W.Va. is a tough mountain to climb for Obama

PHILIPPI, W.Va. – The winding mountain roads of West Virginia all seem to lead through Clinton Country.

"I'm here for Hillary but I don't mind seeing Bill," declared 84-year-old Edna Koon at a campaign rally where the former president was speaking for his wife, the Democratic presidential candidate. "I'll hug him if I get a chance."

In a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans two to one, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton is likely to post a strong victory over Illinois Sen. Barack Obama in Tuesday's primary.

"West Virginia is a tough sell for Obama," said Mike Withers, 60, a former state senator and current Obama supporter in Grafton. "The demographics are all for Hillary."

The state populace is nearly 95 percent white and only about 3 percent African-American, for instance, and Obama has been winning 92 percent of the black vote. College graduates, whom Obama also usually carries, make up only about 15 percent of the citizenry, compared to more than 25 percent nationally.

The median household income is about $34,000 – about $9,000 less than the national median. In other primaries, Clinton has done better with lower middle-class, blue-collar workers.

A Rasmussen poll taken last week showed Clinton leading 56 to 27 percent over Obama in the state with 28 pledged delegates at stake.

"Don't believe all the stuff you read in the press. She can still win this thing if you vote for her," Bill Clinton told a gym packed with supporters in Philippi. In states Hillary Clinton carried, "she won because of people like you in places like this."

While Democratic Sen. Jay Rockefeller and Rep. Nick Rahall have endorsed Obama, the party's other West Virginia leaders, including Sen. Robert C. Byrd and Gov. Joe Manchin, have stayed neutral.

President Bush carried West Virginia in 2000 and 2004. But as gas prices have gone up, his popularity has sunk in a hardscrabble state where many workers have to drive great distances to find jobs.

"Gas was $1.46 a gallon when Bush took office," notes a sticker on the car of Jacky Malcolm.

"The country is in a hell of a mess," said Withers. "Gas went up 14 cents a gallon here yesterday and it went up at every gas station within an hour. And they say there is no collusion."

With dogwoods blooming white in the deep green woods on the mountainsides, yard signs for local candidates dominate the scarce patches of flat land where houses are perched. But in the small towns, folks are talking about the crossroads of presidential politics and their lives:

VOICES FROM ALMOST HEAVEN, WEST VIRGINIA

In Wadestown, Barbara Carper runs the only commercial establishment, a combination gas station, general store, hunting and fishing license dispenser and community gathering spot.

"This used to be a booming town," said Carper, 65, the wife of a retired coal miner. Her husband worked 25 years underground and now has heart and lung problems.

"Coal dust is not good for you. That's why he retired. He couldn't breathe," she said. "But coal mining is doing good now. That's about all there is around here."

Her children moved away to find jobs after they grew up. Now she faces long drives to see her grandkids. When the volunteer fire station up the road opens for voting Tuesday, she said she will "probably" vote for Clinton.

"I always wanted to see a woman in there," Carper explained with a smile.

In downtown Philippi, Dawn Bowers was enjoying the sun on the stoop outside Bob's Brunswick Billiards, where she is the bartender and manager. There are only a couple of customers inside.

"The economy is so bad that I can't even sell a $1.50 beer," she lamented. "Around here, if you don't work in the coal mines, you don't have a good job. I have guys who work in Texas a month, then come home for a week. Then they go to Louisiana for a couple of weeks. Then come home for a weekend. They work on power lines."

The 30-year-old daughter of a coal miner, Bowers is unmarried and has no children. She will likely vote for Clinton — recalling "I think Bill did a good job when he was in office."

As for Obama, she said, "I have a problem for a guy running for president who doesn't say the Pledge of Allegiance and doesn't acknowledge the flag. And if he's sworn in and he puts his hand on the Bible, it doesn't mean anything to him."

Richard "Cowboy" Snyder, 65, comes out of the pool hall and declares he doesn't cotton to any of the candidates.

"I used to be a Democrat but they started coming for our guns," he said. "And I don't like McCain because he's for keeping this damn war going."

One of the few Obama lawn signs in Buckhannon stands outside the home of Joseph Mow, 81, a retired philosophy professor at West Virginia Wesleyan College.

"I only know of one other," he said.

"My wife persuaded me" to look into Obama as a candidate, Mow said.

"I read his books," he said. "He's got a good mind and I think he can solve problems. He's everything that goes with being the editor of the Harvard Law Review."

"I liked Obama before I disliked Hillary," he said. But lately, he admitted, Clinton "has gotten a little bit too fierce. She's trying to be tough."

Louise Gillooly, an 87-year-old widow, usually lives alone in the house near where the alley meets Meade Street in Buckhannon. But nowadays she's sharing it with two young Obama campaign workers from out of state.

"I have this big old house with just me in it," she explained. The workers leave early and return late and are extremely nice but the young man "has some tattoos," she confessed.

Health care and jobs are the big issues hereabouts, she said. "Young people graduate from high school, go to college, then have to go somewhere else to find a job. That's very typical."

Obama is the candidate for the times, she said.

"I trust him. I think he's sincere and you can rely on what he says," said Gillooly, a lifelong Democrat whose late husband was once the state's insurance commissioner. "He's an agent of change. It's been such a horrible eight years under Bush. But I think Hillary is going to win West Virginia. We're just trying to keep her numbers down."

If Clinton got the nomination, Gillooly would vote for her over McCain.

"I liked Bill Clinton when he was president," she said. "But I don't like him now because of what he has done in this campaign. They've been too hard on Obama."

Three generations of the Malcolm family were waiting in the rain to get inside the Philippi City Gym where former president Bill Clinton would lead a rally for his wife. The clan's youngest Clinton supporter – identified by lettering on a tiny shirt – was Cole Parson, held by his mom, Carol Malcolm-Parson and kept dry by an umbrella held by his grandmother, Jacky Malcolm. Grandpa Charles Malcolm, a retired coal miner, stands beneath his own umbrella. Carol's sister, Tracy Malcolm-Rexrode, came, too, but none of her four children are along.

"Dad didn't have any sons so he got hyphens" when his daughters married, Carol joked.

Skyrocketing gas prices have hit the extended family hard.

Carol, 36, and her husband, Herb, live in Clarksburg but commute in different directions. Now on maternity leave, Carol works in marketing at West Virginia University in Morgantown while Herb drives to Buckhannon for his job as a civil engineer. She estimates that it will cost them $350 apiece for gas at the current price of about $3.89 a gallon.

Tracy, 41, administers a federal grant program in Philippi but her husband, Doug, works in construction and drives a truck all over the state.

"We're spending $165 a week on gas" on his current project in Morgantown, she said.

Prices for everything are high in a small town, Tracy said. "We don't have a Wal-Mart. We don't have a Sam's Club."

Clinton has the best plans for the family's three big issues – "employment, the gas crisis and the war," said Carol as the others nod in agreement.

Leckta Poling, an attorney, brought her four children to see Bill Clinton campaign for his wife at the Philippi City Gym. Ashley, 1, Audrey, 3, Emma, 5, and Nathaniel, 7, are a handful and her husband commutes to Morgantown for his job. "War, the economy, jobs," are the big issues, Poling said. Hillary Clinton "has the best plan and is in the best position to carry it out. And she has the benefit of Bill, who clearly ran this country in the black."

"I come from a very military family," said Jared Towner, 28, who served two tours in Iraq with the Army National and may go back for a third. His grandfather fought in World War II and his father was a Marine in Vietnam and his brother is a Marine who has also served two tours in Iraq.

Towner is organizer for Veterans for Obama.

"He had the foresight to stand up and say 'this thing is wrong'," about the war from the start, said Towner.

Towner said he went to Iraq believing the mission was to protect national security against a threat of weapons of mass destruction. That is certainly no longer the case, if it ever was, he said. But he is willing to return.

"At my level, sergeant, it has nothing to do with national policy and everything to do with serving with your friends," he explained. So if his unit is called again, he will answer.

He knows about the sacrifices of multiple tours. His engagement to be married ended because he spent two years out of his four-year courtship overseas.

Bush is "good at creating veterans" but bad at helping them when they return, he said. Suicides come when the overworked Veterans Administration has a two-month wait before counselors can see veterans suffering from post-combat emotional problems.

"I was a grunt. It's hard for us to stand up and admit we need help," he explained. When they finally do, the need is immediate.

Obama, he believes, understand the problem and will solve it.

Bob Dart's e-mail address is bobdart(at)coxnews.com