In defense of West Virginia

I spent Saturday in Charlotte watching UNC and West Virginia face off in what I choose to refer to as the Charlotte Bowl, and spending the day around all of those West Virginians got me thinking about the state more politically. I remember when we put up our final poll showing McCain winning the state by 13 there were a lot of comments around the blogosphere to the effect that it was the most racist, backward state in the country.

Is that fair?

I don't think so. I don't know how you measure the racism of a state, but one indicator could be how whites within the state vote. Let's see how West Virginia compares to three southern states that voted for Obama last month:

State	Obama % of White Vote
Florida	42
West Virginia	41
Virginia	39
North Carolina	35

Obama actually did better with white voters in West Virginia than in two states that no one is calling backward, and he did almost as well with them in WV as he did in Florida.

When you compare West Virginia with its other southern friends it's really no contest:

State	Obama % of White Vote
West Virginia	41
Tennessee	36
Kentucky	34
Arkansas	30
South Carolina	26
Texas	26
Georgia	23
Louisiana	14
Mississippi	11
Alabama	10

Obviously the reason Obama got plowed in West Virginia even though he did better with whites there than in some other states that he won or got closer to winning is that there are almost no black voters in West Virginia. I guess you could call that a product of racism but it's more because a) there were almost no slaves in West Virginia to keep living there once they were emancipated and b) it wasn't exactly a hotspot for migration when blacks were moving out of the south en masse in the early and middle parts of the 20th century.

I wouldn't call it one of my favorite states but I'm not sure WV deserves billing as one of the most racist places in the country.

I do wish their football fans would smoke a little less though, I felt like I'd smoked a pack by the end of the game. I'd never seen so many people smoking in one place, and remember this is North Carolina.