More than half of voters in West Virginia said they would be dissatisfied if Obama won the nomination. Half said they believed he shared the views of his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. Half also said Obama was not honest and trustworthy, and half said he did not share their values.

If there was one running theme among West Virginia voters that we picked up on after a week of stories about them, it's that they all need Barack Obama to personally look each of them in their eyes and tell them he's not a Muslim. Of course, if he did that, they would probably get scared and call the police, so maybe the Obama campaign's strategy of pretending the state didn't exist was the wisest one.

But it was still a fun trip into America's heart of darkness, right? Reporters sent into a depressed sinkhole they forgot was a state until it suddenly became briefly almost important, thanks to a drawn-out primary season. There they discovered how many ways they could repeat the same story: old white people are misinformed! No one bothered to ask how it got so bad, obv. All attempts at setting the record straight were abandoned as unjournalistic.

Oh well. God Damn America, everyone! West Virginia, we shall never care about you again. Until 2012 maybe.

This recent Financial Times piece about West Virginia voters quotes a "lifelong Democrat":

"I heard that Obama is a Muslim and his wife's an atheist," said Mr Simpson, drawing on a cigarette outside the fire station in Williamson, a coalmining town of 3,400 people surrounded by lush wooded hillsides.

Mr. Simpson, that does not even make sense. You think a secret radical Muslim would marry an atheist? Even if it was purely to piss off Christians? Sleeper agent jihadists are not known for their tolerance of Enlightenment principles!

Seriously, West Virginia, we are going to give you back to Virginia unless you can demonstrate that you can handle statehood again. And no one wants that.

Local politicians say it will take more than a well-decorated storefront for Obama, the Illinois senator, to make headway. "He's going to have to visit," says Bob Pasley, who adds that Obama should come prepared to answer "tough questions," including some about his religion.

"Is he Islamic or is he not?" Pasley says of Obama, who is Christian. "I know he's tried to talk about it but he hasn't looked anybody in Wayne in the eye and told them."

This cameraphone image doesn't quite do the scene justice, but rest assured it shows our New Year's baby heading to work and preparing for a tearful showdown with West Virginia governor Joe Manchin: "For the last four days, I've been seeing dead bodies in the mines here in West Virginia..."

Rescue Bid Mounts for Trapped West Virginia Miners [Reuters]
Earlier: He Wants You to Go to Your Window, Open It, Stick Your Head Out, and Yell