Kentuckians say upbringing, education and peer pressure help stir racial reactions to Obama

It's Kentucky's turn in the box today. Not just the ballot box, but the hotbox of media attention, particularly as an example of another state where some Democrats won't consider voting for Barack Obama because of his race. Rex W. Huppke of the Chicago Tribune reports from Munfordville (Encarta map), a county-seat town of 1,600 on the Green River in the rural heart of the state:

Whether in the Dairy Queen or the dollar store or along the sidewalks of a courthouse square ringed with shuttered businesses, people speak freely of their dislike for the lanky senator from Illinois. . . . Anyone thinking a black politician could come onto the national stage and simply win these Kentuckians over is being naive, residents say. And it's not, as some outsiders might believe, because the town's voters are ignorant.

"To attribute it solely to ignorance would be totally inaccurate," said Melody Chaney, a financial adviser in Munfordville and a Clinton supporter. "It's a matter of education, their upbringing and their background, peer pressure. There are lots of factors that contribute to this."

Perhaps out of sympathy, Huppke quoted the more dispassionate observers early and put most of the prejudiced people near the end of his story -- after a couple of African Americans. At the 2000 census, blacks were 11.5 percent of Munfordville and 6.2 percent of Hart County.