The Clintons Visit My Hometown in West Virginia

The primary for West Virginia is scheduled for tomorrow and Logan County, West (by god) Virginia will welcome Senator Hillary Clinton and maybe even Former President Bill Clinton into the Logan Memorial Field house/Willie Akers Arena this evening. I remember coach Akers from my years at Logan High School. Logan is a small South Eastern town that produces coal and apples. The town was mostly low income and middle income white when I was growing up between the 1960’s and the 1980’s. Jay Rockefeller was governor at the time and Jimmy Carter was President when I went off to college. During the spring and summer there is no place on earth more green. I understand that the area has developed a new trade of tourism over the last few years because of the Hatfield/McCoy trail. My grandfather on my father’s side of the family is buried in the Hatfield cemetery at Sarah Ann. My father worked for Youngtown Mining Corp. for 35 years before he retired from the coal mines. He pasted away in the early 1990’s.

“Secretary of State Betty Ireland reported 49,982 ballots cast in 52 of West Virginia’s 55 counties between April 23 and Friday. Ireland's office said another 4,916 absentee ballots have been returned.” West Virginia has a two to one radio for democrats. Unaffiliated voters turned out at a rate of 6.2 percent for a first time vote according to the Secretary of State.

West Virginia and Logan County have not gotten this much attention since John F. Kennedy ran for president. Logan County got a new courthouse out of that election. The last time I was home the Kennedy family was still well respected in that part of the country. I am surprised that the Obama group has not sent Senator Edward Kennedy into West Virginia to speak for their candidate. I have not been home in twenty years because of what the local’s use to call the brain drain syndrome during the 1970’s and 1980’s where college students left the state and only come back after retirement. Parents would teach their children that education was the most important factor and that the minute they got their education that they were expected to leave the state in favor of better paying jobs and not come back until they were ready for retirement. I have a strong feeling that West Virginia will go to Senator Clinton tomorrow but I am still surprised that Senator Obama has seen fit to write the state off in favor of Oregon then again a lot of West Virginians now live in Oregon and New Mexico.

Vote for Democrats West Virginia!