Clinton coasts to win in West Virginia

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), who is facing increasingly long odds in her effort to wrest the Democratic nomination from Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), was projected to easily win the West Virginia primary Tuesday night.

Polls leading up to the contest showed Clinton leading by wide margins and Obama effectively conceded the contest in the closing days. The race was called immediately after polls closed.

{mosads}Even though the Illinois senator made a swing through the state Monday, his campaign said in both internal and widely circulated preemptive memos that “there is no question Sen. Clinton is going to win by huge margins” in both West Virginia and next week’s contest in Kentucky.

The Clinton campaign argued that Obama had no good reason to concede the state given some of his institutional advantages, including receiving the endorsements of Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and Rep. Nick Rahall (D), and outspending the Clinton campaign there.

“By every measure, the Obama campaign has waged an aggressive campaign in the Mountain State,” a Clinton campaign memo entitled “Why West Virginia Matters” stated Tuesday.

The former first lady’s campaign argued in the memo that West Virginia “is used to picking winners,” and Clinton will no doubt use the win here to add to her argument that she competes stronger in swing states than Obama and noted in the memo noted that “every nominee has carried the state’s primary since 1976, and no Democrat has won the White House without winning West Virginia since 1916.”{mospagebreak}

“Given the attempts by our opponent and some in the media to declare this race over, any significant increase in voter turnout, coupled with a decisive Clinton victory, would send a strong message that Democrats remain excited and energized by Hillary’s candidacy,” the memo read.

But recent evidence suggests that the message might be falling on deaf ears after Clinton last week narrowly won Indiana and was thoroughly beaten in North Carolina.

{mosads}Since that time, the Obama campaign has been rolling out a handful of superdelegates each day that were either previously committed to Clinton or undecided.

The Obama campaign offered “perspective” on the numbers in its memo Tuesday, noting that the campaign has secured the support of 27 superdelegates since last week’s contests while only 28 will be up for grabs in West Virginia – and those will be proportionally awarded.

As a result of the influx of superdelegate support and a growing media consensus that Clinton is almost out of options, Obama has taken on the air of a candidate turning more toward the general election against presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) than the primary against the New York senator.

While Clinton was scheduled to give an election night address from Charleston, W.Va., Obama was in the general election swing state of Missouri.

The Illinois senator also announced this week plans to visit Michigan and Florida, two states that were stripped of their delegates for violating party rules but are nonetheless seen as crucial to victory in November.

The Obama campaign has taken great pains to avoid the perception that it is pressuring Clinton to withdraw from the race, and her spirited run in West Virginia and likely Kentucky indicate that she is hoping to change some minds with landslide victories in both states.

Obama, however, is favored to win next week’s contest in Oregon, and there has been widespread speculation that the Illinois senator might be in a position to declare victory that night, having secured the 2,025 delegates needed to win the nomination.

But David Plouffe, Obama’s campaign manager, said on a conference call with reporters Tuesday morning, that the campaign will “definitely” not do so next Tuesday.
The last nominating contests of the protracted battle are June 3 in Montana and South Dakota.