Kentucky has a Democratic Governor. It may not in 2016, but it does now, and that's a big deal. In Kentucky, the Governor stands at the top of the political power structure, which worked well for Bill Clinton even in 1996, when his anti-tobacco stance cost him some popularity in Kentucky.
Has Hillary flatly opposed the Keystone Pipeline? I don't think so, and there is a reasonable chance that she will support it. This would be a signal to Appalachia that the Democrats' environmental policies of the 2000s so far has been a Gore-Obama think, and not a party-wide thing. How she positions herself on this issue would be a signal as to how she'll come down on the issue of coal. Hillary knows how to take both sides of an issue to her advantage. Kentucky going for Hillary isn't the most ridiculous thing imaginable.
I don't put anything past Hillary Clinton.
The Democratic Party is in structurally better shape in Kentucky than in any number of Southern and Border states. It's in far better shape in Kentucky right now than in West Virginia. I would not rule out a bit of a Democratic rebound in Kentucky after Obama is out of the picture.
The move away from the Democrats in Appalachia is, IMO, very much driven by the persona of Obama. He's black and they're not; what's more, the white folks of Appalachia aren't the Ellis Island folks of the Northeast and some of the Midwest; they're a folks with little ethnic identification and a more nativist outlook. THESE white folks are why the Democrats' share of the white vote is so little; if you factored out the Scot-Irish folks that populate much of Appalachia and the South and Border States, the percentage of the Democrats' white vote would be significantly higher.
