"My worry is there's just too many people in this country who aren't ready to elect a black president," said Charles L. Silliman, a retired Air Force officer who is Hardy County's Democratic Party co-chairman. "There's a lot to like about him. But I'm just afraid that too many people will vote against him based on their fears and prejudice."
Silliman and his wife, Carmen, are Clinton supporters, drawn by her healthcare plan and her endurance on the campaign trail. Still, the couple repeatedly have found themselves defending Obama, correcting acquaintances who relay baseless rumors about his name and religion.
Carmen Silliman has collected a sheaf of poisonous e-mails that have flowed into her in-box. "We do not need a Muslim to lead the good ole USA," reads one. Obama is, in fact, a Christian.
Neil Gillies, an Obama supporter who runs a local environmental nonprofit group, glumly recounted the gibes that his wife, a schoolteacher, hears regularly from her students. "They're convinced [Obama] is a Muslim, a terrorist, a guy who's coming to take away their guns," Gillies said. "It's just sad."
Slung along the bottom of West Virginia's eastern panhandle, Hardy County was once rock-solid Democratic. Senior citizens fondly recall the day Eleanor Roosevelt arrived to dedicate the opening of Moorefield High School in 1941.
But socially conservative church groups and gun-rights supporters here have helped tilt the vote Republican in recent presidential elections. In 2004, Hardy County lined up for George W. Bush by a 3-1 ratio.
"It's just not going to be easy for Obama to woo crossover Democrats back into the fold," said P. Merle Black, a professor of politics and government at Emory University and a longtime analyst of Southern voting patterns. "In addition to the race factor, you've got huge cultural differences between them and Obama on guns and religion and many of the issues that would make those voters think he doesn't represent their interests."
Obama has made an effort to highlight his religious beliefs and his support for hunters' rights. But his former pastor's racially charged sermons -- and the candidate's own comments about small-town Americans who have lost their jobs and "cling to guns or religion" -- have not helped his cause.
"I've got 50-some guns, and I wasn't crazy about Obama's talk about small towns," said Sam Vetter, 64, a farmer and lifelong Democrat who regrets voting for Bush in 2000. "Besides," he added, "Obama just doesn't sound right for an American president."
