The Voters of Appalachia …

"Hick." "Hillbilly." "Redneck." "Inbred." "Cracker." "Ridge Runner." I heard and self-effacingly used them all when I left the mountains of Appalachia to attend college in the great metropolis of Williamsburg, Va., in the '80s. I was mercilessly ribbed as a rube when I brought along my sky-blue JCPenney suit—with reversible vest—and my stack of Willie and Waylon albums, and entered a world that was as foreign to me as I must have seemed to my fancy William & Mary roommates from the private schools. Imagine my surprise at their surprise when, thinking nothing of it, I casually mentioned that I missed my mom's home-cooked squirrel.

Well, look who's laughing now. In this strangest of political seasons, Appalachia, the last forgotten place in America, suddenly matters. Never mind Florida and Michigan. In a close election come November, the difference between President McCain and President Obama could come down to me and my people: a bunch of ornery, racist, coal-minin', banjo-pickin', Scots-Irish hillbillies clinging to our guns and religion on the side of some Godforsaken, moonshine-soaked ridge in West Virginia. The Democrats comically pandered to all these stereotypes during this spring's primaries, when the 23 million people of Appalachia—that 1,000-mile mountainous stretch from southern New York to the middle of Alabama—briefly hijacked the presidential race. Scrounging for every last vote, the candidates went out of their way to look country. Hillary got all twangy. Barack tasted beer.

It was fun to watch them make fools of themselves. It was also a little depressing. Taking in the coverage, I was struck by how clueless people still are—and this goes double for presidential contenders—about this vast chunk of the country. If they think about it at all, it's not as a real place where actual people live actual lives. Instead, most Americans seem to see Appalachia through the twin stereotypes of tragedy (miners buried alive) and farce (Jed Clampett). It would do America good if we were forced to take a real look at a region without the distorted filter of prejudice and pop culture.

The "Beverly Hillbillies" parody of the place isn't just the invention of addled sitcom writers. It's a stereotype that goes back to the settling of the country. "I remembered, too, strange stories told about these Ragged Hills, and of the uncouth and fierce races of men who tenanted their groves and caverns." Edgar Allan Poe wrote that about western Virginia in 1844. Through the years, this idea of Appalachians as inbred, borderline savages became so firmly stuck in the popular imagination that people on the outside don't even think about how corrosive it can be. Television and movies are soaked in cartoonish images of hill folk. As a kid, I remember watching Bugs Bunny mercilessly humiliate two dim, bearded mountain men. In the end, he got them to unwittingly beat each other half to death with fence posts while square dancing. Then there's Cletus Del Roy Spuckler, arguably the stupidest of all the characters on "The Simpsons." He eats skunk, makes moonshine and, in a running gag, may or not be married to a close relative. The most enduring modern version of Poe's dark, unforgiving vision of Appalachia: Ned Beatty getting raped by a gang of amped-up horror-movie hillbillies in "Deliverance."

A decade ago, John Waters (you know him as the director of "Hairspray") said that the expression "white trash" is "the last racist thing you can say and get away with." That sums it up, all right. You can't even make fun of fat people anymore—unless they're from Appalachia. Even the vice president of the United States didn't think twice about turning to the darkest of Appalachian slurs for laughs. Joking in a recent speech that there are Cheneys on both sides of his family, the vice president said, "And we don't even live in West Virginia." The state's representatives apparently didn't appreciate the veep's special brand of humor. Sen. Robert Byrd said Cheney displayed "contempt and astounding ignorance toward his own countrymen." To his credit, Cheney bravely stepped up and apologized—through a spokeswoman. Waters is right: would an elected official make a joke that coarse in public about any other group of Americans?

Now let me be the first to say that, yes, some of the stereotypes about Appalachia—like a lot of stereotypes—have, shall we say, a certain ring of truth. In the western Virginia county where I grew up, there wasn't a single traffic light. We were so isolated from the rest of the country that some of my relatives called the Civil War "the War of Northern Aggression." They were not being ironic. Hell, as soon as I finish writing this story I'm getting in my Jeep and driving with my brother and dad to a bluegrass festival in Summersville, W.Va., where I'll spend a solid week standing in a field playing songs with names like "Cripple Creek" and "Rabbit in the Log" on my banjo.