West Virginia Dem Primary Near-Dead Thread

Fox results link; ABC results link.

12:05 a.m. — Holy moly. With 84% counted, Hillary is up 66.8 - 26.0 - 7.2 over Obama and Edwards.

Forty. One. Points.

That is almost without doubt the most lopsided loss by an alleged presumptive nominee in all of American history.

Tomorrow morning’s relentless Old Media spin will be “big freaking deal.” Despite that, you’d better believe Mountaineer State Democrats have sent a message to their party that it isn’t over, and it shouldn’t be over. My prediction as to how many times you’ll hear the actual vote percentages read: Absolutely zero.

Jim Geraghty at the Campaign Spot says this:

Obama received glowing, it’s-over-he-is-the-nominee coverage for the past six days, and that amounted to nothing in West Virginia. One has to wonder if the giddy praise and tingling feelings jolting up the legs of the Chris Matthewses, Keith Olbermanns and the cable news “Wright-free zones” of the world amounts to a hill of beans out in Exurban America.

Actually Jim, the Old Media favoritism may have been worse than nothing, as it may have created a backlash.

If you assume that WV’s 3.5% African-American population made up only 5% of the Dem primary electorate (it was probably closer to 6%), and that African-Americans voted 90% for Obama (it was 91% in NC and 90% in IN last week), my calcs indicate that Obama got an unfathomable (I can’t believe I’m typing this) 22.5% of the non-African-American DEMOCRATIC vote. Tweak the numbers to 6% of the turnout and 90.5% of the vote — both realistic possibilities — and it drops to 21.7%. I’ll finalize this in the morning when 99% - 100% of the ballots are counted.

But, of course, Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, Rezko, et al don’t matter (/sarc).

10:30 p.m. — Hillary is up 65-28-7 over Obama and Edwards with 56% counted. What’s stunning to me is how a state that was reliably Democratic, except in GOP blowouts (For Clinton in 1992 by 13%, in 1996 by 15%; for Dukakis in 1988 by 5%; for Carter in 1980 by 4%, won in 1976 by Carter) is now considered a total “who cares?” write-off by Obama Democrats. In 2000, Bush got only 52% of the vote, but in 2004, he got 56%. All of this has occurred while the state’s demographic makeup has, I believe, not changed that much.

Will be back at about midnight …..

10:20 p.m. — Fox has more complete results, and shows that Edwards is getting the other 7%. If it’s a protest vote, which one is it a protest against?

9:40 p.m. — Clinton is up 63%-30% on Obama with 23% of precincts counted. Who in the heck is getting the other 7%?

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I’m saving my posts on Wright, Obama, and Trumpet Newsmagazine until tomorrow, so the West Virginia primary will be out of the way when they post.

Mrs. Clinton is expected to win in a landslide, and Old Media says it will mean nothing — just like the fact that Obama couldn’t get more than about 35% and 41% of the non-African-American Democratic vote last week in North Carolina and next-door Indiana, respectively, mean nothing.

Uh-huh.

As explained previously, this is a near-dead thread because Democratic Party rules enable even pledged delegates to change their minds at the August Democratic Convention.

I’ll check in at about 9:30 to see how much has been counted, and then again when the large majority of ballots are in.