He won't, of course.

Write it off, that is. That's not what Obama does.

While it's been assumed for months that he would lose W. Virginia, it sure would be nice if those voters could face facts that Obama has won the Democratic Party's nomination and decide to help propell him to the White House by making that loss less of a difference.

It might also help when Obama makes his appearance today. Hope so.

Democrats must unite to beat McCain. The time for bickering is over.

Too bad Hillary can't accept that fact.

It's more about education than racism. The people there think he's a Muslim or that he's going to take all their guns or that going to give all black people jobs in the government. Conspiracy theories take root in those who are just not well educated, who are poor, and who feel like life and those that are more powerful (government) are always conspiring against them.

Let's be honest. The backwoods of America are full of ignorant hicks.

Witness Bill Clinton talking to small town crowds like they're a bunch of third graders. Clearly Hillary does not respect the hard working white Americans she claims to understand.

If he picks up 8-9 delegates out of West Virginia and 17-18 out of Kentucky, Obama will be less than 10 delegates from clinching the majority of pledged delegates.

After Oregon, he will also be less than 100 delegates away from reaching 2025 assuming no more Superdelegates endorse between today and May 20.

While the voters in WV and KY will likely overwelhmingly choose Senator Clinton, it is unfair to consider all residents of those two states racist. And if McCain carries those two states by similar margins in the fall it will again be unfair to characterize an entire state a certain way.

Obama message on inclusion includes everyone, even those voters in WV or KY that will never vote for Obama based on his name or the color of his skin.

One thing that excites me about his candidacy is that if he wins, the people who believe the nation would collapse or the sky would fall if a black man were president will finally experience the reality. That reality is that lives will go on unchanged in most ways. If the demoicrats win a sweeping mandate this fall led by Senator Obama, the federal government will improve some things that will likely help lower income and lower educated population. This may open some hearts and opens some eyes that are closed now.

It's more about education than racism. The people there think he's a Muslim or that he's going to take all their guns or that going to give all black people jobs in the government.

No, that still sounds like racism to me. The first I guess would technically be religion-ism but Muslim is basically a way to say non-white/other to bigots nowadays. The last one is pretty much racism too I'd say.

billy sunday hit it spot on above,,,,,,,,, WVA is a third world country with all the same issues.
What turned the state for Bush was all of the above plus getting out the word through the jackleg preacher netwook statewide that the Democrats plan on taking their Bibles away.

How WV and Kentucky vote is a non-issue at this point. Obama will not win Appalachia in the GE for reasons more cultural then racial but it is highly unlikely Hillary would either when running against a Scots Irish war hero.

In any case Appalachia will not be a determining factor in the GE.

Just like generals fighting the last war, political pundits and consultants are always fighting the last election. But the identities of swing states are not fixed from one cycle to the next. WVa has never been on the list of states Obama would need to win. His electoral map, as has been pointed out over and over, is quite substantially different from Hillary's but nonetheless gets him about the same number of electoral votes.

One doesn't need to make disparaging comments about the good people of WVa in order to grasp this point.

What Aristedes said. I can't see how HRC doesn't lose the General to McCain all over the country, running against a Scots Irish war hero. None of the normal Dem core of kids, eggheads, and AA's are going to vote for her, and the shot and a beer male deer hunters are all going to vote for McCain anyhow. How many non-Red women over 50 are there? the Supers know all this, so W. VA and KY are beside the point.

I try not to get into the TPM bias wars, but I find it odd that this poll, which is completely expected and for a primary that will have no impact on the larger race, gets such prime coverage, when the Obama impressive superdelegate hauls of late last week all got shoved into the same tiny story down in the campaign news category. Which is the bigger story?

Edwards has suddenly reappeared in a big way, and still says that he plans to endorse. Could it be that the Obama campaign has convinced Edwards to hold his endorsement until tomorrow to offset the negative press about a big loss in WV?

We rented a cabin in West Virginia last year and I was shocked by the number of confederate flags hanging from the windows of homes.

I remembered entering a convenience store and having the owner watch me to make sure I wasn't going to steal anything.

If I were Obama I would write off this state too.

Why is Obama not in W. Va campaigning? No better time to prove himself to these voters than now.

Steve LaBonne,

Congratulations for the most constructive comment on this thread.

There are lots of reasons why Obama won't carry WV in the primary or the general. Them's the breaks; don't sweat it.

This poll is exactly where the other polls have been. Not sure how this is interesting, exactly. Obama hasn't even campaigned in WV - a smart move, I'd say. The problem for Clinton now is to explain this disproportionate win as anything other than a response to her naked race-baiting over the course of last week. Wednesday will be of interest just to hear the Clinton campaign frame this win. This has been a dangerous play by them. If they wrap themselves in this "white" victory, it'll only harden the suspicions many have formed about their essential characters (them being Hill and Bill).

Reading the occasional TPM post complaining of a pro-Hillary bias for this website makes me understand how some of us humans can believe in conspiracy theories around most events, regardless of actual facts.

We've seen this pattern before. Candidate A is "widely expected" to win an upcoming primary. The MSM reports this, political junkies discount it when they stick their pins in their electoral maps. All agree that it "will not affect the fundamentals".

Then Candidate A actually does win. Eureka! A game changer!! Candidate A now has "momentum" and Candidate B "can't close the deal". The race somehow looks different.

Watch for last week's Obama Inevitability to be called into question - Can She Still Win? - based on losing two primaries everybody already knows he'll lose.

I don't appreciate the bile directed toward West Virginia.

I am confident West Virginians will warm to Obama the more they get to know him. (They already have some positive idea of his running mate.)

And I hope some here will retract their "backwood hick" insults when West Virginia gives Barack Obama 5 Electoral College Votes on November 4th.

The suggestion that Barack Obama may have to write off West Virginia is absurd!

Remember West Virginia voted for Carter in '80 when so called enlightened liberals in states like Massachusetts did not. West Virginia voted for Dukakis in '88, when great states like California did not. And West Virginia also voted for Clinton in '92 and '96.

The current West Virginian polls reflect the voting patterns of the counties that border West Virginia.

The Pennslyvania counties that largely border West Virginia gave Obama 25%+/-.

The three Maryland countries bordering West Virgina gave Obama 35%+/-

The eight Ohio countries that border West Virginia had a wider range from 19% to 45%, with an average of about 28%.

The eight North and Easterly bordering Virginia counties returned Obama with numbers in the low 60% to high 40% range. The six southern and more westerly Virginian counties had a range from 9% to 34%.

From this one can extrapolate that Obama's base on the fringes of West Virginia to be close to 30%, but throw in Charleston and Morgantown, and it could be pushing 35%. Add Obama's clean coal push and the fact that voters generally like to be able to say that they voted for the winner, then I think you expect Obama to take away a respectable mid to high 30% of the votes on Tuesday.

How strange is it, but if Obama did get 40% in what would be a decisive 20% defeat, it would be portrayed by the pundits as something approaching a profound shift.

west virginia and kentucky...ugghhh!!!! here is a feel good story from ky. i once saw this documentary about corbin ky. it was about how in the 1930's the whites of the town marched across the tracks into the black neighborhood and rousted them all out of bed and evicted them from the town on trains. the film featured 90's interviews with elderly white townspeople who remembered the night. they did not deny or repent. no remorse. wolf blitzer will not be talking about these proud chapters in our history. of nazi germany in the usa. makes you proud, huh?!>?

And I see that JZ has his own experiences posted above that back up what John Cole says. So, WV: some racists, a hell of a lot of good people, but many of those good people won't take a chance on Obama.

At least, not yet. He may not be able to win the state in the fall, but I think he can make inroads in the WV popular vote while winning the other states needed to get the presidency. And who knows: maybe he could win WV in his second term. :-)

Obama losing by this much shouldnt suprise anybody. WV is basically like Southern Indiana or Southern Ohio, except instead of just being the southern part, its the entire state. Obama lost like 70-30 in those areas.

djamo, you can take micigan off that list. get us a fair election with both names on the ballot and i will take my chances on senator obama. now florida does not look great, but again it was not a contested election. west va., and ky. i am fully ready to drop them from the 50 states. clinton by the way, is down to what 15 states? if you ythink that is a winning strategy, you might be right for a job on hillary's campaign staff. i hear they are hiring for the final strech run.

djamo, you are so right about everything you say. like i said, the clinton people are looking for some "hard working" americans to help her in the tough slog ahead. wages to be paid at a later time of course. as they fight on to denver. don't stop believing. victory is right around the corner. the 15 state strategy is a proven winner. why can't people on these liberal blogs get it through their thick, elitist eggheads? as goes west virginia, so goes the nation.

I second the calls to stop bashing West Virginians. They've taken more than enough shit over the years (as already pointed out above, they have damn good reasons to be suspicious of outsiders). While some of them may no doubt need to bring their views a bit more up to date, they are for the most part the downtrodden, not the people doing the treading.

The comments of this post is getting really dumb very very fast.

If you don't know people of WV and Kentucky are racist I suggest you travel through rual WV or Kentucky with a group of black people after dark.

If you don't believe that race plays a "part" in Barack overwhelming support amoung black people and young people t

If you think being black is the "only" reason for Barack support among blacks. I would remind you that Jesse Jackson ran for president twice. As well as a black woman ran for president in 2004.

Race in this country is nuance and making blanket statements dosen't move this country foward on the race issue.

Also we need to be honest that Hillary lost the nimination because she ran a very very bad campaign it is that simple. She had to lend herself money, she didn't have a strategy after Feb 5th. Her message was inconsistent. She didn't even bother showing up in some caucus states.

Also realize that the only way Hillary Clinton can win this nomination is convincing the superdelegates that non black people will not vote for Obama in swing states.

However if she is able to convince the superdelegates I and a lot of black people will never vote for a Democratic in an elected office again. Now only am I black but I'm a black person with pride. If the Democratic party can't stand up for me on the issues on race. I see no reason to stand up for it on ANY issue.

The only way the Democratic party can be sucessful in the fall and in the future is by being united and not playing on racial prejudices.

How u going to deny racism is a factor when people openly admit that the reason he is black is why the reason why Obama does not have their vote.

this from http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/26/133958/391

"George Packer offers some evidence that in Appalachia it's racism:

On Wednesday, I was in Inez, Kentucky, the Appalachian town where L.B.J. declared war on poverty forty-four years ago this month. John McCain was on a tour of "forgotten places"...After [McCain's] speech, I left the county courthouse and crossed the main street to talk to a small group of demonstrators holding signs next to McCain’s campaign bus. J. K. Patrick, a retired state employee from a neighboring county, wore a button on his shirt that said "Hillary: Smart Choice."

"East of Lexington she’ll carry seventy per cent of the primary vote," he said. Kentucky votes on May 20. "She could win the general election in Kentucky." I asked about Obama. "Obama couldn’t win."

Why not?

"Race," Patrick said matter-of-factly. "I’ve talked to people—a woman who was chair of county elections last year, she said she wouldn’t vote for a black man." Patrick said he wouldn’t vote for Obama either.

Why not?

"Race. I really don’t want an African-American as President. Race."
What about race?

"I thought about it. I think he would put too many minorities in positions over the white race. That’s my opinion. After 1964, you saw what the South did." He meant that it went Republican. "Now what caused that? Race. There’s a lot of white people that just wouldn’t vote for a colored person. Especially older people. They know what happened in the sixties. Under thirty—they don’t remember. I do. I was here."

Everyone knows that race is a factor in Obama’s low vote among older whites, though reporters say that no one will admit it personally. In Eastern Kentucky, people (and not just J. K. Patrick) admit it personally, without hesitation or apology. It’s impossible to say how much this has affected the primary or will affect the fall election. For voters like those I met in Inez, the objection to Obama has nothing to do with Reverend Jeremiah Wright or, God knows, Bill Ayers. There’s nothing Obama can do about it. He can’t even mention it."

It's kind of ridiculous to claim that Obama is losing because there are racists in West Virginia. He is losing because he's ignoring West Virginia. I think that is a big mistake. It's the same reason he lost Michigan and Florida (which were states where he didn't campaign). As people get to know Obama, they like him.

Full disclosure: I am an Obama fan and I voted for him. I think it's foolish of him to ignore West Virginia. It's a key state in the fall. We cannot give up on it.

I've gotta say it -- you folks speak of West Virginians as though you're dealing with a different species. No doubt there are racists in West Virginia, just as there are in Boston and Manhattan. But it is the height of presumption to say that a landslide win by Hillary is only explained by racism.

And, yes, I was born in, and live in, West Virginia now. I also support Obama, and have since his appearance at the September 2006 Jefferson Jackson Day dinner nearly two years ago. And I was elected, along with 25 other Obama supporters to 26 of the 28 delegates to the State convention next month, who will in turn select delegates to the Denver convention.

A few notes of history:

(1) West Virginia represents the only permanent geographic change as a result of the Civil War, we broke away from Virginia in 1863, in part, but by no means solely, because of slavery.

(2) in 1954, a young Governor announced that he would follow the decision of the Supreme Court, shortly after Brown v Bd of Educ came down, and W. Va. was the only southern state to stay out of the massive resistance the rest of the south followed committed to for decades

(3) in 1960, West Virginia's primary became the spring board for JFK to win the nomination, over Hubert Humphrey, at a time when the Catholic population of the state was less than 4% -- and yes with my father's active support.

(4) and by no means least, the Clinton's won big in W. Va. in 1992 and even bigger in 1996, and they are liked here, a lot. In plain English, you don't have to be a white supremacist to support Hillary Clinton here, and note again, however, that I am a 60-year old, white male and support Obama, not Clinton.

If you are still sneering at the idea of West Virginians and assume they are all racists, I have a suggestion. Get a real sharp take on a bigot, go look in a mirror.

Kudos to turnip and Bonne. Racism and its big brother bigotry are no less American traditions than human traditions, and are probably genetically rooted in species preservation. They are stronger in some places than others but they never go away. But they are antithetical to democracy and so must be continuously and creatively confronted in a constructive way. Turnip addresses this best and in doing so points out why I’m for Obama. Of all the current candidates he has best demonstrated the careful articulation and courage necessary to effectively draw distinctions that disarm bigotry. Hillary has not demonstrated this ability, and has in fact used divisiveness in her campaign, which is one reason I think the bloom has departed her campaign over time, a campaign which began from a public perception of inevitability. Bush and his crew have embraced and encouraged divisiveness, have made it a rock of his policies, both national and international, and have fed off it. McCain would continue Bush’s policy, fertilizing it with a paucity of mental sharpness and an often erroneous and helplessly simplistic view of the world. Obama isn’t perfect, and I take strong issue with his stated positions of uncritical support for Israel, and his health care plan which, with superior models of health care available in most first world countries, is very weak. But the future of the US is not in unilateral action, but in international cooperation. The American economic equation, built on cheap oil that we do not possess, on growth of consumption that recognizes no boundaries, on military power being an essential arm of economic growth, on the falsehood that America is invincible, and the ideas that the US somehow does not need to possess either a manufacturing capability for its basic needs, or an effective program of infrastructure maintenance, have been living out their sunset years. We are soon to see the end of them, whether we have prepared ourselves or not. The next US president will inherit a fully-fledged fascist government, with an amalgam of law, military, transnational business, technology, governmental surveillance of its own citizens, and an impenetrable complexity that is unmatched in all of human history. Moreover, to keep things in perspective, the populations of those individual sectors will exceed the entire populations of most of the past major civilizations of world history. The politic of yesterday, or today, will be vastly insufficient for tomorrow.

My guess is that superdelegates see the same polls as the rest of us, and the likely outcome of WV & KY has not seemed to deter them from supporting Obama:
5-7-08 Rep. Heath Shuler (NC) for Clinton.
DNC Jerry Meek (NC) Obama
DNC Inola Henry (CA) for Obama
Switched DNC Jennifer McClellan (VA)
Clinton to Obama
5-8-08 Rep. Brad Miller (NC) for Obama
Rep. Rick Larsen (WA) for Obama
5-9-08 Switched Rep. Donald Payne (NJ)
Clinton to Obama
Rep. Peter DeFazio (OR) for Obama
Rep. Chris Carney (PA) for Clinton
DNC John Gage (MD) for Obama
DNC Edward Espinoza (CA) Obama
DNC Vernon Watkins (CA) for Obama
DNC Wilbur Lee Jeffcoat (SC) for Obama
Laurie Weahkee (NM)# for Obama
Rep. Mazie Hirono (HI) for Obama
DNC Joe Johnson (VA) for Obama.
Rep. Ciro Rodriguez (TX) for Clinton.
5-10-08Kristi Cumming(UT)# for Obama
DNC Carol Burke (VI) for Obama
Switched DNC Kevin Rodriguez (VI)
Clinton to Obama
Dave Regan (OH)# for Obama
Arthur Powell (MA)# for Clinton
Rep. Harry Mitchell (AZ) for Obama.
5-11-08DNC Crystal Strait (CA) for Obama
5-12-08Rep. Tom Allen (ME) for Obama
DNC Dolly Strazar (HI) for Obama

Someone check my math, but that looks like a gain for Obama of 22, and a net gain for Clinton of 1 (counting 4 endorsements, and 3 delegates leaving her camp for Obamas)
That is pretty daunting in spite of the probable outcome of WV & KY

Leave WV alone people, I mena really alone. I don't mind giving up WV as long as NC and VA are in play this NOV.

The reason blacks started supporting Obama was because he won Iowa. After that they believed that he could win. It had nothing to do with Hillary playing the race card. There was never any race card played by the Clintons. Blacks needed a reason to believe that Barack was legit and needed white people to give it to them. I am black and I know that many blacks want to see a black president. It doesn't matter if he can do the job, it just matters that he is black. I have had family and friends and people I thought were fair minded vehemently disagree with my voting for Hillary. Please stop trying to tell us what black people are thinking, because black people know what is going on. Hillary would make the better president, but that isn't what is important to most of the Obama supporters. It is racist for blacks to vote for Barack because he is black and I know for a fact that many are doing just that.

So you saying its possible for the state of WV and KY to vote for a person of color.
I guess of both candidates were none white it would be possible.

Why would the Clinton's want to alienate black voters? What race card? Black people were looking for a reason to dump the Clinton's and Obama's campaign played up the race thing to do just that. Hillary's LBJ/MLK comment was 100% accurate and MLK himself was smart enough to know that he needed white people to support his efforts if they were ever to become reality, especially white people in power. Blacks were already on board with Obama before SC. Oprah helped a lot and so did the Iowa win. He got 80% of the black vote in the Nevada caususes, before SC. The Clintons's are not stupid and would never intentionally say something to piss off black people. Obama and his supporters painted the Clinton's as racist in order to get the blacks solidly in his corner.

Bret 08 said:

The Clintons's are not stupid and would never intentionally say something to piss off black people. Obama and his supporters painted the Clinton's as racist in order to get the blacks solidly in his corner.

Ridiculous. The Clintons don't care who they piss off, as long as it gets them closer to power. They saw the black vote going for Obama and decided to use that to their advantage with white voters, and it backfired. Hillary's comments to USA Today are as close to proof of that as you can get.

Kudos to the Obama camp for showing no fear in pointing this out.