The sea of shining, hope-filled faces that routinely flood Barack Obama's rallies would be an alien environment for the grizzled features and tobacco-stained temperament of Dave “Mudcat” Saunders.

His preferred habitat is up a tree gunning down deer or on the mud flats — which lent him their name — catching catfish, part of an endless struggle with Appalachian wildlife.

Along with his Confederate flag bedspread, the stag heads on his walls, his preference for profanity over punctuation, he would horrify what he calls the “northeastern elitist, Metropolitan Opera wing of the Democrats”.

But, as one of the party's few (some say only) rural strategists, this might just be part of Mr Obama's problem.

“The Democrats talk of tolerance, but in reality the only tolerance they ever exhibit is for their own intellectual arrogance — and they don't have tolerance for my culture,” says Mudcat. “They think we're a bunch of hillbilly heathens who go out and burn crosses and do crazy bullshit.

“They don't give a f*** if we're with them or not, because it doesn't matter. The f***ing Republicans have stolen the individual liberties thing and that's why the gun thing is such a big deal.”

After a summer marked by soaring hyperbole about electing America's first black President, the sweep of Obama-mania across Europe and a generally feeble Republican campaign, Mr Obama's poll lead has evaporated. Many white, rural and working-class voters are stubbornly refusing to share the excitement about Mr Obama.

Yesterday The New York Times carried a front-page article in which more than a dozen senior Democrats urged Mr Obama to climb down from his sermonising mount and tell ordinary voters how he would improve their lives.

Nowhere does he have a bigger problem than in the Appalachians, a vast, rugged, mountain region. It was here, in states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Kentucky that Mr Obama was beaten badly by Hillary Clinton — and his strategy towards them has altered little since.

Although Mr Obama won Virginia and has since identified it as a prime target in November's general election, Mudcat cautions that Democrats cannot rely on urban liberals and African Americans in the north of the state.

He describes his hometown of Roanoke as “a trading post, like Tombstone”, belonging to a different culture west of the Blue Ridge mountains of which Mr Obama has no more understanding than Al Gore and John Kerry before him — who lost the rural vote by 16 and 19 per cent respectively.

Mudcat has previously helped both Mark Warner, the former Governor, and Senator Jim Webb win in traditionally Republican-leaning Virginia. He was also a senior strategist on the failed presidential campaign of John Edwards, a close friend.

Has he been asked to help Mr Obama? “I got a call from them right after Johnny got out. I never heard back.” What does he think of the Illinois senator's campaign? Mudcat pauses and lights another Camel.

“They have to be careful. Sometimes they remind me of another bunch from Chicago, the Blues Brothers: they seem to think they're on a mission from God.”

He is scathing about the reliance on registering new voters. “If that's how he runs his campaign, he is going to lose. I'd rather bet on those who voted before. When he stands up and says that I'm gonna get 30 per cent more black voters — I'm gonna get 30 per cent more of my people to turn out for me — what is Joe Six-Pack thinking?”

Mudcat suggests that John McCain could win Michigan while holding Ohio and Florida. And, unless Mr Obama changes course, “he ain't gonna win Virgina either”.

Instead of all the high falutin' exhortation about listening to "better angels", Mr Obama has "gotta come out here - and time is running short" - and emphasise "social justice, economic fairness".

“He should say, 'I'm a black guy. I'm not gonna take the Michael Jackson treatment, but the problems of South Side Chicago are the same problems of the Appalachian mountains'. Big sonsofabitches are kicking the little sonsofabitches in the ass. Now I'm one of the little sonsofabitches, so I'm pissed off. Inside every rural Republican is a rural Democrat begging to get out. But we always trip over our johnsons.”

“The campaign,” he says scornfully, “think this election will be won on the internet. But here, at 5.30 in the afternoon, they don't go on the goddamn internet, they go watch The Andy Griffith Show [a 1960s sitcom].”

The nominee's difficulties are not about the colour of his skin but the tin in his ear. “White people in the South and throughout the Appalachians love black culture. I mean, Southern-style cooking is black food. Everything I eat is fried. Your swing vote in the Appalachians comes down to common-sense thinking people who have strong faith, and what Barack Obama needs to do is embrace his culture. Because we like his culture. But nobody knows anything about him; over 10 per cent of the rednecks out here — and I'm a redneck — think he's a Muslim 'cause nobody's ever told 'em any different.”

His own Appalachian method of persuasion is best summed up in his campaign against a constitutional amendment forbidding gay marriage in Virginia. “I'm pretty sure I ain't a queer. And I've never had queer thoughts,” he told a newspaper, “but God loves them queers every bit that he loves the Republicans.” Or, as he says these days: “It's their mouth, they can use it to haul coal if they want to.”

The Confederate bedspread is a tribute to “the gallant kids from around here who lost their lives” — not a racist symbol, says Mudcat, adding that he has no doubt “the right side won” the American Civil War.

He says a “cultural wedge” has been placed between Democrats and Scots-Irish voters just as Hadrian built a wall to keep them back in Britain. “It is the same exact people. It's the same f***ing bunch of fight, sing, drink, pray people who are over there who are over here in these mountains.”

And the Democrats are on the wrong side of it? “You're damn right. They're on Hadrian's side of the wall is where they are. And they want the Scots-Irish vote. Well it's true. It's f***ing genes. It's who we are as a people. We'll say 'f*** you' to Bush, Longshanks or Maggie Thatcher. F*** any of 'em.”

History and votes

1865

After the American Civil War, Democrats dominated the 11 Southern, former Confederate states because of their opposition to Lincoln’s Republican Party, which had led the Northern states

1880-1960

The Southern states, known as the “Solid South”, voted Democrat in every US election, with the exception of 1928

1960s

The Democrats’ hold on the South slipped, partly because of the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965, which outlawed segregation, creating a sense of betrayal among Southerners

Republicans adopted a “Southern strategy” of fielding candidates that would appeal to the states’ conservative sensibilities

1980-2004

The Republican presidential nominee has averaged 54 per cent of the popular vote in the South, and the Democratic nominee only 42 per cent

Sources: www.pbs.org; www.answers.com

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