West Virginia (5/13) = 28
Oregon (5/20) = 52
Kentucky (5/20) = 52

It's all over and these three primaries change nothing.  If Clinton takes 2/3rds of West Virginia and Kentucky and, for the sake of argument, Clinton and Obama were to split Oregon 50/50, the delegate totals would be 70 for Clinton and 52 for Obama for a net gain for Clinton of 18 delegates.  And of course Obama is going to do much better than 50/50 in Oregon.
 

I heard tonight pontificating about What Does It All Mean? because Hillary won WV.  No kidding, dimbulbs - what else was she supposed to do? Geez, these people make me cranky.  

no...trouncing would be more like clinton's 30+ point win tonight and a margin of 140,000 in a very small state.

fun fact...no president has won an election without west virginia since woodrow wilson's narrow victory in 1916...bad news for ole obama :-D

No candidate has won the Presidency ... ever ... without winning their party's nomination, first. Backatcha.

michael dukakis and john kerry would not be where they are now had they not won that...wait...oooh. shoot.  

I'm confused.  I've been led to believe that Obama's victories in small states really aren't important.  What's important are the big, traditionally Democratic states.  Now I'm being told that West Virginia is really the lynch pin and small states do matter.

I guess the lessons I'm supposed to draw from all of this are:
- Small states only matter when you win them, otherwise they are to be dismissed as irrelevant.
- Every vote matters unless it's a vote cast for your opponent (see previous point on marginalizing small state victories).
- Popular vote only matters until you're no longer ahead in the popular vote, then it becomes an amorphous "electability" factor (see previous point on marginalizing actual votes cast).
- The more "electable" candidate is the one who can't win her own party's votes (see previous points on marginalizing the will of the party).

yes i said it. obama did a terrific job in idaho. he got 19 delegates to clinton's 3. he got 15 delegates to clinton's 5 in north dakota. he beat clinton with 74% to clinton's 25% in alaska. sounds impressive. but wait...about 500 people voted in the alaska caucus! less than 20,000 voted in idaho and north dakota! obama comes away from these with a 31 delegate lead. (these are states that bob barr has about a good a shot as obama in november)

yesterday in west virginia over 350,000 people voted in the primary. clinton won overwhelmingly as obama did in many caucus states where 10 or 20,000 people voted. they got about the same number of delegates...hmm.

west virginia and arkansas are states that by all means should be democratic in the fall with the right candidate. senator clinton wins those states. im sorry but wyoming and utah are just not as critical to the democratic party.

and an update to my previous post- clinton actually won by 41% and a margin of 147,000 votes (a number that is greater than the number of participants in many of obama's small states combined).  

to go Democratic whether Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton is the nominee.  The state didn't go for Gore or Kerry, and if anything it appears to be trending more Republican at the presidential level...

i think it really would be in play. i mean she won in every single county in the state, many with over 80% and huge turnout. she has crafted her strategy by appealing to these types of voters and they like her. it may not be the most successful for winning the democratic nomination but it sure is for winning the general election. we can thank john kerry's tremendous "appeal" in places like this for another bush term.  

...and pretty much irrelevant, since Obama has all but clinched the nomination. Also, to point out the obvious once again, winning a Democratic primary is a completely different thing than winning the state in a GENERAL ELECTION.  Like, I don't expect Obama to win Idaho in November... :)

George Bush won in 1988 with Dukakis winning West Virginia.
Ronald Reagan won in 1980 with Carter taking WVa.
Nixon lost WVa in 1968 and won.
Eisenhower won in '52 without WVa.

So your "Fun Fact" is a nice myth.

because electing democrats is what im concerned with here. WV is a needed win.  

If we "need" WV, we might as well concede now because I think most people assume it's a safe Republican state this November.

No Democrat shorter than 6 feet tall has won the presidency.

More to the point, in 2000, Gore won without WV (the Supreme Court tilted that one), and in 2004, it was not Kerry's loss in WV that made the difference, but Ohio, which he could have carried without winning WV.

The point, really, is that this fun fact, while true, is no as relevant given the shifting electoral map.

We can play these fun games all day, "No Democrat (or Republican) has won the White House without winning (Missouri/their home state/New Hampshire/West Virginia/Ohio/etc/etc).  Yawwwwwwn.

but the fact is ohio, pennsylvania, and west virginia are very similar in terms of voters. also, they have 46 electoral votes between them. yikes!
hope obama comes up with a plan for this region...then again hoping is what obama is good at.  

All three states are quite similar.

Except for racial composition. PA and OH are both about 84% white, while WV is about 95% white.

And, oh yeah, education. 23% of people in Ohio have College Degrees. In PA, its 25%. In WV, it is 16.5%.

Uh, also PA and OH each have a rural population of about 23%. WV is 54%.

I could go on, but is it really necessary?

Yes, there are regions in both Ohio and PA that are similar to WV, but as far as the demographics of the states go in terms that predict voting behavior, OH and PA are similar, WV is not.

The difference, of course, is the urban areas in PA and OH that WV lacks.  

between WV and PA:

1. Philadelphia
2. Pittsburgh

What were the major cities of West Virginia again?

it is a city that is on the cusp. it has been hit hard economically. there are not many yuppie voters that support obama in other cities (it seems they have mostly come here to arlington.) there are also not many minorities other than a relatively small number of blacks. that is obama's coalition right there.

actually there are no major cities in west virginia, although the suburbs of washington are encroaching (crazy i know). oh well, obama still lost those.

has taken the White House away from the other party since 1828.

And yes, I do think that is more relevant to this nomination than West Virginia's voting history.

No presidential candidate supported by a college student who doesn't capitalize the first letter of sentences in his RK posts has ever won the presidency.

But then again ...

No woman shorter than 7' 6" has ever won the Democratic nomination.

Nor has a woman who claims she was named for a then unknown New Zealand beekeeper six years before he climbed Mount Everest ever won the presidency.  Or the Democratic nomination, for that matter.

No woman taller than 2' 5" has ever won the presidency.

On the other hand ...

No black man whose African father deserted his white mother so he could attend Harvard and who himself later attended Harvard and was the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review has ever lost the West Virginia Democratic primary while going on the win the Democratic nomination NOT been elected president.

But of course ...

No son of a president whose last name is also the name of Gwen Stefani's husband's band has ever won a tied presidential election without the intervention of Supreme Court justices appointed by his father.

And no midget jello wrestler has ever won the White House without the support of at least 14 states starting with the letter "Q," either.  I bet you didn't know that. :)

this college student would have nevert thought of those. (except for the african thing)  

the consistent use of the word "historic" when it comes to the 2008 election by historians, commentators and other wine-sipping elitists who capitalize the first letter of their written sentences.

Things that live up to being called historic, in that they make history, by definition are a break from what came before.

By the way, are you familiar with the term "dead ender"?

i will be sure to capitalize my first letter for you.

and yes these commentators and historians think they are being profound when they claim something is "historic" but in the case of the 2008 election it is stating the obvious.

C- for content.

these commentators and historians think they are being profound

vs

"historic" ... is stating the obvious.

Yet ...

no president has won an election without west virginia since woodrow wilson's narrow victory in 1916

A for creative writing skills, specifically the channeling of e. e. cummings:

i

But you've still got a chance to raise your grade on the extra credit question:  By the way, are you familiar with the term "dead ender"?

Christine just sent an email announcing her endorsement to the Dems Abroad leadership list. Christine's endorsement counts for a half (.5) vote addition to Obama's tally.

Thanks for the "heads up."