Tom McComas knows that Boone County is an island of blue in a deep red sea on maps that show Tuesday's presidential results in West Virginia.
NELLIS - Tom McComas knows that Boone County is an island of blue in a deep red sea on maps that show Tuesday's presidential results in West Virginia.
"I was tickled to death, very happy," said McComas, a Nellis resident and former DuPont employee. "We needed some change."
President-elect Barack Obama won only seven counties in West Virginia over his Republican opponent, John McCain. But he won Boone County by 11 percentage points, his largest margin in the state.
Obama supporters faced an uphill climb in Boone County, as he wasn't the first choice for many who usually favor Democrats. Their early enthusiasm was spent on Hillary Clinton.
"That's who they wanted," said Circuit Clerk Sue Ann Zickefoose, chairwoman of the Boone County Democratic Party, whose courthouse office was decorated with John F. Kennedy and Harry Truman memorabilia. A snapshot of Bill Clinton's Beckley rally on Saturday is her computer screen-saver.
Many Boone voters were very disappointed when Hillary Clinton lost the Democratic nomination, she said. Before the general election, some volunteers pleaded with Zickefoose to be excused from posting Obama-Biden campaign signs, making phone calls or encouraging would-be voters with a knock on the door.
"People did not want confrontation, whether it was the race issue, whether it was the abortion issue, whether it was the gun issue," she said. "They didn't want to do it." Out in the community, she heard a resident or two use a racial slur as they disapproved of Obama's candidacy.
Over time, however, some opinions started to change.
A skeptical female voter told Zickefoose she watched the debates and thought Obama "looks so presidential."
A union official told Zickefoose he wouldn't vote for Obama or McCain. She talked to him for a little bit.
"The people that I reached ... I just talked to them in a calm, cool way," she said. Before long, the man said, "OK, I'll go vote for [Joe] Biden," Obama's running mate.
By the time Bill Clinton showed up in Beckley last weekend, attitudes had shifted, she said.
The students at Madison Middle School even favored Obama by 80 votes in Monday's mock election, which Zickefoose hoped at the time would reflect their parents' feelings.
Another woman got fed up when she spent a $50 bill on bologna, a tank of gasoline and a gallon of milk.
"She said, 'It's gone, my money's gone. Something's got to change,'" Zickefoose said.
Democratic stronghold
After the votes were tallied, unofficial election results show that Obama got 4,490 votes in Boone County, or 54 percent of the votes cast - about 3 percent less than John Kerry got in 2004 as the Democratic presidential candidate. McCain got 3,603 votes, or 43 percent, this year.
Not a single state or county Democratic candidate has lost Boone County to a Republican in the past two general elections. Many county Democrats run unopposed. Attorney General Darrell McGraw, who had the tightest race of any state officeholder this year, won 68 percent of the vote in Boone County.
But fewer than half of the county's registered voters - only 8,591 of more than 18,700 - cast a ballot this year. In the 2004 general election, 10,429 residents voted.
"Boone County is Democratic and the Republicans are few and far between," said Susan McCallister of Ridgeview, a registered Democrat who voted for McCain.
She voted against Obama because he lacks experience and backed Bush in two elections.
NELLIS - Tom McComas knows that Boone County is an island of blue in a deep red sea on maps that show Tuesday's presidential results in West Virginia.
"I was tickled to death, very happy," said McComas, a Nellis resident and former DuPont employee. "We needed some change."
President-elect Barack Obama won only seven counties in West Virginia over his Republican opponent, John McCain. But he won Boone County by 11 percentage points, his largest margin in the state.
Obama supporters faced an uphill climb in Boone County, as he wasn't the first choice for many who usually favor Democrats. Their early enthusiasm was spent on Hillary Clinton.
"That's who they wanted," said Circuit Clerk Sue Ann Zickefoose, chairwoman of the Boone County Democratic Party, whose courthouse office was decorated with John F. Kennedy and Harry Truman memorabilia. A snapshot of Bill Clinton's Beckley rally on Saturday is her computer screen-saver.
Many Boone voters were very disappointed when Hillary Clinton lost the Democratic nomination, she said. Before the general election, some volunteers pleaded with Zickefoose to be excused from posting Obama-Biden campaign signs, making phone calls or encouraging would-be voters with a knock on the door.
"People did not want confrontation, whether it was the race issue, whether it was the abortion issue, whether it was the gun issue," she said. "They didn't want to do it." Out in the community, she heard a resident or two use a racial slur as they disapproved of Obama's candidacy.
Over time, however, some opinions started to change.
A skeptical female voter told Zickefoose she watched the debates and thought Obama "looks so presidential."
A union official told Zickefoose he wouldn't vote for Obama or McCain. She talked to him for a little bit.
"The people that I reached ... I just talked to them in a calm, cool way," she said. Before long, the man said, "OK, I'll go vote for [Joe] Biden," Obama's running mate.
By the time Bill Clinton showed up in Beckley last weekend, attitudes had shifted, she said.
The students at Madison Middle School even favored Obama by 80 votes in Monday's mock election, which Zickefoose hoped at the time would reflect their parents' feelings.
Another woman got fed up when she spent a $50 bill on bologna, a tank of gasoline and a gallon of milk.
"She said, 'It's gone, my money's gone. Something's got to change,'" Zickefoose said.
Democratic stronghold
After the votes were tallied, unofficial election results show that Obama got 4,490 votes in Boone County, or 54 percent of the votes cast - about 3 percent less than John Kerry got in 2004 as the Democratic presidential candidate. McCain got 3,603 votes, or 43 percent, this year.
Not a single state or county Democratic candidate has lost Boone County to a Republican in the past two general elections. Many county Democrats run unopposed. Attorney General Darrell McGraw, who had the tightest race of any state officeholder this year, won 68 percent of the vote in Boone County.
But fewer than half of the county's registered voters - only 8,591 of more than 18,700 - cast a ballot this year. In the 2004 general election, 10,429 residents voted.
"Boone County is Democratic and the Republicans are few and far between," said Susan McCallister of Ridgeview, a registered Democrat who voted for McCain.
She voted against Obama because he lacks experience and backed Bush in two elections.
"What other president has given me money? None," she said.
She knows of several dissatisfied voters who opted to stay home and not vote at all.
Lynn Dangerfield of Nellis said she would have voted for Hillary Clinton to get "a female president, of course." Instead, she backed McCain.
Delores Cook, a Boone County resident and president of the state Board of Education, noticed no real organized effort to support either Obama or McCain.
"I think this just came about by people using what they had heard and what they had read and [deciding] who would make the best president," she said. "Maybe everybody decided they wanted a change and he would be the person to do it."
One Ridgeview woman, who asked not to be named, was shocked that Obama won Boone County and didn't know of many in her area who planned to vote for him. Yet she figures that many Democrats who didn't back Obama didn't vote for McCain, either.
"That and probably people are tired of the way the Republicans done us for the last eight years," she said.
Labor history
Boone County and its coal mines have a long labor history, and union workers traditionally back Democrats.
Dangerfield and McCallister attended a memorial Thursday where U.S. Rep. Nick Rahall and others dedicated a memorial to 11 miners who died in a mine explosion at Nellis on Nov. 6, 1943.
Zickefoose said United Mine Workers President Cecil Roberts has strongly backed Obama, and visited the county on the "Tour for Change" bus Oct. 18. The crowd that day was modest, but it got people in the community talking, she said.
Major teachers' unions also backed Obama over McCain. American Federation of Teachers-West Virginia President Judy Hale said union members helped make phone calls, went door-to-door and sent out direct mailers to support Obama in Boone County.
Rahall thinks Boone miners believe Obama would not turn his back on their health care, while they disagreed with McCain's past coal votes and campaign platforms.
Larry Lyon, chairman of the Republican Party in Boone County, disagreed.
"I think it was a defeat for energy," he said. "Count it another victory for Al Gore. ... It's bad news for free enterprise."
Lyon isn't exactly sure why Obama carried Boone County, but believes the miners' unions played a role.
"Unions are a business," he said. "Their business is to rake off the cream."
Reach Davin White
at davinwh...@wvgazette.com
or 348-1254.
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Saddam destroyed all of his wmd stocks after the Gulf War, and the government knew it.
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http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1845[/url]
But Cheney didn't want to hear it, so he had Scooter Libby "leak" the identity of the mideast's top wmd field expert to keep other agents from trying to stop the unnecessary and stupid invasion of Iraq. Former Ambassador to Iraq Joseph Wilson knew the White House Intel Group's evidence was false,as did Richard Clarke, a Reagan appointee and registered Republican who was the top official of counter-terrorism activities for the Bush Administration back then.
check it out:
"a close reading of the recent 600-page report by the president's commission on intelligence, and the previous report by the Senate panel, shows that as war approached, many U.S. intelligence analysts were internally questioning almost every major piece of prewar intelligence about Hussein's alleged weapons programs"
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http://tinyurl.com/7vent[/url]
The information on Iraq's activites came from several international inteligence agencies. Other countries agreed there was a problem.
The information was handed to members of Congrees and Senate. They studied it and agreed.
There was an investigation into the "He lied and soldiers died" slant the Dems put on the war. There was no wrong doing. Ol' Rockyfella was the one who had to announce the findings. You can bet it killed him to do that.
It was only a matter of time before Saddam launched another attack somewhere in the Middle East.
It might be hard for you to swallow but yes a seed of democracy has been planted in the Middle East. With exception of Iran things are more stable there because of it.
As far as blaming Bush for all the financial problems. Check your facts. Clinton said they needed to loan more to low income families. In 2001 the GOP saw problems but Dems said there wasn't any. In 2004 the GOP once again said it was out of hand and needed regulated tighter. They were called racist because most families affected were Black.
Barney Frank. A Democrat was in charge watching the situation. He was in a relationship with a CEO of Fannie Mae.
Some day the whole story will be written and you will be surprised.