Obama Lowers Expectation In West Virginia: Suggests 80-20 Margin

Political campaigns usually look to lower expectations - but one of Hillary Clinton's supporters took the opposite tack Monday, setting the bar for a West Virginia primary win at an unprecedented high at an enthusiastic campaign event....

Obama himself seemed happy to agree with the most optimistic Clinton campaign assessments. "I think President Clinton said that they are going to get 80 percent of the vote," he told reporters in South Charleston Monday afternoon. "We'll take him at his word."

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[SaddieMcCall]

In Hillary's greatest speech this evening she spoke about an 11 year old who sold his bike and video games to contribute to her political campaign. When I've contributed to political campaigns, I had to check a box that I was at least 16 years old and that the money that I was contributing was my own, and was not given to me by someone else to contribute. (So the child could not be giving money to his parent to donate on his behalf). Did Hillary announced on national tv that she violated campaign laws by taking contributions from a child?

[BlueAsh]

Let's just keep things in perspective here: Obama won Virginia 60 to 40%! And several states in a row!

At this point, nothing Hillary does matters, unless she manages to change this country from a democracy to something else.

[jupitor]

Actually obama won 5 states by these large numbers, compaired to Hillary 3. but none of that matters now. obama is now 140 delegates away from the win, and picked up two more superdelegates in the wake of Hillary's win! So give her credit where credit is due, and this will allow her to bow out gracefully the first part of June. Our job now is to unite the party to fight Mccain. Dem took another prize in Mississppi yesterday with davis loseing the Repub seat to chiles a Demacrate and that hasn't happened in that state for a large number of years.

[TiffanyHusseinBanned]

I hope everyone takes time out to listen to the best speech in the universe.

Hillary will be delivering it. I know I won't need excedrin PM tonight.

[missjabez]

I heard part of it. I thought it was phony, the way she kept going on and on about how she loves West Virginia.

[dsmyre]

And asking for money. It's hard to sound inspirational when you're begging for donations (from a largely under-educated, under-employed crowd of West Virginians).

[antaeus]

Sure she'll win tonight, but it doesn't matter. Just like OH and PA didn't matter. Ditto Florida.

Obama's got Vermont in his pocket, and he's going to crush McCain!

[TiffanyHusseinBanned]

Did Wisconsin, Virginia, and Illinois matter?

[antaeus]

You know the realities of the electoral map. It's not that some voters "matter" more than others. It's that election night often hangs on pivotal states.

All this talk of Obama "redrawing" the map is just that: talk. Come November, we'll still be looking at Florida and Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Good luck.

[flydoghead]

Hillary will win because of her promise to change the law which says

that if you divorce your wife in West Virgina then she is no longer your sister

[antaeus]

Ya know . . . as thick as folks can be in the Ohio River Valley, they're still apt enough to pick up on smug superiority when it's directed at them, and that's what they see coming from the Obama camp. Good luck with OH, PA, and WV in November.

Oh, that's right . . . Obama's going to "redraw" the map.

[flydoghead]

I thought that I was watching early election returns on CNN,

turns out I watch actually watching a rerun of "Night Of the Living Dead"

[ProgressiveThought]

The one thing that majority of black voters can recognize is a phony. If Condi rice was running for president you can bet your sweet hard working "white" american asses she would not get 90% of the AA vote. And during this campaign Slick Hilly has proved to be just as much as a fraud as Condi.

Black people are just nuanced as any other group. Barack has affluent black supporters, hard working blue collar black suppoters, college educated black suppoters, and black college student supporters. Black American got it right by voting for Kerry at over 80% clip. But the majority of hardworking white americans got it wrong by picking G. W. Bush the WORSE president in history.

[ginnypoo]

So you are the Black Democratic Party...not the Democratic Party....haha, good luck with that.

[windyindie41]

It's more apt to say that the Republican Party is the White Republican Party then to call the Democratic Party the Black Democratic Party. The whole point of the Republican party is to serve one specific type of person: White Anglo-Saxon Prodastant males. If you don't fit into one of these categories, and you are still a Republican, then it's safe to say you are a "sell-out" to the rest of your people, since trust me, a male Republican WASP definitely thinks of you as a lower class of person. I will have to give a special shout out to the large group of Hispanic voters, who for some reason vote Republican far to often, even though the Republicans in Congress display the most openly racist attitudes towards them.

As for the Democratic party, the whole point of it has always been to honor the promise of the Constitution and the great principles that this country was founded on, namely that we are ALL created equal, and we ALL deserve liberty, justice, and the pursuit of happiness. All ProgressiveThought was saying is that most black people understand this, and they also understand that the Republicans interests don't include their interests, going back to the Civil War (when the parties ideologies were switched, and Dems were Repubs while Repubs were Dems by today's standards).

[Tulka2]

80/20? That puzzles me because it seems basic human nature to want to vote for the winner in just about any contest. Is there a mail-in vote in West Virginia? What's the weather today in that state? Mospeople wouldn't walk accross the street to vote for a sure loser. Do the "folks" in that state believe her pitch about having a fair chance? So sad.

[ginnypoo]

He is not electable.......watch WV and they will show you, his numbers with the voters he absolutely has to have to win......he is losing those voters in droves....what happened? Rev. Wright, Ayers, Rezko, Michelle, all these people are unacceptable to WV voters...they are anti-American, why would they accept them, they have no reason to vote for the candidate that spent all of last month insulting them, and Obama never took any of it back. They are mad and insulted and he doesn't care...add in the words supporters use to describe them, which Hillary supporters are printing from these threads and showing them.....he is toast.

[Tropiholic]

ginnypoop blah blah blah, get some new material, it's the same tired old poop from you day after day

[windyindie41]

Ginnypoo, you are part of the problem. What's worse, you're trying to pedal your garbage to people who are WAY smarter then you are. Everything you describe about WV voters only highlights what is wrong with you, as well as them. ANYBODY who thinks that Obama is unelectable because of truly trivial matters like Rev. Wright, Ayers, Rezko, and the one soundbyte from Michelle Obama that has been twisted by the right and Hillary supporters to make her sound like she doesn't like America. While the Rev. Wright factor does has some legitimacy as an issue, it has already been dealt with by Obama in a credible way that no modern political could sincerely pull off. The main reason Obama haters bring up Wright is because, like the right did to the Clinton's when they won the White House, they are just looking for ANY petty excuse to validate their hatred of an otherwise decent man and strong leader.

But then you make-up things like "Obama spent the last month insulting WV voters" and "Obama never took it back". What are you talking about? What does this mean? Clearly, you don't live in reality. As much as I currently dislike Hillary, she has earned my contempt by running her campaign using the Rove playbook, running up a huge debt, and alienating smart voters who simply think Obama is a better candidate.

[lapinbrim]

West Virginia provides an opportunity to educate people as to why there will be such an overwhelming win for HRC. I think Obama's missed a real opportunity (not to win) to educate Americans about why such a stark contrast in outcome may occur in W Va.

There is a deep seeded institutional antipathy, based on competition for jobs, towards blacks in W. Va. because of the competition between blacks and whites for jobs. The Scots Irish and blacks have a long history of being pitted against one another, as part of a typical divide and conquer strategy.

I wish Obama would have gone to W. Va. and explained to people how the folks that want to oppress them relish this divide and that we would fight to eradicate exploitation of their fears. A real missed opportunity...

[doonie]

maybe....maybe not.....the real problem in WV is the economic challenges and if Obama becomes our POTUS, he long ago asserted that the creation of jobs for Americans will be on his short list of priorities. Like building and repairing roads, bridges, etc. Once you remove the necessity to compete for jobs, you'll find neighbors can be real neighbors.

[windyindie41]

Dude, I apologize for my other post, I totally misread what you said. It is clear that you were saying Obama WOULD make job creation a priority, and my dumbass misread what you wrote. I actually ashamed of myself for jumping the gun like this. It's been a LOOONNNNGGGGG campaign season.

[windyindie41]

And he said what where exactly? This doesn't make sense. The thought that ANY candidate in history would ever assert that the creation of jobs for Americans will be on his short list of priorities, especially in 2008 when it's a top issue. No, you are making this up, and you know it. Shameless.

[BadCompany]

Them hillbillies got a machine.

[CostaMesaJoe]

I'm not surprised from anything that comes out of West Virgina.
In fact, I didn't Bush win this state twice?

That may tell you all you need to know.............

[ggmome]

Now wouldn't it just 'jar her preserves' to only get 55/45, which it could be!

I am from Virginia, and we went 65/35 for Obama, remember, the bark don't fall too far from the tree. WVA is similar to VA in ways, there are some things you don't talk about. Its the press and Hillary and Bill and their cronies that are saying 80/20, I wouldn't allow any of them to insult my intelligence the way WVA's have been insulted! Then I would go to the poll and vote for the other person, for purpose...
My purpose...to exercise my God given right to CHOOSE!

[ceasenake]

A lot has happened to Obama's image since Virginia.

[doonie]

I hear ya ggmome! I'm from right next door to Wheeling West Virginia originally, and DESPITE the fact that many of the young folks in that area and Pittsburgh too leave when the graduate, does not mean the less educated and those who choose to remain are lightweights! Some of those downhome folks are smarter than the average bear. Hope you voted for Obama too!!

[PrObama29]

Lets not forget that Hillary Clinton set the Racist tone for how this Primary will be viewed

[KMan1]

I will never forget.

[Gmoney1]

This was Hillary's racist win - She still believes that the remaining superdelegates are going to endorse her after she finishes running - so I guess there will be a massive exodus from the democratic party which will be the black people - so good luck Hillary we will see how you fair with the hard working white voters against McCain's group -

[JackND]

Hillary doesn't realize that this will make it even harder still for them to take it away from Obama.

Black people won't have to claim racism...they'll be able to point to it.

[Calinative]

West Virginia is pretty backwater. It's where Lindie Englund is from and people think she's some sort of war hero.

[Sctt859]

He is losing WV because of people like http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/13/west-virginia-primary-igo_n_101512.html#postComment he cant help it.

[JackND]

Has she proved her own Christian credentials?

[H.L. Mencken]

Predicated upon my observations the entire American liberal Press, not limited to but rather including personally ambitious commentators who are collectively suffering the serious political pariphillia of premature political ejaculation! The war for this nomination is far from over! When the election math numbers are as close as they presently exhibit; super delegates realize that each candidates constituency is vitally necessary to capture if the democrats intend to capture the white house in the fall! One cannot win without the other!

[missjabez]

I don't know if you're trying to be funny or not. If you're in earnest, you might want to retake English Comp 101.

[neocon666]

William F. Buckley wannabe.

[mingusman]

Too bad he doesn't know how to punctuate those over-inflated multi-syllabic offerings.

[me2you]

Is nice that you say that, after your sister Hillary announce to the world that only her supporters (hard working white American) count.

[msmaggie]

Oh Mencken, he of the precise language and true bon mot, is rolling over in his grave.