Gives some weight? Are you joking? She can't even get nominated for the Democratic party and you think that this silly poll gives her a chance to be elected president?

These people hated Tubby Smith because he was black, so I don't understand why people are afraid to call them what they are, racists.

Umm...right. Because Kentucky is always a crucial battleground state for Democrats in November! Not.

All of these polls (and yes the ones that favor Obama too, like in California and Virginia and Colorado and Minnesota and yeaaaaahhhh!) are pretty much useless right now to try to figure out what will happen in November. They just are, and I am sick of reading breathless analysis of them.

Yes, thank you, we KNOW that Obama needs to do more work among whites in Appalachia. (Just like, if she had won the nomination, Hillary would have had to work to regain the support of African-Americans). That does not alter the fact that he has won. If Hillary wants to suspend her campaign to wait in the wings, so be it but we really need to move on.

He lost in KY and WV and lousy numbers there because he hasn't been there. These people feel dissed. if he makes a few stops there he'll do better. Probably still won't win WV and KY but he'll be competitive.

Does anyone else detect a bit of desperation both in the citation of these polls on TPM and, more crucially, the wish-upon-a-star analysis (what the Clinton campaign, and no one else, would call Clinical Insight) that accompanies them?

What are these people going to do, I ask you, when it's really all over and Clinton has to go back to the Senate?

There are certainly some white voters in KY who will never vote for Obama- but dismissing it as racist is not sufficient defense. Obama must win the GE despite the fact, along with several other impediments a "traditional" candidate wouldn't have to face.

My argument for KY is VA. Clinton will not be able to deliver VA and polls show Obama will. VA has 13 electoral college votes, KY has 8. Also, feel free to replace KY with CO. Obama will win CO and Hillary cannot. CO has 9 electoral college votes. Also, MN and IA come in play for Obama.

Eric it's important to add a caveat every time a poll like this is published. Obama and Clinton have very different courses on the electoral map for a possible victory.

The timing of the primaries had a lot to do with the vote. The six weeks leading to the PA primary allowed plenty of time for the Rev Wright issue to fester. During this time, Hillary also twisted the context of Obama's "cling to guns" comment and hammered that through the Appalachia primaries. If the CA primary were held today, Obama would likely win that.

Racism surely plays a part. The University of Kentucky was perhaps the last major college to integrate its basketball team. A quarter of Hillary's voters noted in exit polls that race played an important factor in their votes.

Bill and Hillary's hypocrisy is fully evident following her assassin remarks. Bill is out there playing the victim card and scolding the media, Hillary is assuming the victim role. This on the heels of her Rovian tactic of twisting Obama's 'cling to guns' comment. I sure hope the super delegates stand up en masse on June 4 and swing the needle hard to Obama.

"And with that region spanning a lot of electoral votes, this poll definitely gives some weight to Hillary Clinton's arguments on electability."

Oh, come on.

How about the areas that Obama wins that Hillary can't?

And how many Electoral Votes is "a lot"?

I wouldn't say "definitely gives some weight".

I would say "will only help Hillary Clinton's arguments on electability among those who still think Hillary has any chance to win."

Eric =Clinton Shill

Can't let her go huh Eric?

TPM is a great site except when we get Eric's pronouncements from Eric 's fax he receives from Hillary

What a joke. Kleefeld (Wolfson) is digging in the muck to find a poll to support the clintons' bs arguments. Like she would ever carry Kentucky in the general, not in a million years. A little over a week and the nightmare is over. The clintons will be doing boilermakers on the French Riviera.

In a couple of months Obama will be leading mccain by 20 points or more in the national polls and we will be arguing about how many senate seats the dems will pick up on obama's coattails. I'm guessing that we may be looking at a 60 plus majority, not counting traitor joe.

Sigh. Hillary Clinton can't win without the African American vote and believe me, they won't vote for her. I've come to the conclusion that I will vote for the democratic nominee. Someone will have to drag my black ass to the voting booth though if it's Hillary and Bill Clinton.

Having fun watching "working class whites" getting further whittled down to "Appalachians."

Oh, but waitasecond. Obama blows Hillary away in Virginia.

Keep whittling, TPM...

Obviously this poll is skewed because it comes on the heels of a smashing Clinton primary win. If anything, she's probably gotten a bounce in the state, which I doubt would be long-lasting, especially considering that McCain has spent very little time in Kentucky. I'd be willing to bet my car Hillary would never win Kentucky, if she somehow built a time machine and traveled back to 2002 and voted against the war, that is.

Oh yes, tremendous weight. Because it's so critical to win KY in an election. And WV.

A better question is Will this be the last election where the "Appalachian" vote is given much weight at all? Those areas are losing population, and therefore influence, not gaining.

and btw -- Clinton after stealing a primary is the very definition of "unelectable."

So her campaign message to the DNC is either "elect me, he may get shot" OR "he's black, white racists won't vote for him"?

Inspiring.

Obama clearly does have an Appalachian racist Appalachian problem, which means he is going to need someone on the ticket or a major surrogate with cache in the region: Webb, Kaine, etc.

Since when does a poll taken of 500 likely voters indicate a 'landslide'?
Wow, just wow!

NO. IT. DOESN'T.

Eric finished with this flourish:
"...this poll definitely gives some weight to Hillary Clinton's arguments on electability."

Uh, no it doesn't. Get this through your thick skull: The only way for Hillary to achieve this nomination is to overturn the pledged delegate count that is over. He has won the pledged delegate count. His argument to the supers is clearly proving to be the easiest one to sell. Hillary's argument is to show a poll of Kentucky. What none of these polls do is measure the level of disgust within the Democratic Party if she manages to wrest the nomination from Obama by strongarming the supers. It is obvious that Obama has the most legitimate claim to the nomination by the current metrics our party has in place. So any poll that does not take into account her path to the nomination is less than useless. This is not some magical land where Hillary gets the nomination and all Democrats are happy with the outcome. This is not sour grapes. This is a fact of the democratic race as it currently stands, and has stood since the Wisconsin Primary.

Her path to the nomination is fraught with peril for our party and any poll that does not mention her path is about as truthful as an episode of "Three's Company."

Nice try Eric. Sorry they are making you work on the holiday.

"And with that region spanning a lot of electoral votes, this poll definitely gives some weight to Hillary Clinton's arguments on electability."

Actually, what this poll shows is how massively unreliable polls are 5 months before the election. Bill Clinton won Kentucky by 3 points in 1992 and 1 point in 1996, yet we are to believe Hillary Clinton would win by 9 points? Pbfft.

If any Democrat were to win Kentucky, it would be part of a huge electoral win. Even a highly unreliable poll of Kentucky says nothing about electability.

hmmm

Electability??? Electability????

Where have you been for the last 3 days??? The last 2 weeks of the drifting of Clinton people to Obama's camp (including Cardoza + 40, the head of Clinton's Hispanic Council)?

Electability?? Electability????

You know, I will say this about Daily Kos: He came out and actually endorsed Obama. MYDD has made no secret of its Clintonian leanings. The Field is an Obama supporter, which is one reason why his critique of Obama's "Americas policy speech" was really quite compelling and a good read. I think that admitting that one has a preference is a good thing, because otherwise the site begins to take on a weird, "dead ender" tone.

By the way: There's a really interesting story about Obama and whites outside of the Clinton range of over 60 year olds in WV, KY (swing states, right???), and certain parts of PA and Ohio (actual swing states that have Obama up in the polls)in the NYTimes.

You know, what might be interesting in the waning days of this primary season is some real analysis of race/ethnicity and Obama in Puerto Rico. Or race/social class in poor, white/Native American states like Montana.

Just a suggestion...

BTW: Who do Eric and Greg know in the Clinton campaign who keeps feeding them stuff???? From the tone of these comments so far, I think you better find a source in the Obama camp.

You know, to keep ElectionTPM relevant, maybe???

Blah blah blah.

For every state like this(which will almost certainly be red come November), Obama can look to Virginia, Colorado, and North Carolina. Those are all red states he can flip that she never could. Either of them could win Ohio. So let Clinton have her moment in KY.

Appalachia is no more or less racist than all those states where the black vote for Obama exceeded 90%. Well. maybe less racist since at least some whites voted for Obama.

This is America. Those people are Americans. They get to vote. Only elitists would claim that their interests are invalid.

If you want to play the race card you can play it all the way to another Republican president.

Clinton remains the best candidate president.

oops! I misspelled "poundits!"

Eric, I'd like to propose a different reading of this poll--it points more at Hillary's Appalachia problem than Obama's. She's essentially lost the left, she's lost African-Americans, and she's lost the majority of young voters. And how did she do that? By courting Republicans and hillbillies. This would not serve her well in the general election. The reason so many Obama supporters say they'll vote for her if she gets the nomination is because we don't believe she'll get it. In fact, most Obama supporters would probably not vote for her. Many of us hate her guts. So the Democratic Party has a problem, and it's pretty serious.

Hillary Stonewall Clinton: The natural heir to the Legacy of Jefferson Davis. "Well, Woop-Dee-Doo!"

Is there some purpose for the repeated front-page headlines at TPM every time some poll somewhere turns out with a pro-Hillary result? Since there are few similar headlines for Obama-favorable poll results, it's obviously cherrypicking, and Eric seems to be the usual culprit.

At this point, I'm not the least bit interested in "Hillary Clinton's arguments on electability," but, instead, would be more interested in her arguments on her sanity.

I'm really amazed, Mr. Kleefeld, that supposedly politically astute persons like yourself can't see Hillary Clinton for what she really is: an emotionally fragile woman who is convinced that she --- and only she --- deserves the presidency and willing to engaged in her ongoing scorched-earth campaign to either be elected and/or mortally would the Democratic Party.

I fully expect her to take her fight to the Convention. She cares not one whit about the extensive collateral damage such a move would incur.

Obama has written off KY and WV. His campaign appears to understand American racism fairly well and know they can't win there. This latest Hillary gaffe also reminds us that he is probably less safe there. (Remember, JFK was warned not to go to Dallas.)

It is probably even more extreme than the poll indicates. The things Hillary would have to do to black delegates, and white delegates from highly educated populations in order to be nominated to run against McCain would be so pleasing to Kentucky voters that she would probably beat McCain 75 to 25.

She might have difficulty in some other places though.

Forget it. There's no chance Hilalry could beat McCain in those states. She's been bashing Obama for weeks and nobody, including McCain, has laid a glove on HER. One series of Bosnia sniper fire commercials in KY and WV, and those hicks would stream to the polls to vote for McCain.

Not to mention that she is losing what should be solid blue states like OR, WA, MN, WI, and IA, as well as likely blue states like CO, VA, and NM.

She's a loser, period.

I find it interesting so many Obamites know the process so well they are able to discount voting in some states and really count on others others. Frankly, I believe Obama will not win the general election. I supported Hillary, but will vote for Obama. Maybe there are large numbers of whites that will not vote for Obama for racial bias. Sad, but may be true

The goal is to win the general election, not just the nomination. If you look at state by state comparisons in voting you will see that Obama will not win without Hillary. Purists do not want Hillary on the ticket... Fine. BUT, when he loses please admit the error was yours and not Hillary's. I do not want to hear how Hillary abused him or tarnished his record or character. Please just admit you screwd the pooch.

Politics is for real and not a sport for children. It is tough and you have to be tough to participate. Looking back I cannot imagine to more different people than JFK and LBJ. Yet the worked together and won the election... Barely. Think about it.

I really need to stay away from these forums. Every time I read the lunatic ravings of you Obamaniacs, I inch that much closer to voting for McCain. It is Obama who divided a united party with his upstart campaign in the first place. Sure, he had an ingenious plan to win the primaries, but one which holds no water in the GE (where winner takes all and there are no caucuses). We need these appalachians to win, regardless of what you think their motivations are. Posts like the ones here are almost guaranteed to drive these folks even further from what they (not incorrectly, I might add) view as smug elitests. Hey, I hope I am surprised and Obama's new democrats can carry the day, but until I see that, all I can think is that you people are unmitigated morons.

Here's a big shocker: Kentucky isn't even remotely on Obama's electoral win map! (So it's okay with us if Hillary wants to pretend that she wins it in November.)

So does Obama have a problem or do these backwards racist people in Appalachia have a problem? These people are stuck in the 1800s, complete with the belief that a black man is not "supposed to run for president", according to one Clinton supporter in WV.

As an aside, these polls are meaningless. Back in December, Rassmussen had Obama losing to Hillary by 21 points, so let's have some perspective here.