Hillary Wins West Virginia - Now What?

By Kevin Robinson in News on May 14, 2008 4:05PM

If you were anywhere near a television last night (or in a bar), you watched Hillary Clinton win a convincing victory in West Virginia last night.

While the Obama camp has been acting like the nomination is a done deal, Clinton was making what may be her first appeal to superdelegates in a victory speech. "Choose who you think will be the best candidate in November," she told a crowd of supporters there last night. Clinton won the state by an overwhelming majority - no surprise given the demographics. Clinton has consistently polled well among white, working-class voters, especially voters from rural areas who lack formal education.

"This continues to be a hard-fought race from one end of our country to the other," she said. Except that Democratic party elders don't think so. And the national press has all but written her off, as has the GOP and the Obama campaign. While Clinton was basking in the glow of the 27 delegates she won last night, Barack Obama, who made only two campaign stops in the Mountain State, was busy addressing voters in Missouri, a state whose primary has come and gone. "...I know that we'll be able to come together quickly behind a common purpose. There's too much that unites us as Democrats. There's too much at stake for our country," Obama told supporters in Cape Girardeau, Mo., shortly before polls closed in West Virginia.

But does this vote really mean anything? With more than a dozen superdelegates moving over to Obama in the week since Indiana and North Carolina, it sure looks like the party has settled on its candidate. With Clinton standing to win Kentucky next week, and Obama planning a win in Oregon, plus a flood of superdelegates between now and then, its only a question of what Hillary will do with her base come August.

Photo from Hillary Clinton's campaign Flickrstream