"I am in this race because I believe I am the strongest candidate... and the strongest president

What I want to know is if the dittoheads are having such an effect late in the game on the Democratic side, where were their equivalents in the Republican primaries when Limbaugh was railing against McCain?

Josh,

Is this a swlf-parody?

Wow---Hillary beats Obama by a margin of over 40% in a state where a liberal candidate   traditionally does poorly in a presidential election; a state which, when lost by the Dems, almost always guarantees a national Republican presidentiial victory.    

Sure bodes well for Obama in the November election, doesn't it?     Superdelegates, you better keep your options open!  

Yo, Josh---You think it was El Rushbo who managed to clobber Barack by a margin of 40% in a Democratic primary?  

If so, he's so powerful that any resistance is futile...If I were you, I'd start filling out that citizenship application to Canada ASAP!

"surely it would have been far worse to lose to Hillary if she had already conceded the race. "

Wow, you'd think someone would have pointed this out before. Oh, wait. They have. About a thousand times.

And it's well documented that the "antics" of Rush Limbaugh had nothingt to do with her win in Indiana. Odd, really, how everyone thought Obama's share of Republican votes was a selling point until he didn't have it any more.

As Begala so elegantly put it, "eggheads and African Americans" he's got.  Rednecks he aint'  And, by extrapolation, he may not have other ordinary working class people, either.

We shall see soon enough if the enthusiasms of the peculiar subculture called Lefty Dems spreads to the wider population.

It may be that Obama is an acquired taste like brie.  And won't cut it in the processed American cheese environs.

The rednecks have done such a great job selecting competent,mature Presidential candidates and then running the country once they got won, what the heck - let's revolve yet another campaign around pandering to them.

Screw them.

Bring on the Obama coalition and leave the bitter ignorant losers to their bitter ignorant loser candidates.

I'm with wandrecyerl: why not just try to draw the electoral map. He's confounded so many other expectations in this race, why not that one.

As for calling them rednecks: my grandmother's an Appalachian from that neck of the woods: her family are lovely people in every respect but one -- they are racist in a very anachronistic way and haven't caught up to the rest of the country. Why is that possible? They have lived in those mountains for the last four hundred years, with very little influx of outsiders. The area is rife with genetic diseases that flourish when there isn't a lot of genetic variety, including a form of muscular dystrophy that runs in my family. This is the last bastion of real racism in this country, even more so than in the deep South. And it's gonna take a long time for it to go away. Why in heavens is everybody worrying about them? He's gotta continue to bring in all those new people. Why do you think he's been focusing on young voters? He was savvy enough to understand why he had to get young voters a long time before the rest of us were. He's not blind to the fact of racism in these parts of the country, and he clearly never has been. And he hasn't been blind to the fact that the older somebody is, the less likely they are to vote for him for those same reasons.

My grandmother doesn't call her family rednecks --she calls them the "hillbillies who live down yonder."

another thought: I think once the general comes around, he'll probably be able to bring in the Latinos/hispanic voters, and I think he may be able to make a dent in some of Hillary's white working class voters that live in areas of the country where the 21st century has made some inroads. It's groups like these he will continue to have difficulty with. I think geography says it all.

Whatever.  

Josh, your post is too cute by half.  Hillary in, Hillary out, this WV result is meaningless either way.

And jacob, dlrocdoc, jmkerr, and Chan, do we have to rehash yet again the point that the Democratic primary result does not and cannot predict the general election result?  Differnt candidates, different electorates, different campaigns, different time.  Barack Obama will win West Virginia in November and win it by a sizeable margin.  Will he win it by as big a margin as Clinton might've?  Possibly not.  Does anyone care?  No one who can tell shit from Shinola.

Agree with Wandrey. This has been an election in which all expectations have been upset and all conventional wisdom tossed aside. This party has the opportunity to run with that, build new coalitions, blow up the old way of doing things and capture a new generation of Democrats along the way. (Not to mention move the country beyond the Bush-Clinton quagmire.) To nominate HIllary because a small redneck state with no urban centers has decreed that he's too black for them is incredibly stupid and short-sighted.

Screw 'em. Stay the course.

Yes, a big Hillary win in WV right after she dropped out would have been embarrassing for Obama.

But. What does Hillary have to offer Obama in any negotiations? Right now, all she has is time -- the number of extra days of general-election campaigning she can give Obama by dropping out. But she's losing days at a rate of -- get this! -- one day per day. Her bargaining position is thus weakening by the hour.

Now, Hillary also claims to have the support of important voters. But there is a difference between being supported by a group of people and being able to lead those people. So far, Hillary's ability to lead those people is unproven. Since she's going to drop out anyway, WV represents a huge missed opportunity for her. If, after dropping out, Hillary could have delivered a nomination-ratifying win for Obama in WV, then she would have proven her ability to lead an important part of her coalition. That would have given her huge, important new chips to play even after dropping out. But she didn't, so all she has to offer Obama is time, and at this point the three weeks she can give him just aren't worth very much. And they'll be worth one day less tomorrow, and so forth.

Its Appalachia. 1 in 4 voters for HRC said race was important for their decision. He loses Appalachia no matter which state it is in. Still, doesn't generally represent much of the country, where he does pretty well. I like that CA, which went to HRC, now polls for Barack. Heck, WV DEMS voted 30% for GWB last time.

It is disgusting and sad that racism is still so prevalent in parts of this country. The fact that 85% of West Virginians who felt race was the most important factor voted for Hllary Clinton is pretty self explanatory. That being said, Obama's nomination and victory in the general election will say a lot about how far we have come as a nation and it will reflect badly on parts of this country like West Virginia that are still so backward. WV, OH, PA are constantly cited as being crucial to the Dems but if that forces the party to be regressive, i.e. almost a 21st century "Southern Strategy" then maybe those states are worth conceding to focus on new battlegrounds like WI, MN, NV, VA that are becoming more progressive. I know this will sound "elistist" but if elitism=progressive thinking then I will take elitism over the pandering to rednecks any day.

Isn't it so like our girl to normalize, encourage and validate bigotry - rather than being a true leader and trying to transcend it, or asking Americans to try?  

That's Hillary: bring out the very worst in all of us.  Thank GOD she lost.

right on mpintar2 - you get it.  Time to lead, move on and up, at least on path towards a better country for our kids, rather than mired in the worst elements brought out in it by cynical users.

I'm with dlrocdoc on this one.  The Supers should keep their options open, WIDE open.  It's now clear - as if there had been any doubt up to now - that Obama is not electable.  Loss by a margin of 40% among Democratic primary voters in West Virginia is precisely the metric that the Supers should be using to judge Obama's future possible potential performance in the rest of the country and with the rest of WV voters in the General.  Especially now that Obama has pulled ahead of Hillary COUNTING Michigan and Florida, the Supers should set asid meaningless numerical metrics such as popular vote, delegate count, states won and so on, and concentrate on non-numericals such as the margin of Clinton's victory among Appalachian voters.

I also agree with Chan: "It may be that Obama is an acquired taste like brie.  And won't cut it in the processed American cheese environs."  W is the processed cheese variety, and this is the kind of Chief Executive Americans want: a man who will give up golf for the sake of the soldiers he has sent to war.  I wonder if Bill has also given up golf out of respect for the soldiers his wife sent to war.  

icarusr, that is very humorous. I assume you are being facetious? Supers should avoid "meaningless numerical metrics such as popular vote, delegate count, states won and so on, and concentrate on non-numericals such as the margin of Clinton's victory among Appalachian voters". That is one for the ages. The fate of an entire nation should be decided by how a handful of inbreeds votes in a primary? Classic. Would certainly better the now almost surreal fact that the disasterous consequences of the last eight years was largely determined by confused old people voting for Patrick Buchanan. A butterfly flaps its wings....

Wandreycerl: Your first post above indicates that there is more than a little bitterness within you. You use the word "loser" and you are on the side of the candidate who is prevailing. It is an interesting phenomenon: all you bitter and abusive people out here (and I hasten to say that there are many exemplary supporters of Obama, like WoodyBombay) who follow the Great One but who don 't quite measure up to his decency and character.

Wrong, Icarusr,

This is not a must-win state, no matter how many times Hillary and Terry McAuliffe tell you it is. (Even Chuck Todd, who has been very even-handed, scoffed at this point this morning at MSNBC's First Read.)

Obama has strengths in other parts of the country and with other demographic groups that Hillary does not. What keeps getting lost in the noise coming out of the Clinton campaign is that this is a new year with new challenges and new coalitions and a new electoral map and new energy. The fact is that for all of Hillary's assorted strengths, Obama has generated extraordinary enthusiasm with younger voters (who are, after all, the real future of the Democratic party), has strong cross-over appeal and has presided over the most successful and broad-reaching fund raising effort in the history of electoral politics.

Are you seriously suggesting that the supers should toss this all aside because Hillary wins with impoverished voters in Appalachia who think Obama is secretly a Muslim? (Wow -- that's certainly a voting bloc the Democrats can win with proudly!)

LR: At least you've given up Saint Obama or the Annointed One.  "bitter and abusive" ... because there are no bitter or abusive people among the supporters of the Great White Mother.  You do realise, because you are quite intelligent, that the constant refrain of Obama as some sort of saint or Messiah is deeply offensive, at least in these pages, to his supporters?  I really don't care if PCC or Sleepy hurls expletives - it's just a measure of how little sex they get in life and does not affect me.  But to equate political support for a gifted candidate with some sort of messianic obedience that is nowhere in evidence, at least here, is just not on.  To paraphrase Mr. Knightly, "badly done, LR, badly done."

mpintar: thanks.  You assume correctly.  But check that bitterness about Appalachian "inbreeds" at the door when you log-in.  Any way, they are not called inbreeds any more.  "working, hard working, white Americans" is the political code-word; "differently genetically enabled" is the liberal buzz-phrase.

BHLnyc: I had to read your post twice ... There is, in my post, an allusion to Wolfson's comment two days ago that "the race is not about some numerical metric".  Meanwhile, Hillary supporters are harping on her 40% margin, which is a numerical metric.  Hence the line mpintar picked up on ...

The internet is not a perfect medium of communication. ...

Icarusr,

And I just reread your post and see that you were, in fact, being facetious. Sometimes when you skim through ten, twenty, thirty posts you don't catch the nuances. (But I'm sure there are, in fact, people who think along these lines.)

Did anyone catch Bush saying he gave up golf after the Iraq war began. (In the Politico-Yahoo! interview). That was the President's big sacrifice: Golf. Golf! What, crumpets would have been asking too much?

So much for Rove's claim West Virginians can smell an elitist a 100 miles away.

Adam: Yeah, classic.

WV can smell other West Virginians 200 miles away, so Rove's claim is not all that relevant.

Hmmm. I haven't played much golf since '98. Does that mean I can say that I gave up golf after the African Embassy bombings to show my solidarity with the fight against al-Qaeda? If so, doesn't that make me mathematically twice as troop-supportive as the president? (Ten years without golf for me compared to five years for Dubya.) Maybe I need to slap one of these on my car:

www.makestickers.com/addtocart.aspx

Victory speech at a perfectly reasonable time - in the Pacific time zone. Don't you have Tivo?

Chan, our local McCain Republican says:

"We shall see soon enough if the enthusiasms of the peculiar subculture called Lefty Dems spreads to the wider population."

Uh huh.  But at least it has a chance to spread.  The race-baiting, cracker, faux-populist Hillary and her brand of Democratic politics has already peaked, with her, and is on the way down.  But there will always be room for her in the Republican party where she belongs.

My siblings are 66, 69, 71. White, middle-class Catholics from Ohio. Raised in an all-white parish in an all-white neighborhood, and attended all-white grade schools and high schools. Two attended college, one didn't. Two will vote for Obama, one won't. The one who won't can't admit he's a racist. He has many clever arguments against Obama - like many of the posts at tnr.

But he's a racist. When he lets his hair down, he starts cracking a lot of jokes demeaning to black people, and quotes Limbaugh and Hannity.

Time for a Change.

I always pick the wrong post to comment on....but just to join the elitist, out of touch fun, I'm going to carry my comments over from the "WV is Bill country" post over at The Stump:

Hillary and Bill turned West Virgnia, which admittedly was already primed, into a Perfect Storm of Know Nothingism.  I know hillbillies, I come from Kentucky Hill people.  They have all the cultural and racial attitudes of Southerners without the leavening effect of black people.

and after being scolded for snobbery by the alway pious Liberal Reformer:

Liberal Reformer,

Did you listen to those people as they were interviewed at Clinton rallies and outside the polls yesterday?  They exemplified every stereotype of a racist, close minded, nativist know nothing I've every heard of.  The Clintons have been cultivating this vote since Ohio and Texas with every tribal and cultural and racial dog whistle (and worse..."hard working americans, white americans...") in that deep bag of tricks our political history has given them.  West Virgninia and Kentucky are the only two states where Barack does not get the under thirty demographic.  That's how deeply anti-Obama (and this was a cultivated anti-Obama vote) these places are.  We are barely a generation removed from lynchings in this country, and there is a latent sentiment, particularly strong in some places (and I would put Appalacia in that catagory for the reasons I suggested above...) that can be tapped if a politician is unscrupulous enough or heedless enough of the consequenses to do so.  Hillary and Bill are those very politicians.  Anything that works to get them past this election.  They are becoming increasingly vile and the campaign they are running, and the political sentiments they are provoking, encouraging and exploiting, is worse than vile.  it is dangerous.  The last time a politician (George Wallace) went around the country massaging these particular nerves, Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were killed.  They are playing with fire for the most selfish and crass short term gain.

vanwurs, great post. I was reading a frightening story on WV in The FT a few days ago. Speaks volumes especially this woman's great quote: "I heard that Obama is a Muslim and his wife’s an atheist" and this especially progressive 24 year-old “I want someone who is a full-blooded American as president". Below is the link:

www.ft.com/.../2a50425a-1f86-11dd-9216-000077b07658,dwp_uuid=729ab242-9cb1-11db-8ec6-0000779e2340.html

Icarusr: I stand by "bitter and abusive". And these are the people on the winning side. Imagine how more Hillary - like any number of them would be if the numbers were flipped. Further, there is a certain messianism on the part of both Barack Obama and his core supporters. I know that this irritates you Obama people but nevertheless, it is demonstrably the case. I know that there is a lot of bitterness and anger among Clinton followers as well. It is a fascinating phenomenon, though: some (many?) of the very supporters of Obama who cite his being a different kind of politician, hurling the same old kind s of abuse that has been hurled since time immemorial. And this is just the primary season. Maybe this means that "no we can't" is a slogan better fitted to elements of the camp of the Great One.

Liberal Reformer:

I don't defend the stupid things that are said by Obama's supporters on his behalf. You're right that it doesn't serve his cause well to act in ways that he expressly rejects. But I also think that Obama's supporters are a little weary of being told that we see him as some kind of "messiah" and are unable to be objective. This is more than a little condescending, I think you'd have to agree -- and it's certainly why these people respond with a high level of exasperation. We're passionate, yes, but we're not stupid, and it would behoove the Friends of Hillary to remember that.

LR-  You say "I know that this irritates you Obama people but nevertheless, it is demonstrably the case."

Icarasur will surely remind you that assertion- even with the ten-dollar word of "demonstrably"- is not an argument.  So demonstrate it.

Actually, liberal, there is not a shred of evidence that Obama supporters in the aggregate are any more starry-eyed than Clinton supporters, just more enthisastic.  And how could they not be?  Supporting Hillary Clinton has to be a giant exercise in cognitive dissonance. The whole "messiah" business is just a slur the purpose of which is to demean Obama by implying that there are no sound, rational reasons for his supporters to back him.  I think there are plenty of good reasons, and I personally find lots of good reasons not to want Hillary Clinton near the White House again.

Although it has been note before, while it may appear ironic that Obama's supporters are not nearly as willing as he is to forego verbal combat, it is at least as ironic that Hillary supporters who applaud her mud-slinging take offense when the public hurls the mud back at her.  Candidates have to observe certain rules of decorum.  We don't.  Hillary has earned all of the mud we can heap upon her and more.

vanwurs, I share your concerns and your criticisms of what the Clintons are doing here, and Bill Clinton is from the south. They're not doing this naively. Having family that comes from Appalachia as well(as I write above), I agree with you that they are playing with fire here, stoking up these sentiments.

He worked so hard to downplay race, and they've just fanned the embers into flames.

"It is a fascinating phenomenon, though: some (many?) of the very supporters of Obama who cite his being a different kind of politician, hurling the same old kind s of abuse that has been hurled since time immemorial. And this is just the primary season. Maybe this means that "no we can't" is a slogan better fitted to elements of the camp of the Great One."

I concur.

A lot of what goes down on this blog is irresponsible, frat house, trash talk dressed up as intelligent political commentary. There simply is no point other than to be smart assed to make some of these comments. If the people on this blog are so damn smart and educated clean up your act and stop the offensive b/s. I've posted many times that SOME of the supporters of Obama do not get the political message that he is putting out there. The ugly comments are damaging. I've gotten so annoyed with the bad seeds in the Obama crowd that I don't want to be associated, nor will I support Obama in the general election. I may vote for him simply because of how bad is McCain but will not I tell anyone so as they think I'm a part of the disparaging renegades who shoot their mouths off so foolishly on-line, no way!