Campaigning Under Mountain Momma

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing


click to enlarge

I did part of my growing up in West Virginia where my father mined coal out of the hills - so did my uncles and my grandfather. It is where many of them died due to mining, sometimes by black lung and sometimes by accident. My uncle Dewey died when a kettle bottom fell on him and crushed him below the ribcage. During the autopsy, they also learned his lungs were filled with coal dust from long exposure to mining. My grandfather's lungs were also full of coal dust when he died and my father died of black lung and complications due to that condition.

I talked with my mom yesterday and we chatted about the upcoming election. She lives in Princeton and lives off of Social Security and the pension that has been well protected by the United Mine Workers. I asked who she was going to vote for and she said she didn't know. The commercials on television have not been helpful to her. Yes gas prices are high in West Virginia, but she is concerned with who is going to protect the unions and the pensions related to them.

Over the past 150 years, immense amounts of money has been drained out of West Virginia in the form of coal and none of it has been funneled back in terms of monetary wealth. Unlike Alaska, where the citizens get a yearly check from the oil companies for the oil that has been pumped out, West Virginia has been left to corporate wolves.

It is a pity, some of the most beautiful wilderness in America is blighted by crushing poverty caused by an uncaring federal government.

I think the people, at least my family that still lives in West Virginia, have one question on their minds.

"Which candidate will screw me the least?"

SPECIAL REQUEST FOR TCD FANS: The San Francisco Chronicle is pondering the addition of new cartoons for their paper - a process that seems to be initiated by Darren Bell, creator of Candorville (one of my daily reads - highly recommended). You can read the Chronicle article here and please add your thoughts to the comments if you wish. If anything, put in a good word for Darren and Candorville.

I am submitting Town Called Dobson to the paper for their consideration. They seem to have given great weight to receiving 200 messages considering Candorville. I am asking TCD fans to try to surpass that amount. (I get more than that many hate mails a day, surely fans can do better?)

This is not a race between Darren and I, it is a hope that more progressive strips can be represented in the printed press of America.

So if you read the San Francisco Chronicle or live in the Bay Area (Google Analytics tell me there are a lot of you), please send your kind comments (or naked, straining outrage) to David Wiegand at his published addresses below. If you are a subscriber, cut out your mailing label and staple it to a TCD strip and include it in your letter.

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David Wiegand
Executive Datebook Editor
The San Francisco Chronicle
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San Francisco, CA 94103

•  tip jar

  by StormBear on Wed May 07, 2008 at 08:16:41 AM PDT

•  How about a candidate

  who will not screw people at all?

  by chesapeake on Wed May 07, 2008 at 08:20:13 AM PDT

  •  Would love that!

    This is from a POV of my West Virginia family who have heard nothing but promises and seen tremendous wealth vanish from the state with nothing to show for it.

    I guess my point is, they have heard it all before and will Hillary and Obama be able overcome the cynicism?

    WV is really a blue state, but it will take a different kind of approach to remove the Red State Label.

    Ya know?

    by StormBear on Wed May 07, 2008 at 08:36:52 AM PDT

    •  this weekend

      as it happens, my mom was visiting from WV last weekend and she was talking about how her and a few of her friends (all of whom voted for Bush in 2000) are saying they WILL NOT vote for Hillary and McCain.

      She is the prototype 'Madame Bittervoter' over 65.

      Since I know my mom is not an out-n-out racist, I didn't press the issue with regard to that OTHER name on the ballot.   But near as i can tell, it goes something like this.

      Older white West Virginia voters have this very defeatist attitude about what they here from corporations and national politicians.  They know they are being lied to, exploited etc.  but like Charlie Brown and the football they fall for it every time.

      This time is no different, except the guy they want to believe is black. And they since they "know" its all a lie and they lose in the end anyway...somehow its worse because the candidate is black.

      I don't know how Obama gets by the tipping point on this one. It's just the subtext of some conversations i've had with WVians.   For starters, he should campaign there seriously this week.  And if he can speak to it and solve it in WV, his troubles with PA and OH evaporate and he cannot lose in November.

      by flocal on Wed May 07, 2008 at 09:06:08 AM PDT

      •  There is an element

        of 'what do we have to lose' in a vote for Obama by people who have been so abused in the past.

        There are bitter disenfranchised people in rural areas all over this country...in this area it's loggers and fishermen...people who have been raped and pillaged time and time again by corporate control of their lives and homes.

        It will be difficult for them to cast a vote for someone like Obama, but I think they will do so...I sure hope so.

        by trinityfly on Wed May 07, 2008 at 10:27:59 AM PDT

•  I'd go by how each ran their campaign.

  Hillary went for party machine and multi-bucks donors, including the outsourcing crowd which includes union busting and lax safety regulation promoters. Miners need safer working conditions and strong union pushing OSHA enforcements.

  Barack built his own network of ordinary folks and depended on small donors who needed to be heard without hiring lobbyists.  So I trust him to listen and land on the side of workers.

  I hate that miners risk their lives to get the coal out.  But, I also know the unfixable horrors of just blasting off mountaintops instead.  

  Bill and Hillary used Guistra (sp?)jet (big mining billionaire, Canadian I think) and Bill took money for helping him seal deal in Kazakhstan and promoting his mining interests in Colombia "free trade" dealings. So, I just don't trust the family on this issue.

  by Neon Mama on Wed May 07, 2008 at 09:33:36 AM PDT