Yes, governor, some rednecks are racists
By DAVID MARTIN
Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt made two mistakes when he condemned the comments of the St. Louis University political scientist who said rednecks swung the state for John McCain.
Blunt issued a statement two days after the election in which he attempted to repudiate Professor Ken Warren's "assertion that Missourians who supported John McCain are racists."
Warren, in fact, did not call McCain supporters racist. He was simply trying to explain how Obama could lose Missouri in a year when three white Democrats (Jay Nixon, Robin Carnahan and Chris Koster) won statewide office. "There was a redneck vote in the rural areas," Warren said. He added: "It's not like it's unexpected that people who are outside the metropolitan areas, where there is almost no black population, are uncomfortable with people they are not familiar with."
Atop his high horse, Blunt said Warren's comments were incorrect as well as detestable. Blunt cited election stories in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times that said race was a relatively minor factor in the presidential election.
But the Times today published a story supporting Warren's contention that a significant number of Bubbas couldn't get past Obama's skin color.
Breaking with the rest of the country, a band stretching from Texas to Kentucky voted more heavily Republican in the 2008 presidential election than in 2004. The Times said these Southern counties "tended to be poorer, less educated and whiter." In a word, rednecks.
Ten Missouri counties voted less Democratic in the 2008 presidential election. Obama, for instance, received just 39 percent of the vote in Schulyer County, which borders Iowa. John Kerry won 43 percent of the vote there in 2004.
According to the 2000 census, Schulyer County has just two African-American residents.
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