West Virginia's primary election on Tuesday has lots of exciting races to be decided, but the presidential nominee ballotting on the Democratic side looks a tad anticlimactic after Barack Obama's convincing 14-point win in North Carolina and his razor-edge two-point loss in Indiana.
The New York Times described Hillary Clinton's options as "dwindling," and NBC's Tim Russert said flat out, "We now know who the Democratic nominee is going to be, and nobody's going to dispute it." In other words, Obama.
Around the Mountain State, the local idiom might put it to Hillary this way: "Great race, sweetie, but you don't have the numbers." This, despite Gov. Joe Manchin's recently expressed conviction that West Virginia would be "a player" in the nominating process.
Obama's delegate count, embracing both those awarded in caucuses and primaries and those pledged to him as super delegates, puts him about 140 ahead of Hillary and just 200 shy of what's needed to clinch the nomination with six states to go.
Sen. Clinton should do well in our primary and also in neighboring Kentucky. West Virginia's demographics of a largely rural and small-town, blue-collar white electorate fit the junior senator from New York like a glove.
Deeper pockets on the Obama side, however, mean more offices, more staff and more money poured into television ads -- expect a ton -- between now and the primary. Clinton, on the other hand, has recently had to lend her campaign another $6.4 million and has a tough case to make with prospective donors. What can she say, "Give me more money, and I'll turn this around?"
She had every chance to do just that in North Carolina and Indiana with the fracas over the incendiary remarks by Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, suggesting God was punishing America on 9/11 for the nation's social sins (racism and aggressive acts of war against other countries). A much bigger win in Indiana and a sharp narrowing of Obama's victory margin in North Carolina would certainly have turned on a caution light about the Illinois senator's electability.
But it didn't happen. And it's unlikely that any such yellow light will start flickering as the two campaigns move in force into West Virginia, Kentucky and Oregon. Obama, with his blunt disavowal of Wright and his views, seems to have successfully put the pastor connection behind him -- at least for the primary process. Expect him now to address himself to the presumptive Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, rather than continue to cross swords with Clinton.
She, on the other hand, to pursue her bid will have no choice but to continue to question Obama's electability. And that is precisely what the Democratic party elders want to tamp down or extinguish. "Look," they are surely telling her, "stop making John McCain's case for him. It's over. Get behind the nominee."
John Patrick Grace is a book editor and publisher. He lives in Huntington.
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