percent of the vote en route to becoming the nation’s first black governor in 1989.

“It ain’t because he’s black,” Democratic political consultant Dave “Mudcat” Saunders said of the challenge Obama is facing. “If it’s about race, then all Barack Obama has got to do in the 9th District is do as well as Doug Wilder did 20 years ago, and he wins Virginia.”

Obama didn’t do as well as Wilder (McCain won the “Fighting 9th” with 59%, his highest total in Virginia), but his popularity was dramatically higher in November 2008 than it is now, and he’s no blacker now than he was then.

Say What?