One last Kentucky tidbit
No one was surprised by Hillary Clinton's absolute dominance in the hills, hollows and other rural stretches of Kentucky in the state's Democratic presidential primary Tuesday. But as she rolled up an overall victory margin of 35 percentage points over Barack Obama in the state, one local result stands out.
Magoffin County -- which according to the Lexington Herald-Leader has been identified by the Census Bureau as "the least diverse place in the nation" -- delivered Clinton her largest share of the vote among Kentucky's 120 counties.
She racked up 93% of the vote in Magoffin (named for a former governor and located in the state's eastern half). In raw votes, the totals were Clinton, 2,714; Obama, 146.
How homogenous is the county? According to the 2000 census, 99.29% of its population of 13,332 was white.
[UPDATE: For information on the primary result in the U.S. county with the largest concentration of black residents, go here.]
-- Don Frederick
Looks like Hillary's kind of place!
Posted by: Tom in California | May 22, 2008 at 11:00 AM
Apropos of absolutely nothing, Magoffin County, KY is also where Hustler magazine's Larry Flynt hails from.
Posted by: Sharon | May 22, 2008 at 11:00 AM
yes, because the rights and opinions of people who are not diverse should not matter?
Posted by: jimmy | May 22, 2008 at 11:01 AM
Who says racism doesn't exist in this country?
Posted by: Anthony King | May 22, 2008 at 11:03 AM
Let the Republicans have the snake handlers and inbreeds and ignorance that goes with those so called uneducated WV and Kentucky voters.
Look at the way they live and look at the way they have voted locally. They cant govern themselves but America depends on their judgement to choose a candidate to lead all of us.
It is time to put these "Regan Democrats"(whatever that really means) into history with Jessica Lynch!!!!!!
Posted by: EddienTexas | May 22, 2008 at 11:07 AM
Hillary ought ot run for president of Kentucky.
Posted by: blarsen | May 22, 2008 at 11:07 AM
93% - that's the same percentage by which blacks vote for Obama. So what is it that 90%+ voting preference says???
Posted by: Keith | May 22, 2008 at 11:08 AM
...AND WHAT PERCENTAGE OF THE BLACK VOTE IS OBAMA GETTING. REVERSE RACISM IS STILL RACISM.
Posted by: Gordito Mojito | May 22, 2008 at 11:09 AM
I love being from Kentucky. Aside from Louisville and Lexington, it's the last bastion of wilderness untouched by the PC radicals obsessed with diversity.
Posted by: Seth | May 22, 2008 at 11:09 AM
I'm not sure I understand why Hillary is so proud of her KY & WV victories. Is it really a good thing that she is winning the votes of uneducated, poor, rural whites? I mean, I don't think I'd want to trumpet the fact that I'm the choice of people who tend to be less intelligent and more racist than the average person...
Or is it more telling that Obama is winning the "educated voters"? Wouldn't all of this mean that Hillary is winning the people who don't know any better but Obama is winning the people who think for themselves and try to make fact-based decisions?
I don't see Obama going out and being so proud about winning the overwhelming majority of black voters. Why is Hillary accepting such blatant racism in her victories?
Posted by: A Voter | May 22, 2008 at 11:10 AM
Seems most people ignore the 90% or so of black voters that support obama. Black voters are ridiculed for not supporting a fellow african american, while white voters are labeled racist for voting for a white woman. However, the overall percentage of white voters voting against there race's candidate is much, much higher than the percentage of black voters against obama. Looks like race hasn't entered the race at all, at least not for the "racists".
Posted by: Jeremy | May 22, 2008 at 11:14 AM
Snake handlers and inbreeds? Wow can you say stereotyping? Yeah a few parts of kentucky are cuntry and redneck, but the inbreed thing is all stereotyping, and a bit disrespectful.
Posted by: Saryn | May 22, 2008 at 11:14 AM
@ jimmy
Nobody said they shouldn't count. It's just an interesting data point.
You can draw your own conclusions as to why a population of 99.29% white voters voted so much higher for Clinton than the rest of the counties. Perhaps non-whites don't live there for the same reason the votes were so far scewed toward Clinton. Who knows.
Posted by: Wil | May 22, 2008 at 11:14 AM
Clinton won in California and New York, states as diverse as anyone can imagine. What is the motive behind this tidbits? Only racists voted for Clinton. Get Real!
Well Obama getting more than 95% of black votes what does it tell you? Blacks are racists just like the Whites implied in this tidbits.
Posted by: Kalli | May 22, 2008 at 11:14 AM
Having spent 10 years in Kentucky, visiting this part of Kentucky is literally like traveling back in time. Nice people, to be sure, no different than the rest of us, but living with 1930s technology and infrastructure (not incuding the cel phones) and 19th century mindsets. Isolated and insular. Ignore the poor at your own peril.
Posted by: Once a Kentuckian | May 22, 2008 at 11:16 AM
Actually, the most surprising thing from that county is that 146 people voted for Obama. Extrapolating from the figures given in the article, only 95 were
non-white, so 51 whites voted for Obama in that county. I'll bet most of them are keeping mum about it, too.
Posted by: Randy Russell | May 22, 2008 at 11:16 AM
EddienTexas, you prove that even the ignorant are entitled to their opinions. Perhaps we should just the likes of you Texans vote in our President. After all, look at the genius we have in office now.
Posted by: KYT-Breds | May 22, 2008 at 11:16 AM
I've driven Eastern KY. I don't think the future of the country will be decided in these areas.
Wonder how Barack got the 146 he did get. Maybe some of the folks thought his name was Brock Alabama, a good ol' boy from down south aways, and they didn't want the wimmin folk to start feelin' uppity.
Posted by: captainbarky | May 22, 2008 at 11:16 AM
It's no surprise that those hillbilly barrios are full of racist rednecks. Have you ever seen Deliverance?
And no the reverse racism thing just doesn't hold. Black people have voted for whiteys before. King Clinton I owes being elected to the black voters so you can't call them racist. Just because they would prefer to vote for Obama than Queen Clinton II does not mean they are racist and would refuse voting for whitey.
Seriously is anybody going to say with a straight face that Kentucky and West Virginia are not hillbilly, redneck, cesspools of racism, bigotry and ignorance? Come on!
Posted by: TruthIsTreasonComplianceIsPatriotic | May 22, 2008 at 11:16 AM
How meaningful is it, to look at one particular county in the whole state of KY, and draw any conclusion out of it???
LA Times should be ashamed of itself, for trying to find some news story, ANY news story, that isn't news-worthy at all. While I'm a committed HRC supporter, and would switch to McCain, should BHO win the nomination, I do not believe a report like this is going to serve anyone anything good or new.
Posted by: tiddle | May 22, 2008 at 11:17 AM
hilarious! obama cannot win without half the party!!!! you guys for obama are elitist and hypocritical. When black people vote 92 to 8 for obama they have that right, but when a white county does it they are ignorant red necks who can't govern themselves. that is the pot calling the kettle black.
new polls, clinton smashes mccain in swing states; obama gets smashed.
go ahead and lose with obama and you get 4 YEARS OF REPUBLICAN RULE! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
Posted by: fred | May 22, 2008 at 11:17 AM
Just what America needs - a bunch of people who cannot think or decide beyond their county!! America was not built on such narrow minded and uneducated people.
OPen up and join the rest of America in the 21st century. 99.9% - do these sleep together, eat together, and decide together? Do you people ever think by yoursleves or one decides and you all follow suit?
Just amazing.
Posted by: mimikoko | May 22, 2008 at 11:18 AM
You folks foget that more people go to NASCAR than all the other sports together, country music sells more than any other type of music, the white working class was leap frogged by the government in an attempt to help the poor black folks, it was virtually impossible in the 60's for a white person to get a wellfare check. These truths do go away because the media wants them to. History is not forgotten. The Democrats must face these points if they want any chance of winning in November. Just happens that Obama opens up these wounds.
Posted by: virginian | May 22, 2008 at 11:18 AM
I say KKKongratulations to the KKKlinton KKKampaign!
Posted by: Balto | May 22, 2008 at 11:18 AM
High levels of education does not equal ability to govern nor the ability to elect those able to govern all it gives you is the same skill set as a tape recorder.
The two presidents with the highest tested IQ:
Herbert Hoover and Richard Nixon
Posted by: Alfred Packer | May 22, 2008 at 11:18 AM