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.
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