A few Republicans voters are jumping ship

Joe,

As soon as I saw "Winchester, Virginia" on the inside cover of the book, I had to buy your Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War. I was born there and grew up in the same county near Middletown. My family roots run deep, back to the original German and Irish settlers, with some French and Indian thrown in the mix. Anyway, I had always felt like an alien in the Valley and still do when I go back to visit. I've been living in the Raleigh-Durham area since moving here to attend the University of North Carolina in 1999. It has been a welcome change moving to where so many progressive live.

I've got one point to make here though. While the Republican Party will continue to do well in places like the Shenandoah Valley, it looks like their behavior in recent years has shaved off a couple percent from their base. I've been hearing my mostly Republican family complain about Republicans in the last couple years. A couple of them seem to have actually crossed over to the Democratic column. The only thing that sets my family apart though from most people there is that they have become much less religious over the years, so much so that most of the generation Xers, myself included, are now either nonreligious or anti-religious. The Republican Party can't just win in regions like this. They must win them big!

Anyway, your book looks like a great read and I'm looking forward to reading it!

Chris
North Carolina

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Good morning Chris,

So good to hear from one of the Shenandoah Valley's own fellow aliens! Given that Middletown is just a few of miles outside Winchester, you must certainly grasp the politics and culture of the valley as well as I, not to mention the despair any thinking person feels politically in such a place.

I too am hearing the same grumbling about the Bush administration and the rabid hardcore elements of the GOP. And of course we have seen a couple of former Republican politicians jump ship around here lately, becoming "independents," or threatening to become Democrats. Which as you know, is an old Harry Byrd tactic to save their own hide when they sense change. Of course, given that both Republicans and Democrats mainly argue which is the most conservative around here, it doesn't mean a lot, other than they want to step outside the yellow crime scene tape  and pretend they were onlookers.

Still, I am heartened by the election of the populist Democrat Jim Webb, not because I think he can change anything, but because at least some populist noise will be made in the background, and that would be an improvement over the blood and thunder of war and god rhetoric.

At any rate, a guy from Middletown will recognize many of the character types in this book.

Hope you enjoy it.

In art and labor,

Joe