Virginia: Two Regional Cultures - Tidewater v. Appalachia: Stark Differences in Gubernatorial Election

Historically, there has been a longstanding divide in Virginia:(i)  the generally more affluent and more educated Tidewater region that for the most part now encompass the so-called urban crescent that extends from the Washington, D.C. suburbs in Northern Virginia southward through Richmond (located at the Fall Line) and then eastward to Hampton Roads, and (ii) portions of Appalachia that encompass mush of the Southwest Virginia up through the Shenandoah Valley.  An article in Washington Monthly makes the case that the recent gubernatorial election results reflect this historic divide just as much as the urban v. rural divide in the state.  In many ways, the divide comes down to a divide between an acceptance of modernity in the Tidewater versus the embrace of the past and ignorance in Appalachia.  True, there are exceptions to this rule such as Charlottesville and other cities dominated by large universities (Lynchburg and Liberty University excluded), but for the most part the analysis holds true.  Here are excerpts:

For two years now, I’ve been arguing in this space, in the pages of the Monthly, and elsewhere, that the Tea Party was doomed on the national stage because it’s agenda is anathema to the cultural traditions of vast swaths of the country. Instead, it would become isolated in the South and interior West, the only parts of the country where its agenda would find fertile soil.

If subsequent events - including the sharp regional divisions exposed by the actions of the shutdown caucus last month - haven’t provided enough evidence for you, here’s some more:  In Virginia this week, voters narrowly elected the (flawed) Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe over Tea Party firebrand Ken Cuccinelli. The surprise wasn’t that McAuliffe won, but that the result was far closer than pollsters had predicted.

What went wrong?

As in the Alabama and Mississippi GOP presidential primaries last year, pollsters failed to weight their samples to ensure they properly represented not just the racial, gender, and economic profile of the electorate, but the state’s two, centuries-old, rival regional cultures. I’m not talking about “NoVa” versus the Old Dominion, but something much older that suburban Washington: the massive schism between the state’s Tidewater and Greater Appalachian sections.
I asked one of my research collaborators - Miami University of Ohio geography masters student Nicollette Staton - to run the results of Tuesday’s election through the American Nations model. The regional differences were stark:

McAuliffe won Virginia’s Tidewater by 11 points, 52 to 41.  Cuccinelli won Greater Appalachia by an even wider margin, 57 to 36.

McAuliffe’s overall margin of victory is owed entirely to the relative size of Tidewater’s electorate (over 1.6 million cast ballots in Tidewater on Tuesday, under 600,000 in Appalachia.)

The lesson, once again, is that Tea Party ideas are embraced as strongly as ever in the Greater Appalachian sections of our federation - and the Deep South and Far West - even as they have become repellant to a majority of voters everyplace else. Given that everyplace else comprises two thirds of the U.S. population, that’s a recipe for national isolation.

I’m not saying urban/rural electoral divides don’t exist - they do in every nation, from France to India - but their predictive power is often greatly exaggerated. And in the case of this week’s election in Virginia, they are an inadequate means to interpret the results.

Hurricane Irene - Preparations Almost Complete

It's been an exhausting three hours since the lats post and the preparations for the storm are just about done. A tree across the creek went down and knocked out neighbors' power, but fortunately we are on a separate circuit. The storm surge is hours away but already the creek is far higher than normal as shown above.

Meanwhile, as WVEC-TV is reporting, the Midtown Tunnel (one of my routes home to Hampton) closed moments ago so that the Norfolk side flood gates could be closed:

NORFOLK -- The risk of flooding from Hurricane Irene has forced VDOT officials to close the Midtown Tunnel, one of two crossings between Norfolk and Portsmouth.

The tunnel will close at 10:00 a.m. and won't reopen until the flooding threat is past.

“Conditions at the Midtown Tunnel have reached a point where there is a likely potential for flooding, and the tunnel needs to be closed,” said Dennis Heuer, Hampton Roads District Administrator. “Crews will reassess the weather conditions and reopen the tunnel to traffic as soon as it is safe.”

The before and after photo of one of the bedrooms gives an idea of the amount of things we've carried upstairs.

Hurricane Irene May Be a Major Threat

UPDATED: The Virginian Pilot reports in part as follows concerning the approach of Hurricane Irene:

All Navy ships in Hampton Roads are ordered to prepare to get underway within 24 hours because conditions have been set to Sortie Condition Bravo.

"We learned last hurricane season with Hurricane Earl that we must be prepared even sooner to make the decision to sortie," said Vice Adm. Daniel Holloway, commander of the U.S. Second Fleet, in a news release. "If the decision is made to sortie the fleet, as prudent mariners we must ensure that our ships have enough time to avoid storm damage and transit out of the path of the storm, well ahead of it."

Locals always consider it a very bad sign when the fleet is sent to sea to avoid a severe storm. If the fleet is ordered to sortie, it will not make most of us feel very secure.

The weather forecast updates are not comforting even though much can change between now and the weekend. Apparently, some computer models have the storm striking the Carolinas and crossing south side Tidewater Virginia to emerge into the Chesapeake Bay still at hurricane strength. Timing, of course, would be important since if the storm passes through at low tide, we'd have a three foot credit against whatever storm surge might materialize. Obviously, I'm not relishing the thought of moving everything upstairs, putting the flood doors in place and then sand bagging all the doors of our home. Fortunately, my house in Norfolk is in an area that never floods although some surrounding areas (including where the office is located- thankfully on the second story) could get whacked. Here are highlights of what the New York Times is currently reporting:

Forecasters say the hurricane could grow to a monstrous Category 4 storm with winds of more than 131 mph before it's predicted to come ashore this weekend on the U.S. mainland. The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami expected Irene to reach Category 3 strength on Tuesday, said spokesman Dennis Feltgen.

Officials could begin issuing watches for parts of the U.S. mainland later in the day. Because the storm is so large, Florida could begin feeling some effects from the storm late Wednesday.

Current government models have the storm's outer bands sweeping Florida late this week before it takes aim at the Carolinas this weekend, though forecasters caution that predictions made days in advance can be off by hundreds of miles. Georgia is also likely to be affected.

An updated forecast released Tuesday morning also showed that Irene could move into the Chesapeake Bay by Sunday at hurricane strength. That latest model showed Irene making landfall along the North Carolina coast. However, because the storm is still days away from the U.S., some models also show Irene remaining offshore along the East Coast.

Still, authorities on North Carolina's Ocracoke Island were taking no chances. On Tuesday, officials issued a mandatory evacuation order for visitors to leave starting at 5 a.m. Wednesday.

Irene could bring much-needed relief to a fire blazing in the Great Dismal Swamp on the North Carolina-Virginia line, however. If the storm stays on its current track, it could soak the smoldering fire that's consumed more than 9 square miles of swamp in both states.

Yes, it would be nice to see the fire in the Great Dismal Swamp extinguished - we've had days in Hampton where the smoke has been so bad we don't go outdoors - but a less drastic solution would be preferable.

Snowy Charlottesville Saturday

My posting frequency was down yesterday since we drove up to Charlottesville last evening and were pretty much exhausted after busy days and an uneventful drive. Thankfully, my mother seems pretty good and also seems to be accepting the fact that she will not be driving henceforth and likes the aid that comes in to take her to appointments and on errands, etc. Needless to say I am hugely relieved after hearing disparate reports from my sisters, each of whom work in the medical field.

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We woke up this morning to a blanket of about three inches of snow on the ground with the snow continuing to wall steadily. Reportedly, Virginia Beach - which typically gets the least snow of anywhere in the state - already has four inches of snow. I'm sure people will be freaking out and the biggest hazard will be drivers that know nothing about driving in snow. Having learned to drive in the snow country of central New York, I had plenty of practice driving in many feet of snow.

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Today will be a day for staying inside and reading a good book - my mother is an avid reader - watching old movies and , of course, blogging. Naturally, the boyfriend has taken over the kitchen as is the norm when we visit. Looking out the living room window through the falling snow, I cannot even see the summit upon which Jefferson's Monticello - i.e., "Little Mountain" - sits a mile away off to the east northeast. The snow is beautiful and a change from what us Tidewater folks are used to seeing.

Nearly Surrounded by Water -Updated

The next high tide is about three and a half hours away. We are as prepared as possible under the circumstances. An hour ago the power went out, but fortunately it is back on so that we can run sump pumps to keep the garage from flooding (we have the hoses running out a side window) and then spilling into the first floor. The Chihuahua has been freaking out all day knowing that things are not at all normal. I will be online as long as possible and keep updating on our situation.

A view from the dining room across the deck - the patio is under water.

View out the front door this morning with the driveway flooded - the road is in front of the hedge in the distance.

Another view out the dining room door to the deck and patio with the creek in the back ground.

The construction company folks delivered the sand bags and all of the doors to the house, including the garage door have thick plastic sheeting and sandbags stacked about 2 feet high in the hope of keeping water out of the house. We hope the extra precaution gets us through high tide late this afternoon. Thephotos above were at high tide this morning. The Jeep and Expedition are a block or more up the street on high ground - the Mercedes is safe on the second floor in a downtown garage. I will keep updating as long as we have power.

New York Retrospective

The past long weekend in New York City was wonderful fun and it's a bit of a let down to be back in Tidewater Virginia with all its conservatism and backwardness on social issues, gay rights in particular. Saturday night we had dinner at a great restaurant in the West Village, Philip Marie, where we had a fabulous young aspiring actress as our waitress. Later, we went to Splash and then back by the Monster. Sunday was leisurely and then consisted of walking around China Town and Little Italy before heading to the airport.

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Besides its 100+ gay clubs, what is striking about New York in contrast to this area is the fact that gays are so much more open about who they are and that the fear factor that plagues so many gays here doesn't seem to exist. Sadly, I know a number of gay professionals and business owners in this area who live in terror of discovery, believing that all of their clients/customers would leave them if their sexual orientation became known. Some I think have allowed their fears to run amuck and make the danger far larger in their minds than what would be the reality. Nonetheless, with no state or federal employment non-discrimination protections and Don't Ask, Don't Tell still driving gays in the military underground, Virginia remains far behind the times.

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A repeal of DADT would be a good first start in changing the atmosphere here and might indirectly help get the Virginia General Assembly to come into the 21st century. Allowing blacks to serve in the military helped in many ways to dispel prejudice and if gays can serve openly as equals, it will mitigate the Christianists efforts to depict us as "other" and/or less than fully human. I will be watching to see if Obama moves to make good on his promises to the LGBT community - right now, he appears to have sold us out. Meanwhile, I guess we will just continue to muddle along.

Why Being Out and Proud Matters

As I posted yesterday evening, those of us who attended the LGBT Blogger Summit had the unique opportunity of seeing the movie Milk and then engaging in a discussion session with Clive Jones, Dustin Lance Black and Bruce Cohen. One message that I took away from the whole experience - not to mention specific portions of the movie itself - was that LGBT citizens need to come out of the closet and live openly. The fastest way to dispel the lies put out by our enemies is to allow friends and neighbors to come to realize that we - their doctors, lawyers, fellow business owners, etc. - are just like everyone else save and except who we fall in love with.

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Being out and open can be a terrifying prospect and I will confess my own failure and shortcomings in that regard for many years. For far too many years I tried to be something that I was not and in the process made myself and often those around me miserable. Unfortunately, I listened to the propaganda and lies put out by churches and a larger society that value control and uniformity over allowing people living their own lives as God made them. In short, I allowed myself to buy into the anti-gay stereotypes and felt myself a freak, reject and victim. But not anymore. Another side benefit of attending the blogger summit was being surrounded by smart, vibrant LGBT individuals who demonstrated that we are as good as anyone else - hence for example the name of Jeremy Hooper's blog, Good As You.

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Another reality that I have learned is that "coming out" is a process that one does not do just once. Rather it is a daily occurrence as one meets new people and encounters different business and social settings. While I do not broadcast my sexuality, nevertheless, new encounters sometime require that you take a deep breath and summon the courage to not hide who you are. Living in an area such as Tidewater Virginia obviously creates more situations where being out has the potential for adverse reactions and even potential rejection. I have some who tell me that I should be more closeted and I certainly know a number of gays who live double lives of sorts out of fear of rejection in business or otherwise. On the other hand, if one gives into fear and goes back into hiding, the result is that you lose a little bit of your soul each time you allow fear to win out. Personally, I forfeited my soul for too many years to go back into that trap.