I live in Maryland, one of the bluest of blue states. There are a lot of people who moved here from WV first to work in the munitions plants in WWII, and to work in the auto and steel plants in Baltimore and Delaware. Then there are the ones who "was on the way to New York to get welfare and here's where the car broke down" so they stayed [in run-down trailers]. With rare exceptions they're not only ignorant, poorly educated and racist, they don't understand or care to know that there's any other way--no curiousity, no urge to learn more.

As in many other poor countries--and WV is similar to some of the poorest countries--the solution is education. Neighbors like mine see no disconnect between voting for Bush because he's anti-choice, even though his wars have resulted in deaths of close to 1 million people, millions of injuries, and dislocation of millions more people. Oh, Bush is white, and so is McCain. War is OK. Losing the Constitutional protections is just fine, since they don't know anything about that anyway, and don't see any difference between the Bill of Rights and the Ten Commandments--probably never read either one anyway.

If education is a solution, home schooling is the worst form of education because it shelters children from reality and provides the most narrow path to learning, while brainwashing children into believing only what they're told instead of using their education to learn how to think for themselves. No surprise that most of the home schooled children are from West Virginia, Kentucky and western Virginia, and they are woefully lacking in knowledge and ability to think rationally; even our Amish neighbors go to school. No Child's Behind Left legislation reinforces that ignorance: mission accomplished. 

One of my best friends is very conservative. She's also smart and well educated. We can have conversations and agree to disagree, often finding common ground on contentious issues. Many of my WV neighbors don't know enough to have conversations about much more than housekeeping and cars. Unfortunately they are the ones who are losing their jobs, losing their homes and don't know why, so they vote for the people who sent their jobs overseas and allowed the mortgage companies to loan them money that they can't afford to repay.

Bill Clinton signed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 which repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, allowing banks, securities and insurance companies to merge, starting the mechanisms that resulted in the inevitable housing bubble deflation. Poor people have been hit badly, losing homes that they couldn't afford to begin with. In their ignorance and racism, they will vote for the people who are most likely to hurt them, never knowing why. Blame racism, blame Bush, blame Clinton[s] too.