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Blogging the West Virginia primary by The Note's Rick Klein

May 13, 2008 5:49 PM

9:29 pm ET: This is a slow-counting state -- so we'll see the numbers trickle in overnight. But this is everything she could have hoped this night would be.

That's it for tonight -- check back tomorrow, as always, for the latest in politics in The Note.

And I'll be guest-blogging through the rest of this week for Jake Tapper at "Political Punch" -- so stay tuned.

9:25 pm ET: Does it change any games? Well -- no. But the game is still being played -- which is really what Sen. Clinton can count on as a victory under the circumstances.

9:20 pm ET: This does not sound like a candidate who's looking at exit strategies -- it's a candidate who is still plotting a path to victory. Not surprising on one level. This struck me as a good, solid Clinton tone -- talking about her rationale, while not tearing Obama down.

This is her ticket to staying in the race as long as she wants -- or at least another three weeks.

9:17 pm ET: Here's a potentially stronger message to supers: "The question is, why do so many Democrats keep voting?"

9:15 pm ET: (Just noticed that the Clinton campaign has prominently placed one of the very few black West Virginians to support Hillary conveniently off Clinton's left shoulder, in camera range.)

9:14 pm ET: Your message to supers: "The White House is won in the swing states -- and I am winning the swing states."

9:11 pm ET: Now she's using 2,209 as the magic number in a victory speech! Rather remarkable -- and suggests that she's not just biding her time until she drops out.

9:09 pm ET: Took about two minutes to get to the Website shout-out. Money remains the single biggest reason that Hillary Clinton might get out of the race before June 3.

9:07 pm ET: Clinton's first words: "Like the song says, it's almost heaven."

"We know from the Bible that faith can move mountains." Yes -- but can it move superdelegates?

8:59 pm ET: Clinton's speech is -- finally -- imminent. They are milking this moment, as is their right.

8:27 pm ET: Every word from Sen. Clinton will matter here -- the way to push herself out of this race is to upset the supers. There are elements in her campaign that want her to get more aggressive, like she was a month or two ago -- but that may not be the right play any longer.

8:21 pm ET: From ABC's David Wright, traveling with the Obama campaign: Obama called Clinton to congratulate her from his campaign plane: "He didn't reach her. Left a message, we're told."

Think they have each other's direct-dial cell phone numbers? Do they text each other? "UR G8 IN WV HIL - BO."

8:16 pm ET: From ABC's Eloise Harper, who's with the Clinton campaign in Charleston tonight: "The crowd is chanting 'Its not over, Its not over!!' at the Charleston, WV Election night party. There are about 200 people here waiting for Clinton to speak. Loud cheers in the room when the TV screen announced Clinton the winner."

Her speech should start soon.

8:03 pm ET: A lot of folks chatting in the comments secion about racist voters -- surely there's some of that going on, like in those who say race is a major factor and they couldn't see themselves voting for Obama. But I'm not willing to accept that those voters are a large enough cohort to win this state for Clinton, certainly not to give her a landslide.

We have seen in state after state Obama's inability to connect with working-class Democrats who happen to be white -- that seems to be more of what's going on. West Virginia is a poor, heavily unionized state -- and remember that Al Gore and John Kerry failed to connect in the general election in the state. Nobody called that racist.

7:55 pm ET: Jason -- you make good points about what Obama can/should do next. This does transfer a piece of the psychological burden from Clinton to Obama -- the pressure shifts to him to answer this, in a broad sense. If he doesn't keep the super train running, the question will quickly become, why? That said, Clinton still has HUGELY more pressure to keep her momentum going, if this is still going to be a race.

7:48 pm ET: I'm flipping between the cable channels tonight and just struck by the tone of the coverage -- it tells you again that nothing creates the perception of momentum like a victory. One week ago, commentators all said it was over. Now, we're back to superdelegates and demographic challenges. What's changed, precisely?

7:37 pm ET: A thought on what Clinton could use right now: A handful of superdelegate endorsements to roll out -- to show, not say, that people are having second thoughts about Obama. She wouldn't need that many -- maybe three or four, with nice statements saying, we need the strongest Democrat possible to take on John McCain.

Without that, the argument remains, for now, just words.

7:32 pm ET: There you have it -- it's going to be a big win for Clinton. "She almost certainly stays in 'til Kentucky and Oregon next Tuesday," ABC's George Stephanopoulos says. I'd argue that this could keep her in longer than that -- right through June 3.

7:30 pm ET: ABC PROJECTS WEST VIRGINIA FOR CLINTON, right at poll closing time, "by a large margin," per our decision desk.

6:59 pm ET: One number to keep in the back of the mind tonight: 104,000. That's the popular-vote differential by which Obama is ahead of Clinton (including the disputed votes in Florida and Michigan). If West Virginia votes at similar rates to other states, we can expect about 270,000 ballots today. To get close to a 100,000-vote win, Clinton would have to win by better than 2-1 -- certainly possible. And if she comes close, that leaves her in striking distance for next week's contests, in Oregon (where Obama is favored), and Kentucky (where Clinton should win).

As we've said before in this space, counting Florida and Michigan (particularly Michigan) is problematic at best. But if Clinton has an argument left, if she's able to say, "more Democrats have voted for me," that's not nothing.

6:20 pm ET: Obama is facing a perfect (or perfectly terrible) demographic storm in West Virginia. A good measure of racially motivated voting, and then add this from the preliminary exit polls, per ABC's Gary Langer: "About half of voters said that at least to some extent he shares the views of his controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright; fewer though, two in 10, thought he shares 'a lot' of views with Wright. About half also doubted Obama's honesty and trustworthiness, turning the tables on an attribute on which Clinton more often has come up short."

Will the Obama campaign be addressing this -- at all -- tonight? Probably not. But surely they know they have real problems, not just in West Virginia, either.6:16 pm ET: A rather prominent flag pin is on Obama's lapel, for the second straight day. Here's guessing he won't lose it until after the general election.

5:56 pm ET: Obama is spending primary night in Missouri. In the prepared text of his speech, set to begin shortly, the word "McCain" appears five times. The word "Clinton" is somehow absent.

5:52 pm ET: An interesting note, from ABC's Teddy Davis: "Early voting in West Virginia was three times higher than the last Democratic presidential primary. Today's voting, by contrast, was normal/average in most counties -- a possible sign that the coverage of the last week, which portrayed Obama as a lock on the nomination, dampened enthusiasm from the incredibly high level at which it was operating."

That would make a big Clinton win even more remarkable, no?

5:49 pm ET: Some early spin from the Obama campaign, on what could be an early night: "There is no question that Senator Clinton is going to win by huge margins in the upcoming primaries in West Virginia today and Kentucky next weeks. She has poured resources into both states and she, former President Clinton, and Chelsea Clinton have all campaigned extraordinarily hard there.

"The Clinton campaign has already been touting their margins in these states – In fact, Bill Clinton said that Hillary can win West Virginia with 80 percent—and the West Virginia Senate Majority Leader said Clinton needs to win by '80-20 or 90-10.'  And in keeping large margins in perspective, it is worth noting that, while Senator Clinton will win big in West Virginia, Barack Obama won neighboring Virginia by 29 points.

"But with 49 contests behind us and only six to go -- including several states where we expect to do well -- Barack Obama leads in pledged delegates, contests won, and superdelegates. And for perspective, while 28 pledged delegates are up for grabs this evening, Obama has won the support of 27 superdelegates in the course of just the last week putting him less than 150 total delegates away from clinching the Democratic nomination."

My take -- aside from the fact that Clinton doesn't have to win by anywhere near those margins for this to be a good night for her -- that's all well and good, but none of this answers the demographic challenges that are showing themselves, again, in West Virginia. This may be as hostile an electorate as Obama will face, certainly this late in the primary season. But what makes this (expected) loss different from all others is that this is the first contest since the media has (and that's for a separate debate) delcared this race to be over. Someone forgot to tell Democratic voters in a swing state.

---------------------------

Rick Klein here from ABC's The Note. I'll be live-blogging tonight, with the latest from the exit polls, vote returns, and from our reporters in the field during the West Virginia primary.

A few thoughts -- first, as you know from reading the coverage coming into the day, this isn't about who wins, but about by how much. We can debate the margin Sen. Clinton needs to "win" by, but the very fact that she's going to win -- and probably win big -- says something important about the holes that remain in Sen. Obama's coalition. Tonight is unlikely to change the outcome of the nomination fight, but it's rather remarkable that Sen. Clinton is set to win big in a swing state despite the fact that most of the big-time media talking heads have spent the last six days declaring the race over.

Second -- an argument being advanced by the Clinton campaign regarding the importance of West Virginia. From a memo sent by the Clinton campaign today: "no Democrat has won the White House without winning West Virginia since 1916." Leaving aside the question of whether winning the primary has any relation to how you do in the general -- John Kerry did just fine in the 2004 West Virginia primary, but these weren't his peeps in the general -- this strikes me as a dangerous sort of comparison for Clinton to make.

The same comparison -- Democrats not winning without the states since 1916 -- could be said for Minnesota and Missouri as well. Your winner in both of those states? Obama.

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