McCain visits the county, still poor, where LBJ decared War on Poverty 44 years ago

Sen. John McCain's tour through depressed areas takes him today to Inez, Ky., a town of fewer than 500 people and the county seat of Martin County, where President Lyndon Johnson declared war on poverty in October 1964, notes Ryan Alessi of the Lexington Herald-Leader: "Once again, Inez will find itself in the context of a philosophical battleground -- but this time it's between Democrats and Republicans seeking the presidency by way of rural America."

Inez was surely chosen less for its LBJ connection than for Martin County's Republican registration and its local banker: Mike Duncan, who is chairman of the Republican National Committee. ""We have to earn rural voters in Eastern Kentucky and all over the country," Duncan told the Herald-Leader. "We do that by the issues and our values. It's significant that Sen. McCain is going to be on Main Street Inez, Ky., not Wall Street, talking about these things."

Alessi writes, "In many ways, Inez remains the same poster city for the economic challenges facing Eastern Kentucky that it was when Johnson touched down in 1964 and promised to approve $1 billion in federal aid for Appalachia. Today, fewer than half the residents of Inez -- Martin County's seat that boomed in the 1970s as a strip-mining town -- have jobs, compared to the U.S. average of 64 percent. And 35 percent live below the federal poverty level, which is three times the national average, according to the U.S. Census Bureau." (Read more)

UPDATE: For a report on the visit from WKYT-TV of Lexington, click here.