US News
PREVIEW: Clinton hopes West Virginia will throw her a lifeline
May 10, 2008, 0:13 GMT
Washington - Hillary Clinton's campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination may have been all but declared dead by national political pundits, but voters in West Virginia still see her as their champion.
And Clinton, locked in an uphill battle against rival Barack Obama, has cast her own hopes for a revival of her fortunes on the Appalachian state whose voters prefer her by wide margins.
Pressure has been mounting for Clinton to quit the Democratic presidential race and give Obama time to unite the party ahead of a general election fight in November, after he beat her handily in North Carolina's primary and she narrowly won in Indiana.
Obama leads in the key tally of delegates to the party's nominating convention in August, but Clinton has argued that her wins in populous, industrial states means she would make a stronger candidate against Republican John McCain.
The former first lady has vowed to keep going until the series of state-by-state nominating contests are completed on June 3.
Her appeal among working-class, white voters momentarily gave her campaign renewed life after a win in Pennsylvania last month, but the handful of small contests left give her little chance to catch up.
Still, her attraction has not faded, with many of her supporters reluctant to back Obama in the primary even though he will likely be the party's candidate.
'Why do I keep going? Because you keep going,' she has told supporters on the campaign trail.
Indeed, West Virginia, home to 1.8 million mostly white residents, is a Clinton stronghold.
She has sought to portray herself there as a champion for blue- collar workers in the mountainous coal-mining state, the type of voters she has said Obama alienated with remarks last month about 'bitter' people who 'cling to guns or religion' in the face of unfavourable political policies.
The state was long a Democratic stronghold, but twice went for George W Bush on issues, such as abortion and gun-ownership, that appealed to social conservatives.
A television ad running in West Virginia features her proclaiming, 'Standing up for people who weren't getting a fair shake, that's been the purpose of my life. And it will be the purpose of my presidency.'
An opinion poll released Friday by the American Research Group showed her with a more than 40 percentage point lead over Obama - 66 per cent of likely voters said they supported Clinton to 23 per cent for Obama.
She has continued to portray herself as a 'fighter' that has emerged from many uphill battles in politics throughout her life.
'Some in Washington wanted us to end our campaign - and then we won in New Hampshire,' Clinton said in West Virginia earlier this week. 'Then we had huge victories on Super Tuesday and then we won Ohio and Texas and Pennsylvania and I was never supposed to win Indiana. Well, I want to be president of all 50 states.'
Only 28 delegates are up for grabs in West Virginia on Tuesday and not enough contests remain for her to catch Obama in pledged delegates awarded by voters. But she hopes a win there can show the so-called super delegates - party leaders who vote independently for the nominee - that she can still persevere.
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Older Talkback
page: 1
Sen. Obama is doing an excellent job appealing to all voters--including working class voters even as polls and certain media comments sometimes have their own corporate agendas.
Here is how Sen. Obama appeals to the working class:
Opposed the war in Iraq from the start. Money spent on Iraq could be better spent on the home turf in multitudes of ways to provide more jobs in the U.S.
Supports green jobs.
Is sensitive to lower income working class and their economic challenges--color of skin unimportant.
Takes the long term view for real solutions to consumer and working class problems--ie: Social Security, Health Care, Consumer Issues.
Is honest, courageous, hard-working, and ethical himself.
A family man.
Best to all. Kathleen from Haines, Alaska
Please note: Alaska supported Sen. Obama 74% as Democratic caucus participants increased 1169% in 2008 over 2004. Sen. Obama is going to make a fine President!
Whilst the Democratic Party have had some good Presidents in Roosevelt,Truman,Kennedy,Johnson, apart from Carter a total prat and Clinton a sex maniac, this latest squabble between two ridiculous odd balls - a senile old woman and an unknown black man, is nauseating to the extreme.
I cannot comprehend that decent, intelligent Americans can put up such human trash for President.
It demonstrates the mental sickness that infects America today. No sense of national responsibility, just a blind allegiance to some dumb arsed party.
I have better things to do than keep looking at the Clinton vs Obama fiasco on M&C - it is a cancerous infection on American attitudes today and very sad a great nation has descended to such a depth of mental depravity.
So, with only ONE candidate available for President - John McCain - a President-in-waiting, I will put my sick bucket aside and forget your stupid HC vs BO comedy until November, when all the world hopes that the deranged nutcase voters in America will forget that smelly old bag Clinton and the coconut coon and elect a real proven American war hero - McCain as President.
Good bye to boredom for now and may those two demo idiots and their insane supporters have a tremendous dose of bad luck.
..let's recap:
Against war. - Great, except for the glaring fact that, sooner or later this job had to be done, and the last guy left it for the current guy i.e. Bush the clean up boy. Now, Obama, who has the luxury of saying he was against it, is now going to have to deal with it. His folks are mouthing 'residual forces' and 'indefinite deployment', so he can deny it at election time, not a very good picture for a leader. That being the case, what is the difference between him and Hillary, or even McCain, who is the only person being honest about this???
Wants to create jobs - great. Anytime I hear this about a candidate, I go back to their last or current job. Perhaps you can tell me where Obama has created all the jobs in Illinois? Perhaps in that Industrial Mecca called E. St Louis? Ever seen the stellar successes there Kathleen? How about S. Chicago??? No? Where then? For whatever reason, you seem to think so, so perhaps you can show us? Id bitching about America inside of a church is creating jobs, then Obama is a stellar success.
Green Jobs - Obama has been mouthing this, yet has absolutely zero to show for it. In fact, If you will do the a little reading, you will find his connection to Big Coal, hardly what I would call a 'green Job' would you? He also is mouthing Hybrids as a solution to imported oil, as if we did not know this already. Obama didn't even know what a hybrid was until his staff told him.
No, Kathleen, you have a smoke-and-mirrors candidate, who, likely, has a very good chance, because the sheeplike constituants of his would never apply the same metrics to him that they apply to Bush or McCain or even Hillary.
By the way, one group Hillary has retained was white, blue collar workers, the pivotal group for dems. Obama shot himself in the foot in Penn., where he lost because of it. This being the case, I'd hardly say he's in command of that constituancy, would you?
is forgetting the character of this man. His character values are in the toilet as are his ethics. Can't wait to see his cabinet if he's elected.
In recent interviews she refered to her constituancy as 'White Americans' and Hard Working White Americans'.
Can you imagine what would happen if John McCain refered to voters as 'white americans'???
'Sen. Obama is doing an excellent job appealing to all voters--including working class voters even as polls and certain media comments sometimes have their own corporate agendas.'
Not this voter. Deliberately losing the war in Iraq will embolden the islamists who want to destroy us and double the price of oil which will completely destroy our economy. Adding a gigantic socialized medicine entitlement program to our already
Electing Obama is the surest way of turning the United States, the greatest country that has ever been on this earth in to another has-been, once was. We the people deserve much, much better then we have been getting and we deserve MUCH Much better then Obama.
'Opposed the war in Iraq from the start.'
He wasn't in the Senate.
'Supports green jobs. '
What does that even mean? It is just a lovely little nonsense phrase given out as mind candy to the gullible.
'Is sensitive to lower income working class and their economic challenges'
See the above about 'mind candy'.
'Takes the long term view for real solutions....'
By adding entitlements that will bankrupt the USA by the end of his first term?
No thanks.
when Obama is President, he WILL end the U.S.'s involvement in the Bush/Rumsfeld/Cheney battle in Iraq. We wouldn't be there in the first place if it weren't for their lies, so why do some think we need to stay or we will be in dire trouble anymore than if we hadn't gone in to begin with? When one area is calmed down for awhile, another erupts, then back and forth it goes between one faction or another - who even understands it all or what the h*ll it's all about? For one thing, it's a major civil war. Now let's see the comments fly!!!
Momma Clinton and the Sundance Kid should never have got ONE single vote in all this drawn out ultra-boring farce. No intelligent American, knowing what they are actually voting for, would never go anywhere near the ballot box.
Democrats are NOT voting in a PARTY election, they are voting for PRESIDENT ! If Democrats are so brain-washed as to follow any incompetent cretin who this party selects, then GOD HELP AMERICA.
Only a lunatic would want either one of these balm-pot, bungling, lying, incompetent idiots as President of the great USA. You may as well put Osama Bin Laden in the job, at least he knows how to run a big efficient organisation and get things done.
It appears that a majority of Americans are lunatics then. The last time I checked, this was a democracy with everyone having the right to their opinion. One half thinks Hillary or Obama would be the best choice, while the other, smaller half, thinks McCain would be. In other words, half think Hillary or Obama would corrupt the U.S. (even further than Bush) while the other half thinks McCain would be the ruination of such - take your pick! None of us has a crystal ball, with the exception of a few it appears.
Perhaps, but you'd better check the stats again because you didn't get it right:
Half want either Hillary or Barak
and
the other half want McCain
Personally we've never done very well with a middle-of-road republican, so I think McCain is a long shot.
By the way, this is not, technically, a democracy either. It is a republic.
Fair comment, BUT the two voting factions DO NOT think or care if these people will be good Presidents, or will look after America, these dumb arsed candidates are not selected by the people, they are selected BY THE PARTY and GIVEN to the people, with no alternative.
The voters then behave like brain-washed zombies and blindly vote for their beloved party. Sieg Heil ! Not surprised - see below -
Fact ;
America is in 49th world place for literacy
America is in 28th place out of 40 countries for mathematical literacy
Unbelievable ! 20% ( 60 million ) of all Americans believe the Sun rotates around the Earth.
Back to lunacy. In any case every President in your past history who has flown that stupid Democratic or Republican Party flag, has NEVER received more than a max. 30% of the eligible votes in the whole USA.
The other 70%+ of your country are never represented in the White House administration and are cast in the subordinate role of OPPOSITION in Congress as big American losers.
You have about 200 million eligible voters. It varies a hell of a lot how many turn out, but on a good day say 120 million. So you get around 60% turnout. With a 50% split between Dems and Reps, that is 30% of eligible voters actually vote for the winner.
What a faggot of democracy you have.
You've just been dissed by god, oops, I mean SP4!
Then you have to be extremely glad you don't live in America, and come to think of it, so are we!
Should have been @ TO Paeyton
'Then you have to be extremely glad you don't live in America, and come to think of it, so are we!'
Yet you think you should have a say in who our president is.
You are totally mixed up!
The majority of Democratic voters are so incredibly stupid and illiterate, that if they were told by their dictatorial leaders that Momma Clinton was The Virgin Mary and Ole Cherry Blossom Obama was Jesus Christ incarnate, they would believe it.
BANZAI !
Whatever makes your simple mind happy!
Dis bum ritin al dis junk abowt me, dun liv in dis place.
Lemme tel im, ah av dun wel, a yeer ago, ah cud`n spel POLITISHUN an now ah is wun, tanks ta dose currup bakkers in de DEMOKRATIK mob dat put me up - oh yeh, it`s da bess put-up job ya ever did see.
Sayin us lot ar illit--- ah does not now ow ta spel dat big werd, but ah am lernin qwik.
a Republican!
That in all the Democratic electoral skirmishes so far in the Clinton vs Obama love match, half the votes have been lost because the voters refused to sign their names on the ballot slips by putting an 'X'.
A Republican AND a comedian!
Obama has the most delegates and Superdelegates. Unless Hillary can win every contest, it's over for her.
This female Pinocchio needs intensive care, not a lifeline.
She is a sickening embarrassment.
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Go HilliaryMay 10th, 2008 - 00:57:30
If she can't win guess I can stay in bed late that day and stay in my jammies all day.
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