May 12, 2008 at 10:11:43

Why voting for a winner will trump bigotry in West Virginia and prove the pundits wrong.

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By E. Nelson (about the author) Page 1 of 1 page(s)

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The conventional wisdom from the media pundits is that Hillary will beat Obama by 40 or more points in West Virginia even though she has no chance to win the democratic nomination for president. The media has suggested that because West Virginia is a heavily white and uneducated state a half-black candidate like Barack Obama has little chance there. Hillary's recent comments about how she is appealing to "hard-working white Americans" in West Virginia more than Barack Obama has only further entrenched this perception of polarization. Hillary's political panderings and polarizing comments have not gone unnoticed. Jay Leno joked about Hillary's political panderings saying, "Today, Hillary Clinton claimed she always wanted to be a coal miner. But those dreams were dashed when she was forced to attend Wellesley and Yale."

So the line of thought seems to be this, West Virginians would never vote for a presidential candidate that is half-black because of an apparent deep-seeded bigotry that runs throughout West Virginia. They would rather vote for a white loser than vote for the half-black contender.

Shame on the media and Hillary Clinton for not giving West Virginians more credit and insulting the good folks of West Virginia. Throughout this entire nomination process voters have been torn between two exceptionally strong and viable candidacies in Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. With Bill Clinton's prior good success in West Virginia it should not be too surprising that Hillary, prior to the North Carolina and Indiana primaries, was running very strong in West Virginia when it appeared she still had a chance to win the nomination.

A recent poll done by the Rasmussen Reports on May 5th showed that Hillary was polling at 56% and Obama was polling at 27% with 17% undecided. A previous poll done in mid February by Mark Blankenship Enterprises had Obama polling at only 22% and Hillary at 43% with 35% undecided. With all that has happened to the Obama campaign over the past 3 months it is interesting that in an almost exclusively white state like West Virginia Obama has picked up some support.

Despite the facts to the contrary there seems to be this thought among political pundits that Americans are not able to change their minds. That once they pick their horse there is nothing more that can be done to change their minds. But after North Carolina and Indiana it is now clear that Obama will be the eventual nominee. Even the mainstream media which tends to be slow to the party has come to the general agreement that Hillary has little or no mathematical chance of winning the nomination. The cover of this week's TIME magazine shows a smiling Barack Obama with the caption below reading "And the winner is …".

The U.S. News & World Report noted that this is "A sad and dangerous time for Hillary Clinton". Her campaign is reported to be almost 20 million dollars in debt and Hillary is now behind in every category that is important to the nomination process, she is losing to Barack Obama in the popular vote, the state delegates and now the super-delegates. If she stays in a race she can't win for too long she risks irreparably damaging the political clout she and her husband Bill have built up in the Democratic party for almost two decades. Tuesday the voters of West Virginia have the choice of voting for someone who will lose and apparently mask their true bigotry of not wanting to vote for a half-black candidate as many media pundits believe but are afraid to say, or they will surprise many and show Americans can change their mind and do want to vote for the eventual winner with the true American competitive spirit. I give West Virginians more credit and expect the margin between Hillary and Obama will be much closer than most predict.

Eric Nelson is freelance writer, an editor at OpEdNews, and a spiritual progressive from Minnesota who has become more politically active. The reasons for this should be obvious to most; rising poverty, a broken health care system, and a growing (more...)

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