Open thread: Hillary death rattle in West Virginia; Update: 20% say race is factor? Update: Hillary wins West Virginia
posted at 6:11 pm on May 13, 2008 by Allahpundit
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Exit polls are trickling in so we might as well open a thread. Victory is a foregone conclusion; what we’re looking for tonight is data damaging to the Messiah. How’s this?
Early CBS News exit polling shows that just 23 percent of Clinton voters in the West Virginia primary say they would be satisfied if Obama becomes the Democratic nominee. Three in four Clinton supporters would be dissatisfied with Obama carrying the Democratic banner-the highest number in the primaries to date…
Looking ahead to the general election, 36 percent of Clinton voters in West Virginia say they would vote for Obama if he becomes the nominee, while 35 percent plan to vote for McCain and 24 percent say they won’t vote at all.
20 percent said Obama shares Jeremiah Wright’s views “a lot.” We’re not going to liveblog the results, obviously, as the race will be called as soon as the polls close, but while we wait for the demographic data here’s Mary K’s latest post asking when and how Her Majesty’s finally going to bow out of this debacle. I was saying to a friend earlier this afternoon that there’s a genuine opportunity for Hillary here if she plays her cards right: Much to my surprise, our commenters agreed with me on Friday that we’ll be sad to see her finally go, indicating that she’s earned a considerable amount of goodwill on the right over the past month or so thanks to her perseverance, flashes of hawkishness, and softer touches. If Obama loses and she spends the next four years cultivating that centrist appeal, she could be very formidable in 2012. The left will hate her, but the left already hates her, probably irretrievably. The only Clintonian thing left to do is plant one foot in liberalism, one in conservatism, and bridge that divide all the way to the White House. Exit question: Hillary Clinton, healer?
Here’s Laura Ingraham from today’s show, anticipating Jim Geraghty in preemptively rebutting the media’s anti-Hillary spin of tonight’s results. Strange days, my friends.
Update: Tomorrow’s lede today.
Racially motivated voting appeared to be running higher than usual: Two in 10 whites said the race of the candidate was a factor in their vote, second only to Mississippi. And only a third of those voters said they’d support Obama as the nominee against John McCain, fewer than in other primaries where the question has been asked.
Update: It’s 7:30, the polls have closed, and the nets have called it for Hillary. Stand by for the full exits.
Update: And here they are. Per the gender split, she’s looking at about a 30-point win. Unusually, she won all education groups, including post-grads; was the pick of more voters as being the only candidate who was honest and trustworthy (35/19); won independents 54/42; won white Democrats by 46 points; and won among the 20% of voters who said race was important to them, 81/16. The media will go hog wild with the racial numbers to spin this as a tainted victory for Her Majesty, but even if you exclude that vote entirely she still wins by a margin well into the teens.
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Huckabee’s in double digits again.
More votes than Paul and Romney combined.
Red Pill on May 14, 2008 at 1:36 AM
Me thinks AP is secretly in Hillary’s corner
Kini on May 14, 2008 at 1:50 AM
…or Geraldo.
TBinSTL on May 14, 2008 at 2:04 AM
The poll results are bollocks… the result in Mississippi is far more indicative than the primary results in WV.
lexhamfox on May 14, 2008 at 4:45 AM
Maybe, maybe not. It is certainly indicative of the pathetic mess that the congressional GOP has become. When the Republican party’s most effective spokesman is Joe Lieberman, you know there are serious problems.
But as far as the presidency goes, I don’t think that people generally vote from the bottom of the ticket up.
Then again, McCain with a veto proof Dem Congress would be pretty ugly.
Priscilla on May 14, 2008 at 7:04 AM
Its West Virginia, of course that will be the case. He was running for President of the Confederate States of America and West Virginia has an identity crisis in that regard.
I am not sure Romney’s name is on the ballot in West Virginia like Huckabee’s and Paul’s.
EJDolbow on May 14, 2008 at 8:33 AM
2 in 10 whites that admitted it and apparently status quo of about 9 in 10 blacks. Only thing higher than usual is admitting it imo.
Anyway, does Messiah give a crap about this? Was there any chance of him getting WV in the general?
Dash on May 14, 2008 at 9:09 AM
EJDolbow on May 14, 2008 at 8:33 AM
He was on the ballot in my precinct here. I voted for him because I couldn’t bring myself to participate in OpChaos, but not going to vote for McCain when there is still a choice.
dish on May 14, 2008 at 9:20 AM
LMAO at the Democrats. This is turning into the GOP circa 1976. By the end of the 1976 primaries Republicans pretty much knew they should have gone with Reagan, but Ford had the delegates to win on the first ballot.
This time last week, I thought Hillary would settle this race by getting Obama to ofer her the VP spot and then turn it down, and Obama would agree to pay off her debt. Now, I don’t see that happening. She has no reason to stop running now. She knows she is the strongest candidate, and Obama cannot win in November, and a lot of Democratic insiders know it too. If she can force a second or third ballot at the convention she just might win it.
Remember, the Clintons believe the White House is their personal property. They have been planning this succession for 30 years. And they do not give a damn about the Democratic Party, so all the entreaties about hurting the party and getting on wth the general election are going to fall on deaf ears with them.
rockmom on May 14, 2008 at 9:25 AM
I don’t know if someone already beat me to this, but…
It was really funny listening to Hillary! with all of her “mountain” references…
Hillary is the “Mountain Momma”, hoping the rough country roads up the mountains of West Virginia will take her home to the place she thinks she belongs…the White House.
On a more serious note, the Democrat Primary race has long since stopped being about voters and voter-chosen delegates. It is about the Super Delegates. Hillary only cares about the people of West Virginia for what they can do for her, not what she can do for them. She pandered big-time, was rewarded with a big win, and now she is making her case that if a Democrat is going to win the White House they have to win West Virginia. Since she won WV, she thinks the supers should vote for her if they want any chance of winning the White House.
Again, Hillary doesn’t care about the people of WV. They’ve been pwnd.
Red Pill on May 14, 2008 at 10:04 AM
Hillary! is willing to loan her campaign millions of her own money because she knows that the amount of money that would come to her as President makes those millions look like a drop in the bucket. It’s an investment in her future, and she wouldn’t be doing it if she didn’t have a game plan to win.
Red Pill on May 14, 2008 at 10:25 AM
I LOVE the photo! It looks as if it crossed her eyes just to smell it! I would have loved to see the “after” face, once she swigged it down!
kcd on May 14, 2008 at 10:28 AM
My left leg is tingling and my ass cheek is asleep….does that mean anything??
kcd on May 14, 2008 at 10:30 AM
I’m proud of you. Primaries are the time to vote for the candidate who best represents your values.
We shouldn’t “suck it up” and vote for the Republican nominee (presumptive or official) until the general election.
Red Pill on May 14, 2008 at 10:38 AM
…which is why I have never liked the concept of “Operation Chaos”. Hillary does not represent our values, so we should not be giving our votes to her.
Red Pill on May 14, 2008 at 10:40 AM
I suppose this must be racist…it couldn’t be due to the fact that BO has the most liberal voting record in the Senate and WV is a very conservative state, right?
hollygolightly on May 14, 2008 at 1:29 PM
You’re having a stroke. Like most Republican investors right now.
leftnomore on May 14, 2008 at 4:51 PM
The picture says it all. Hitlery Robem Clinton really takes drinking seriously. Notice the focus she has on the beverage, wants to make sure she does not miss a drop. That kind of focus is a sign of a drinking problem.
MSGTAS on May 15, 2008 at 9:41 AM
Of course the Demo voters are confused. If you vote for Hillary you could be viewed as a typical, uneducated, racist white voter. (The banjo plunkin’ in the background.) If you vote for Obama, you could be voting for the white half or the black half, but which half will be the leader of the free world? It seems to me that we’ll end up with cup o’ joe with cream; even my dad says that’s not real coffee.
Christine on May 15, 2008 at 1:53 PM
Oh, the picture needs a good caption to fit the ‘Shakespeare meets Romper Room’ theme. My memory banks of Macbeth lines are silent but Jimi did chime in: ‘Hilly Haggard, She drinks the blood from the jagged edge.’
Christine on May 15, 2008 at 2:01 PM
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