The negative buzz that rippled across the country regarding how West Virginia Democrats decided to vote during the primary election has reached the point where Governor Manchin felt compelled to respond. He called into a Fox News political show and defended the state as a place where a personal approach to campaigning, not racial prejudice, is to account for Clinton’s landslide victory.

Several Mountain State citizens have shared their angst and frustration over how WV has been portrayed by bloggers and media pundits the past several weeks. Columnists such as Leonard Pitts took WV to task in his Sunday column, decrying the “2 in 10” voters who indicated race played a major role in their vote. Exit polls show that he is right.

But what he and the other pundits left out was the fact that almost every state has a “2 in 10” problem of their own. While WV and Kentucky were among the highest states who had voters indicating race played the primary or a major role in their vote, it was only by 1-2% higher than PA, Ohio and many other states. Even Connecticut, considered a progressive and liberal state by many, indicated 15% of their voters used race as a key voting factor.

WV has a troubling percentage of race-tinged votes. We, like other states, need to deal with that. Combined with the Megan Williams incident, the race-themed issues brought up at WVU during the RichRod fiasco and now this, it’s truly doing long-term damage to the state’s reputation. A PR professional could argue that all the build-up of positive PR around WVU athletics and other positives has been set back tremendously with these kinds of incidents. While many may shrug, it is important to understand the implications of image on economic and community development, not to mention everyone’s quality of life.

What is the best response? How can West Virginia address this national image issue without sounding defensive? How can we work on our “2 in 10” problem while also pointing out the hypocrisy of people in other states pointing the finger at WV while they have their own problem in this area? We’d love to hear your ideas.