West Virginia Blue
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There's a zombie narrative infesting the minds of otherwise reality-based denizens of Blogtopia.
Obama's "Appalachian Problem" began in the minds of DailyKos front-pages. They promulgated forth, using devious zombie-mind-tricks like beautiful maps, shifting arguments and flowery prose, a false--yet deviously attractive--narrative: the problem for Obama isn't any of the usual subgroups the Right demonize, it's the only subgroup left for the otherwise politically correct to pick on--not just poor whites, but the poorest of ignorant poor whites here in Appalachia.
Oh, and what a target-rich environment us overly stereotyped Appalachian hollow-dwellers are!
Zombie narrative death spikes
First, as a reminder for those of us who know an Appalachian-American when we see one, but still have difficulty remembering the boundaries of Appalachia:
The Federal Government defines the
Appalachian Region as "a 200,000-square-mile region that follows the spine of the Appalachian Mountains from southern New York to northern Mississippi. It includes all of West Virginia and parts of twelve other states: Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia."
More formally:
Now, on to the fact-rich diaries that dissect Obama's electoral strengths and weaknesses. (Please... as you are reading these, note the absence of any correlation between Appalachian geography, demographics, or... well... anything.)
There's a lot of bunk being thrown this week about Obama under-performing in the Appalachian Region. Unfortunately, the Reality-Based community is missing one important piece of reality: the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas are not part of Appalachia.
As a public service, I do hereby provide (as we have posted before on this blog), the generally accepted definition of Appalchia:
The Federal Government defines the Appalachian Region as "a 200,000-square-mile region that follows the spine of the Appalachian Mountains from southern New York to northern Mississippi. It includes all of West Virginia and parts of twelve other states: Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia."
Update: By way of comparison... here's the NYTimes map.
There's been some discussion around the blogosphere this week about recent advertising in W.Va. by both John McCain and Barack Obama.
One of the questions that keeps coming up is, how much W.Va. media money is spent to influence surrounding states? Ohio is an obvious battleground state, with PA and VA not far behind.
This map provides a hint:
There are 8 media markets that include parts of West Virginia.
The Wheeling / Steubenville, OH market includes 6 counties in W.Va. and 5 in Ohio.
The Parkersburg market includes 2 W.Va. counties and 1 Ohio county.
The Charleston / Huntington market covers 16 W.Va. counties, 6 in Ohio, and 10 in KY.
The Bluefield / Beckley-Oak Hill market spans 9 W.Va. counties and 1 VA county.
The lone self-contained media market in W.Va. is the Clarksburg-Weston market. Ironically, it is also the only market to include at least one county in all 3 W.Va. congressional districts.
The Pittsburg, PA market includes only 2 W.Va. counties, 1 MD county, and 13 PA counties.
In the eastern part of W.Va., Pendelton county joins 2 VA counties (and 3 cities) to make up the Harrisonburg, VA market.
The remaining 7 counties in W.Va. are part of the vast DC / NoVa / Hagerstown-MD market that includes Wasington, DC, one county in PA, 8 counties in MD and 15 counties (plus a handful of cities) in VA.
The NY Times put together a great graphic earlier this month on the varying impact of gas prices around the country. It's a flash animation, so you'll have to click through to see it.
West Virginia in general, and multiple counties in WV-02, are disproporionately hit by high gas prices as a percentage of their income. If you like maps, click the link.
For starters, a big thank you goes out to DS, his anonymous friend, WVPDA and an anonymous reference librarian for providing historical maps. (I could still use the 1980 redistricting map... unless it's identical to the 1990 one.)
If you're interested in actual maps I prepared the video from, or still shots from the video, it's all available at the West Virginia Blue Flickr photostream.
Here's a short-hand version of the history of congressional district per county:
And, below the break, a longer version of counties per district per re-districting. (Whew!)
Please note... the transcription from historical maps to the lists below (and pictures in the video above) was all done by hand. Please let me know if you spot any errors so I can fix them!
(I've bumped this back to the top because the National Archives came through and I have an answer. See the comments... - promoted by PDAWV)
It turns out I can't write html to save my life so I've emailed the pics to Clem. -pdawv
Let's see who can win this virtual scavanger hunt...
I've got one of those questions that isn't so easy to answer with teh awesome Google... after all, it involves events that happened not just in the pre-YouTube era, but way back in the last millenium! ;-)
Back in the days when the esteemed Robert Byrd was a mere Rep., not a Sen., West Virginia had six congressional districts (Wikipedia tells me that much). What I haven't been able to figure out is:
What were the congressional district boundaries when W.Va. had 6, 5, and 4 congressional districts?
A list of counties in each district is fine (I can produce a map from that). Actual maps score a bonus point. A link to an online source is worth another bonus point. Admission of visiting an offline information repository (what were those things called? that's right... libraries) loses all geek credibility, but is otherwise admissable.
The total population of West Virginia in the 2000 census was 1,808,344. Although only 37th in population and 41st in area, West Virginia is the 27th most densely populated state.
This map clearly shows how West Virginia's population is concentrated towards the borders, with a wide swatch of sparsely populated areas through the middle of the state. Much of the population lives much closer to a state border than to any other densely populated area.
West Virginia is one of the few states in the union with no military bases and no Indian Reservations. There are many square miles of National Parks and Wilderness Areas.
Today's map of the day... one small reminder of the enormous consequences at stake in the Iraq War debate.
Courtesy of the Washington Post here's a map showing the hometown of each West Virginia soldier who has died in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts (as of April 2, 2007).
Click on the image to get to the Washington Post page with live links to individual soldiers.
If you haven't done so yet, read Carnacki's diary on "Let's Fight Cancer III". In a diary comment, nequals1 notes the critical role oncology nurses in cancer research and treatment.
Carnacki provides simple links in his diary to send Congress a message: increase funding for cancer research to National Institute of Health (and its subsidiary, the National Institute of Nursing Research).
With that preamble, here's today's map. From the WV Health Atlas, the Cancer Mortality Rates by County for West Virginia (1999-2003).
West Virginia is a state of rather varied geography. Parts of the Eastern Panhandle are very old. Parts of the Northern Panhandle and Ohio River Valley are quite young. In between, there's areas just right for coal formation.
I love maps. There's nothing like a good visual to bring home data--the one above shows W. Va. had the 6th highest infant mortality rate in the country in 1997-98.
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