BLOG: McCain backers heckle early voters

PRINCETON, W.Va. — Over the last few days I’ve been through Southwest Virginia, down in North Carolina and now back up into the mountains on the West Virginia side near Bluefield for some stories about the political climate in red states.

Sen. Barack Obama has set up a massive organization across the country, and especially in North Carolina.

The campaign has given supporters lists with hours and locations of early voting sites, and collected the names, e-mail address and cell phone number of each attendee at the Fayetteville rally Sunday afternoon. (There were a few thousand who had to listen to his speech from the parking lot after the coliseum hit about 10,000 capacity.)

An organizer at the rally rattled off the addresses of early vote sites nearby that would be open after the event.

Photographer Joe Eddins and I headed over to the closest one and found a steady line of voters hoping to cast ballots early. Most seemed to be Obama supporters and several had come from the rally. Nearly all the voters were black.

Also at the polling site was a group of loud and angry protesters who shouted and mocked the voters as they walked in. Nearly all were white.

As you can see from these videos, no one held anything back. People were shouting about Obama’s acknowledged cocaine use as a young man, abortion and one man used the word “terrorist.” They also were complaining that Sundays are for church, not voting.

The first video closes with Roger Farina (who won NHL fan of the year in 2003) going into detail about why he was heckling the voters.

I sent Stephen Dinan a quote from Farina about former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell’s endorsement of Obama yesterday. Read his story wrapping up that news and Sen. John McCain’s reaction here.

At the voting site, I asked a local sheriff monitoring the scene if the protesters were allowed. “They’re fine,” he said. I asked if he’d ever seen anything like that and he said he’d never seen Sunday voting.

Most voters in line ignored the hecklers but a few heckled back. One black woman told me she was deeply saddened to see people protesting the most fundamental right of democracy.

I also spoke to a McCain supporter who was voting early even though he also had been protesting across the street.

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