Name: Greg Wood*
Occupation: Coal Miner
Income: $25,000/year
Residency: War, WV
Political Leanings: Republican
Voting for: John McCain
*-Pseudonym, but I do have a friend named Greg Wood. He is not a coal miner in WVa., but rather a stage actor in Charlottesville, Va. I am not sure who the real Greg is voting for.
West Virginia was one of the "Dukakis 8" states in 1988, yet amazingly enough the poorest state in the union has voted Republican during the last two presidential election cycles.
The reasons for this trend mainly seem to stem from social issues, like gun and abortion, as well as fears about more stringent environmental regulations on the coal industry coupled with the fact that the Democratic Party has gradually moved away from labor union-based support since the Clinton years to focus on more corporate donors.
But, it is clear that many West Virginians are voting against their best interests as the overall platform of the Democratic Party is far better for low income wage earners than the Republican Party, which still leans towards tax cuts for wealthy individuals and major corporations_ very few (if any) of which are based in The Mountaineer State.
West Virginia chose Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary by a very wide margin even though Barack Obama campaigned there. There is some dispute as to whether West Virginia is still a swing state as the Obama-Biden ticket may have fare better in Indiana, which has a much larger black and Hispanic vote.
The Mountaineer State is considered to be the least ethnically divided in the country, though you can find Mexican restaurants in small towns like Princeton and Bluefield.
The hamlet of War is a place of considerable interest to me as I discovered it by accident while driving around the Virginia-West Virginia border around the southwest Virginia town of Tazewell, Va., in 1994. War is a very scenic, mountain town (as you can see below) which is at the southern most point in West Virginia.
The medium income in War is $16, 012 (according to Wikipedia) and 43 percent of the community lives below the poverty line. It was the setting of the film "October Sky," which was actually filmed in Chattanooga, Tenn. The mayor of War (the town is named for War Mountain) is Tom Hatcher, and the town's high school is called (gottalove this!) Big Creek High School. War had 744 residents according to the 2000 Census.
The town's web site is at: http://www.warwestvirginia.com
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