Associated Press has a paragraph about last night's W. Virginia primary that made the phrase "damning with faint praise" pop into my head. Exit polling in that state revealed Hillary Clinton's base.Clinton ran away with the contest partly by capitalizing on the state's nearly all-white population and its low number of highly educated residents — two segments of voters that have backed her solidly all year.
You go girl. You own the white undereducated -- otherwise known as the same people who'll vote McCain in the general election. Clinton claims that W. Virginia is a "key swing state." But that'd be a much better argument if it had the added benefit of being true. Unfortunately for Hillary, pollster Rasmussen list W. Virginia as "safely Republican" for '08. W. Virginia is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a "swing state." Look up "red state" in the dictionary and there's a map of W. Virginia.
In short, everything Clinton won last night would be taken away from her by John McCain. Winning a percentage doesn't matter in the electoral college -- that's winner take all. Making a dent doesn't count.
All in all, it looks like Clinton wins 20 delegates and Obama wins 8, giving Clinton a net gain of twelve. As I pointed out yesterday, at that rate Clinton will need to win nine or ten more primaries by the same margins to catch up -- there are only five left...
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