And although unemployment is closer to the national average in the coal and steel areas around Wheeling and Parkersburg, in Morgantown the rate is 6.3%, one of the lowest in America.

ECONOMIST: A place where times don��t change, nor the taste for pork

It has been airing ads in small towns in safe Republican states, such as Dothan, Alabama and Parkersburg, West Virginia, merely to reach little pockets of voters in neighbouring swing states.

ECONOMIST: Lexington

There is lots of government work and most of the operations of the federal Bureau of Public Debt, which does the actual borrowing of the money requested by Washington, are done in Parkersburg.

ECONOMIST: A place where times don��t change, nor the taste for pork