West Virginia and Beyond ** Update**

I have to admit I was slightly heartened to hear James Carville admit that he believes that the nominee of the Democratic Party will be Senator Obama and even went so far to say that once he is the nominee he'll send a check and make his commitment to work for him.  A true democrat (even if I disliked his comments about Senator Richardson).  His quote:  

"I'm for Senator Clinton, but I think the great likelihood is that Obama will be the nominee."

"As soon as I determine when that is, I'll send him a check," he added.

So what happens now.  We clearly have two (2) races that Senator Clinton is expected to win big in, West Virginia (population favors her with these statistics:

much stronger among voters over the age of 65 in Pennsylvania and Ohio; more than 15 percent of West Virginia's population is 65 or over. (The national average is 12 percent.)

Seanator Clinton tends to do well with voters on the lower end of the income and education scales. Census Bureau and other government data show nearly 18 percent of West Virginians live below the poverty line and roughly 74 percent of the state's population makes less than $50,000 a year. Put another way, West Virginia ranked 50th among the states in household income and 48th in the percentage of adults with a high school diploma.

I think the best we can hope for in West Virginia is that Senator Obama comes in slightly better than expectations though I certainly am not holding out a lot of hope for that given that the decision was basically made to not do a lot of heavy campaigning there which I think is understandable. Why walk into a situation where you know you're already heavily favored to lose by huge numbers.  Some people you'll never change their minds no matter what.

I'm distressed more than I can tell you about the number of Senator Clinton supporters who state that they will vote for Senator McCain versus voting for Senator Obama and even more frightening the number who say they will write in Senator Clinton - writing Senator Clinton in will be throwing a vote away and voting for Senator McCain to me indicates they have no belief in the principles of the Democratic party.

Then next week we have Kentucky - this state is also heavily favored to go to Senator Clinton - again it would be nice to see a loss of less than projections for Senator Obama.  The bright point of this is that we have an exceptional opportunity on this particular date that Oregon is heavily favored for Senator Obama so I anticipate that if Senator Clinton decides that she can still 'bow out gracefully' (if that's even a possibility at this point) that might be her next best opportunity.

Terry McCauliffe must be drinking some incredibly good kool-aid as he still insists that there is a popular vote metric that is going to show that Senator Clinton is the winner of these primaries.  I do not know what numbers he is using but I can't find any that add up (unless of course you 'disenfranchise' the caucus voters - since after all they're not representative of the population </snark>.  Even if you count Michigan and Florida votes FOR Senator Clinton and leave out the Michigan 'undecided' votes then Senator Clinton is not and cannot be ahead in any popular vote count.

So, moving on - I have read somewhere that a new poll showed that 55% of Democrats favor an Obama/Clinton ticket.  I had it published in here before my diary self destructed and now I can't find it <sigh>  At any rate, the bottom line (at least for me) is that Senator Clinton offers to a joint ticket the opportunity for her supporters to not feel disenfranchised by the system (since Senator Clinton has been so adamant that this election was hers from day one).  The reality of it is that I (and I'm sure there are many more like me) don't see this ever happening for a number of reasons that can be summed up this way (a) same old politics (b) Bill Clinton (c) not a team player.  Can anyone really believe that Senator Clinton would be 100% supportive as VP? I am sorry, I simply can't.

I believe at this point (and I'd love to be wrong) that Senator Clinton is going to hail these victories and point out again and again to anyone who is willing to listen (and the media will continue to broadcast) how these wins make her more electable in the fall because these states 'matter' (translated - they matter because they voted for me) while continuing to dismiss the Caucuses (who clearly don't matter because they don't represent the electorate but rather the party faithfuls (huh - what is that logic??))

If we are fortunate more Super Delegates will come forward and support Senator Obama (though I'm certain that Senator Clinton will point out that while they may support him today that they are under no obligation to continue that report through to balloting) and hopefully that will mean that Oregon will show Senator Obama with the '2025' magic number.  Then of course we'll hear Senator Clintons supporters yelling that the number is wrong because Michigan/Florida delegations are not included in this total (sigh).  And on it will go.

Unfortunately I have this horrid feeling that Senator Clinton is so certain that she should win this election that I believe she will take this all the way to the credentials committee.  This is truly unfortunate and shows no party unity but rather in my mind shows that Senator Clinton believes in her own inevitability.  

Senator Clinton has proven to be a strong leader and a capable leader, instead of spending so much energy working to damage this party one would hope that at some point it would be obvious that she's needed to unify this party.  Unfortunately I'm unclear at this point whether personal ambition has now come before the general good of the party and of the country.  Very sad state of affairs.

So we'll sit back and watch and see how this plays out.  I am personally glad that Senator Clinton did not get out before WV or Kentucky - I believe that it would look very bad for the 'nominee' to lose two states back to back more because of demographics than any other reason.

So let's hope that my worst fears are unfounded and that Senator Clinton does find a way to bow out gracefully on the date of the Oregon/Kentucky Primaries.

I further hope that there is really not much to the supporters of Senator Clintons threats to vote for Senator McCain, that would be very bad overall. I feel that a lot of things are said during the heat of primaries and that these supporters will realize that a vote for Senator McCain is far more damaging than losing the primary.

If in fact Senator McCain does in fact wind up as President I suspect that FEW if any of Senator Obama's supporters would step up and support a Senator Clinton run in 2012 (which of course is another theory about what's really going on).

Cross your fingers folks and let's hope for this to all work out well for everyone!

UPDATE:  I FOUND IT:  Here's the results of the Poll I referred to earlier!:

A new Gallup poll shows 55 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents surveyed think Obama should offer the New York senator a spot on his ticket. That number is significantly influenced by Clinton's supporters — close the 75 percent of her backers want the No. 2 spot to be offered, while only 43 percent of Obama supporters feel the same.

***UPDATE**** I hope that Mr Carville Remains true to his word and that he has that promised check ready. I believe that John Edwards endorsement will cause an avalanche in the next few days that will remove any doubt who the REAL nominee is.