The Presidential Reporting Project

Welcome to Appalachia - where God turns everything upside down

PORTMSOUTH, OH - Rolling into this Rust Belt town at the southern edge of Ohio, we drove almost all the way through the half-boarded up business district, before we found any signs of life.

Just before we reached the floodwall, built after the Ohio River nearly swallowed the city in 1937, we watched a man stumble from a bar and try to fit his key into the door of his truck.

And across the street through a storefront window, we saw an African-American church in service.

Intrigued by a congregation that would still be worshiping at 10:30 on a Monday night, we decided to start our reporting there. After introducing ourselves to the pastor, who was sitting next to her nodding-off grandson while the deacon read from the Book of Revelations, she responded:

"You think your school sent you here, we know God sent you."

That was only the first misconception we had.

We also thought that if there were reliable Democratic voters in the swing counties of southern Ohio, they could at least be found among the five percent African American minority.

Wrong again.

These people weren't ultimately concerned with discrimination or the rampant poverty or unemployment in the area. The issues these 30 or so Seventh-Day Adventists, who believe the Bible is the literal word of God, said they care the most about are "chucrh issues that have become legal issues." That means the right to life and gay marriage. That also means they won't be voting for John Kerry.

Pastor Sandra Latimore told us that when President Bush came through town a few weeks ago, they gathered all the children so they could wave to him as he was driving by. But, she said, "We reminded them that the king of kings is greater than any man."

At the end of the day, they believe that the end of the world is near and Christ will be coming soon, to take them away from any troubles. This election, fought between mere mortals ("They distant cousins" anyway, one congregant said) does not matter so much, because as Latimore explained:

"It's the praying people, not the president, that's holding things together."

God and Jobs, Photography by Tristan Spinski

Michael Chandler and I traveled to Scioto County, Ohio on the week of October 4 to report and photograph an election story about church-going union members who are deciding between jobs and god. The Christian Right has mobilized a drive to “vote your values” – which in this election means voting against gay marriage and for George Bush. But the economy in this pocket of Appalachia has been wheezing since Bush took office, and people are torn between what’s more important – economic livelihood or homosexuals tying the knot.

Pastor Calvin Ray Evans leads a prayer at the Rubyville Community Church in Scioto County, Ohio. Evans said he is adamantly opposed to gay marriage and said that he considers it a major issue in the Presidential election.	Michael Kibbey, 32, of Wheelersburg, Ohio, talks about balancing his Christian ideals in the political arena. Kibbey is a member of the Boilermakers' Union, Local 105. After four months of unemployment, he now works at a coke plant in Franklin Furnace, Ohio. Kibbey said that he will support John Kerry in the Nov. 2 election.
An unidentified man in the congregation shares his experience of being "saved" by Jesus Christ with the rest of the churchgoers in the Rubyville Community Church in Scioto County, Ohio.	Jody Welch, left, and her daughter Jennifer Welch watch traffic through the window of the Bush/Cheney campaign headquarters in Portsmouth, Ohio. Both women work as volunteers for the campaign.
Worshippers raise their arms in prayer at the Rubyvill Community Church in Scioto County, Ohio.	Jack Jones, 42, of Porstmouth, Ohio, displays his sentiments about President Bush on his hardhat. Jones is a member of the Laborers Local 83, and works on the construction site of a coke plant in Franklin Furnace, Ohio.
Walter Callihan, 74, of Greenup, Ky., sits in the lobby of the Holiday Inn in Portsmouth, Ohio to watch the Vice-Presidential debate between John Edwards and Dick Cheney. "I've had enough of George W. Bush and the Republicans," he said. "They've torn up the Constitution, thrown it on the floor, and spit on it."	The old coke plant, which closed in 2002, rots on the bank of the Ohio River. The plant was the last functioning remnant of the steel mill, which was once the primary employer in Portsmouth, Ohio.