I'm pretty sure we all remember that.
Well I already disliked the state long before she even announced her candidacy, much less lost the state. And I also started prodding at the forum's WV fetish long before she lost the state. So your hypothesis is void. 
I never felt positively about WV, I've been there quite a few times and many areas of the state are like dystopian wastelands. I started to dislike it even more when they showed their true colors by nearly supporting a felon/prison inmate over a the incumbent black president. Since then my opinion of them has only gotten lower and lower. The undeserved love it gets from the forum, especially the "progressives", is particularly offensive.
You put "progressives" in quotes as if a requirement of being a progressive is hating West Virginia. For 's sake, it used to damn near be the opposite.
As for "defending" the state, I've never been to WV or NH and have zero desire to change that, other than maybe a desire to say I've been to all 50 states someday, and the only reason I'd ever *defend* either one would be if there were these insanely annoying tools who spent every waking moment hating on states that seemingly wouldn't cross many people's minds very often, much less several times a week!
Hating racists and other bigots is a requirement for being a progressive in the 21st century. There exists a strain of thought where racists and other bigots should be pandered to by the left because they might be "populists" (even though usually they're just generic right wingers) which I'm sure you're aware of. That line of thought is unacceptable in my eyes.
I didn't think hating any group was part of the progressive movement. It used to be about not hating. OTOH progressives might certainly ostracize groups that held back progressive ideals, groups like racists and other bigots. I don't think ostracism is the same as hate.
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