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Search for'Bible Belt' Bristol goes to the US polls
Monday, November 03, 2008, 14:19
But Bristol in Tennessee, has its "other half" just inches across the border in Virginia.
The sign above its main street, State Street, bears the legend: Bristol, a Good Place to Live.
Arrows point to Virginia on one side and Tennessee on the other.
The divide does not stop there.
The two cities – Bristol, Tenn, has a population of 25,000, Bristol, Va, has 17,000 – have distinctly different city governments and school systems.
They also vote at different times. Tennessee – in common with 30 of the other 49 states – permits voters to go to the polls early. This is not the same as absentee (or postal) voting. Here people actually vote in person, just as they would on the main election day.
Virginia's voters are polled today.
Bristol, Tennessee, has been designated by Congress as the Birthplace of Country Music.
Before Nashville established the Grand Ole Opry, a New York music recorder came here in 1927 and recorded old-time music performed by the Carter family. This included relatives of June Carter Cash (the late Johnny Cash's deceased wife).
Those recordings are called the Bristol Sessions and are known as the "big bang that launched country music."
The Tennessee side of town also has Bristol Motor Speedway, which hosts two major races every year, each of which draws 160,000 spectators around a small track known as the "World's Fastest Half Mile".
Today the focus is on how this traditionally conservative corner of the US will use its vote. J. Todd Foster, managing editor of the Bristol Herald Courier, explains: "South-west Virginia and north-east Tennessee might not be the buckle of the Bible Belt, but we certainly are no farther away than the Bible Belt's first notch.
"This area is extremely conservative and voted for George Bush by a 2-1 margin.
"The entire state of Virginia has not voted for a Democrat for president since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964.
"For the first time in 44 years, however, we are a battleground state.
"Polls consistently show Barack Obama with a lead.
"He will lose badly in Southwest Virginia but has campaigned here twice – the first Democrat to do so since John F. Kennedy in 1960.
"If Obama can keep John McCain's margin in Southwest Virginia to 60-40 or less, he can win the entire state because of the urban areas of Northern Virginia (the Washington D.C. suburbs) and the Hampton Roads area on the coast (Norfolk).
"If Obama wins Virginia's 13 electoral votes, it will be virtually impossible for McCain to win the presidency."
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