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"You won't find many people here voting for Bush," he twangs. "They's poor people here."

The older man is right, sort of. There are plenty of poor people in Towns County, which is deep in Appalachia, right across the line from North Carolina. Nearly three-fourths of the households earn less than $50,000 a year. More than one-quarter earn less than $25,000.

But the guy's wrong about the way people vote, and the gang around the Silverado is definitely in the minority around these parts. Towns County turned out nearly 2-1 for Bush in 2000. In return, they got a free-spending president who gave them a $300 tax rebate while he lowered taxes for the richest Americans to their lowest levels since 1932, a government deficit billed to their children and their children's children, and an invitation to send their kids to a war of disputable necessity. By all counts, it looks as if they'll vote even more heavily for Bush the second time around. It's like watching someone flog himself again and again.

The roots of such political self-flagellation can be traced to the historical Southern tradition of politicians' scapegoating. Forever, it seems, Southern demagogues managed to blame the "other" -- mainly blacks or Yankees -- for the sorry state of poor whites, while they quietly curried favor from corporations and wealthy families. Today's growing economic inequalties are tailor-made for finding more scapegoats. These days, politicians blame "liberals," but it's the same game.

Large swaths of Southern religion have failed to fight such demagoguery. Indeed, many churches have employed it themselves, substituting Christ's message of love and justice for the self-help gospel of personal wealth -- along with an emphasis on casting stones at others.

Heat those elements in a pot with the vitriol of rightwing news outlets and a well-funded political machine designed to advance the special interests of corporations. Add seasoning from a well-founded skepticism about government, and you've got a pretty potent stew. It's not surprising then, that to many Southern whites, national Democrats, even the moderate ones, seem little more than the equivalent of exotic reptiles -- fun to look at but you wouldn't take them home with you.

Carlton Sparks is no different, and yet he juggles contradictions -- the words he hears from television commentators versus the life he sees and lives.

So why is Sparks a Bush man? He makes half a case for morals -- the abortion thing -- before conceding "even that has its gray areas."

There is also a careful, understated racism that mimics talk radio's complaints about the misdirection of tax dollars on misguided affirmative action. He lets out his inner beleaguered taxpayer: "They's always someone on the side that's going to get their pockets lined. They's always a minority group or whatever that deserves this other chance," Sparks says. Then come the rightwing whipping boys, atheists and the ACLU. They're taking the 10 Commandments out of public buildings and prayer out of the schools.

"You let your moral values keep sliding away, keep sliding away," Sparks says. "How long is it going to be before they start taking out the pledge of allegiance?"

And yet Sparks is capable of the kind of socioeconomic insight that many politicians just don't get. You just have to ask enough questions. Take his employer, the electric membership corporation.

"It's tough. Up here, for the guys starting on the right of way crew, if the company pays him $14 an hour, his benefits is going to cost him $7 an hour," Sparks says. "He ain't making much money, so [the cost of] his benefits are going to seem greater. It comes time that something's got to give. He's got to put food on the table. When I went to work on the EMC the average years was like 25 years. Now, a lot of kids will start, will work for a couple of months and then they're gone. They get hooked up into [the idea that] they're making $7 an hour. They can get a job out here runnin' a dang weedeater for $10. Well, the $10 an hour don't bring insurance, but he's got to have the $10 an hour to put food on the table."

Sparks acknowledges he'll be paying for their doctors' bills with higher insurance premiums, and while he's not interested in paying for health insurance for everyone in the form of government-subsidized medicine, he will make the sacrifices to save his own children from having to make the weedeater choice.

Sparks has the pocketbook scars to prove it. To pay for college for his daughter, Carli, he refinanced his $26,000 house, when he had just $5,000 left on the mortgage. After refinancing, he owed $45,000.