Hillary Wins WV by 2 to 1 Margin

The media is calling it a symbolic victory. What do you think? Looks like Camp Hillary sees things differently.

Clinton’s aides contended that her strength with blue-collar voters—already demonstrated in primaries in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana—makes her the more electable candidate in the fall.

“After tonight, we will have one more proof point, if you will, that Hillary Clinton is the strongest candidate Democrats can nominate,” said Ann Lewis, an aide to the former first lady. “We’re going to go back starting tomorrow and talk to those superdelegates who are still uncommitted and say, ‘You know what? She is the candidate who expands the electoral map.’ You look at West Virginia, you look at Kentucky, you look at Arkansas, you look at Tennessee. You look at what’s at stake and that’s a very powerful argument.”

Clinton arranged a meeting with superdelegates for Wednesday.

And so it goes.

UPDATE, by Mark Noonan: In my view, Democrats are very scared. All over TV and radio and even here on the blog, the endlessly repeated talking point is that if we GOPers want to win, we have to stop talking about Obama’s questionable past and associations…meaning that the Democrats have done polling and focus groups and found out that Obama’s past and associations are radioactive when brought up against McCain. Democrats have to get Obama’s past off the table - one might think this would turn them towards Hillary, but she’s got her own radioactive past and failure to nominate Obama would probably mean a collapse in the number of black voters in November, with incalcuable consequences down ballot for the Democrats.

UPDATE, by Mark Noonan: From Patrick Ruffini via NRO’s The Corner:

Wow. Obama only wins 53% of WV DEM PRIMARY VOTERS in a matchup with McCain

This means that Obama can’t win West Virginia…and likely means that he won’t be able to win a single Southern State, all else being equal and nothing massive changes between now and November (which is a loooong way off). Bad news for Obama - and for the Dems, who may have picked a loser.

Tags: Hillary Clinton, Primaries, Superdelegates, West Virginia

9 comments May 13th, 2008

Is Hillary Really Finished?

Jay Cost over at Real Clear Politics says, no, and here’s why:

…Oxendine says in his analysis of Indiana and North Carolina: “Appalachia didn’t budge [on Tuesday]. She is going to absolutely blow him out of the water in West VA and KY.”

So, here’s my question. What happens to “It’s Over” if Clinton pulls a 40-point victory in West Virginia on Tuesday, then follows it up a week later with a 30-point victory in Kentucky? If these states turn out in the same margins that states since March 4th have averaged, that would imply a net of about 290,000 votes for Clinton. That puts her within striking distance of a reasonable popular vote victory. “Over” will be over as we turn our attention to Puerto Rico.

For some time now, there has been very little chance of Hillary overtaking Obama in the pledged delegate race - really, since Super Tuesday, Hillary’s path to victory has revolved around her securing a larger percentage of the popular vote as a means of convincing super delegates that Obama can’t win in the fall, so they may as well back her, who has shown she has a chance. This is, actually, a very valid theory - but it ignores the fact that Hillary is despised by the ultra-left and his mistrusted by an apparant majority of the American people. In other words, even if it could be demonstrated that Hillary has more votes than Obama and is the stronger fall candidate, some Democrats might still go with Obama, just to get a clean break with Clinton. Meanwhile, however, there is no reason for Hillary to quit - not yet, at any rate.

Tags: Democratic Nomination, HillBama, Kentucky, West Virginia

5 comments May 10th, 2008