Suffolk University has Hillary Clinton winning West Virginia by 36. Many Obama supporters and media pundits will scream nasty things about West Virginia if that is the result. The reason is they have no understanding that demography has been political destiny in this campaign. West Virginia is 97% white. Barack Obama has not gotten more than 40% of the white vote since Wisconsin, where he won the white vote. So a huge defeat in west Virginia was to be expected. Let me share with you some exit polling regarding white voters in other states. First, from Obama's crushing win in NC - Clinton won whites 61-37. In PA, Clinton won whites 63-37. In Ohio, Clinton won whites 64-34. In MA, Clinton won whites 58-40. In Maryland, Clinton won whites 52-42. Missouri, Clinton won whites 57-39. And the same type of results were found in TN, AR, NJ, GA, MS, AL, FL and so on.

Whatever people want to say about the results in West Virginia tomorrow, it is unfair and a mistake to pretend West Virginia is an anomaly. Outside of the West (Obama won whites in CA, WA, ID, UT, CO, KS, etc) Obama has not fared well with white voters. (Out West, Obama has fared poorly with Latinos.) This is not an Appalachia issue, as some have suggested.

One last thing. the Obama camp predicted a 12 point Clinton win in West Virginia.

Comments closed.

By Big Tent Democrat

Bringiton at Corrente does the heavy lifting. An overview of the Democratic nominating process is here.

My view of the math is found at The Electoral Map and the Battleground States. It's based on William Arnone's analysis here.

The three of us concur: Hillary has a better chance of accumulating the electoral votes necessary to beat John McCain. It doesn't mean we think Obama can't do it. It means we think Hillary is a surer bet.

All comments related to the electoral math vote count are welcome. As Bringiton says, "please do not clutter up the discussion thread with meaningless repetition of [Obama] talking points; if you have nothing new to offer, kindly hold your peace.]

This is an amazing statement from Obama supporting Pennsylvania State Represenative Mark Cohen. After arguing the Presidential nominee should not be pressured to accept a Vice Presidential candidate not of his or her choosing, he vows to, get this, pressure the likely Democratic nominee Barack Obama to NOT choose Hillary Clinton:

I do not think the "Vote Both" gambit will work. But it certainly bears watching, analysis, and in the judgment of many including myself, concerted opposition.

Concerted opposition to what? Barack Obama will choose his nominee. Does Rep. Cohen plan to oppose such a decision by Obama? What is wrong with some Obama supporters? Are they intent on losing in November by keeping the Democratic Party divided? I know next to nothing about this PA State Rep, but what I see here indicates he is not very bright. I wonder what the Obama camp thinks of his actions and statements. Someone should ask them.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Comments closed

Pretty effective:

[Hillary Clinton] held a “Mother’s Day Celebration” in . . . the so-called “Home of Mother’s Day.” Clinton told the crowd that she drew inspiration from the example of women who came before her, be they historical figures like Harriet Tubman and Sally Ride or her own mother and grandmother. “Women have been standing up for what we believe in, defying convention and going forward for a long time,” she said.

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Pundits ignore facts when they do not fit their narrative. First it was Frank Rich. Now it is Jonathan Alter (via Yglesias selling the nonsense):

It was the "Grandma Primary." Barack Obama lost Pennsylvania mostly because white working-class women over 60 dominated the contest to an astonishing degree, and they backed Hillary Clinton by more than 2-1. The big question is what that means for November. Obama carried men and younger and middle-aged voters, but that wasn't nearly enough.

This is false in every particular. [More...]

I think Barack Obama's greatest contribution to America would be as Attorney General in a Hillary Clinton administration.

• He be terrific as head of its civil rights division.
• He'd go after crooked lobbyists and big time corporate offenders.
• He'd have the ability not to charge non-violent drug possessors with mandatory minimum offenses, while pushing Congress to change the law.
• He'd be the best advocate for a congressional end to the unfair disparity in crack-powder cocaine sentences.
• He could refrain from prosecuting federal death penalty cases until an independent commission has established that the death penalty is no longer applied in a racially disparate manner -- and in any case in which DNA evidence does not conclusively prove guilt.

In accordance with his expressed beliefs,

• He'd direct federal prosecutors not to prosecute medical marijuana dispensaries or users in states that have passed medical marijuana laws.
• He'd charge and prosecute suspected terrorists in federal courts, eliminating the need for unfair military commissions.
• He could stay tough on meth labs, an issue he's made a priority.

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Thanks to a TL reader who left this in the comments on the Mother's Day Thread: Ellen Malcolm, founder of Emily's List, has an op-ed in Saturday's Washington Post, Quitters Never Win. A snippet:

It's not surprising that low-income working women are the cornerstone of Hillary's success. Many of these women live on the edge of disaster. A pink slip, a family member's illness, a parent who can no longer live alone, a car that won't start or a mortgage rate that goes up -- all are threats that could devastate the family. And yet these women do what women have done for ages. They put on a confident face, feed their children breakfast and get them off to school. They don't quit. They suck it up and fight back against whatever life throws their way....

....Hillary Clinton certainly has the right to compete till the end. But I believe Hillary also has a responsibility to play the game to its conclusion. For the women of my generation who learned to find and channel their competitiveness, for the working women who never falter in the face of pressure, for the younger women who still believe women can do anything, Hillary is a champion. She's shown us over and over that winners never quit and that quitters never win.

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that Democratic Presidential candidates carried West Virginia in every recent election except the last 2?

I found this relevant question:

Why could Jimmy Carter carry West Virginia TWICE, even in the 1980 Reagan landslide, Michael Dukakis could even carry West Virginia, Bill Clinton carried it twice by huge margins both times, yet Al Gore and John Kerry lost there? . . . [W]hat can Dems do to win it again?

Any answers?

By Big Tent Democrat

I recall supporters of Barack Obama claiming profusely at one time that the pledged delegate vote is the will of the people and the superdelegates should accede to it. Will they complain about this?

Sen. Jay Rockefeller and Rep. Nick Rahall, two of West Virginia's superdelegates backing Barack Obama, say they're sticking with him despite polls showing Hillary Clinton a heavy favorite in the state.

"I view my role as a superdelegate as one that takes the long-range view of what is in the best interest of our party and our country," Rahall said Thursday.

Rockefeller said he's sticking with his conscience.

No, I didn't think so. Any more than they complained that Teddy Kennedy and John Kerry were going against the will of the voters in their state.

After all the 50 state strategy talk from Obama supporters, Hillary Clinton is calling out Obama for slighting Kentucky:

Many speakers [at a KY event] noted the absence of Barack Obama. Terry McBrayer, a former state party chair and superdelegate, drew some boos from Obama supporters on hand when he said he contacted a local milk company to put Obama’s picture on a milk carton.

Clinton herself noted she was the only candidate to come, saying it was important "because Kentucky always picks the president." She later said, as she did in West Virginia earlier this week, that Democrats "for too long" have let states like this one "slip out of the Democratic column."

"Too many people felt our party didn’t speak to their values and concerns," she said. "Well I believe if you don’t stand for hard-working middle-class Americans you don’t stand for much. And it’s now up to the Democratic Party and our eventual nominee to make that case."

I am sure Robinson, Herbert and Company are outraged.

By Big Tent Democrat

The New York Times (tomorrow's paper, available now) has a 7 page profile on how Barack Obama forged coalitions in Illinois:

The secret of his transformation — which has brought him to the brink of claiming the Democratic presidential nomination — can be described as the politics of maximum unity: He moved from his leftist Hyde Park base to more centrist circles; he forged early alliances with the good-government reform crowd only to be later embraced by the city’s all-powerful Democratic bosses; he railed against pork-barrel politics but engaged in it when needed; and he empathized with the views of his Palestinian friends before adroitly courting the city’s politically potent Jewish community.

To broaden his appeal to African-Americans, Mr. Obama had to assiduously court older black leaders entrenched in Chicago’s ward politics before selling himself as a young, multicultural bridge to the wider political world.

I have no use for the kind of unity that trumps taking a position on issues based on one's beliefs in favor of a taking a position based on who it will appeal to and then not sticking to it.

This is why it's so hard to figure out where Obama really stands on issues, from crime issues (here and here) to gun rights. He changes, depending on his audience and which voters he needs to appease or win over at the time. As I often write, where's Obama? Here, there and everywhere.

More from the Times:

BTD referenced MyDD's post by Jerome on West Virginia earlier. I have more to say about it. I want to highlight his lead-in:

I'd humbly suggest, to all the Obama supporters that join us here on this blog, that if you can't stand the heat of the West Virginia primary, you stay out of the kitchen. While I'm at it, I also suggest that you refrain from accusations against West Virginians as being racist, or you'll join the other 6 previous users here, whose offensive comments were deleted on Friday, and that were themselves banned from the site. ...You don't like that? Fine, its a big wide blogosphere, go find a blog that has its head in the sand. Are the ground rules understood?

CNN just flashed a poll showing Hillary ahead with 66% of the vote. It said a big W. VA win will show that "a lot of Democrats aren't ready to get on Obama's bandwagon."

CNN says W.Va. used to be solidly Democratic until 2000 when George Bush took it. Social issues are big there. Guns are even bigger. The LA Times also says W. Va could spell trouble for Obama in November.[More...]