Letters to the Editor
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Regardless of Tomorrow...
...Barack Obama will have a fairly smooth ride through West Virginia in November, assuming he is the nominee then. With the support of Joe Manchin and of Jay Rockefeller, as well as the progress-infatuated chamber of commerce, the Democratic candidate will win there, no matter which one it winds up being.
There is much about this state which is poorly understood by most of the rest of America, which has not been there, hasn't visited, much less lived there. Maryland, West Virginia bled for your sins. It isn't West Virginia that's known as "The Free State" because it never ratified prohibition and one was "free" to go there and get drunk; It isn't West Virginia where it's legal to marry your first cousin or even a 13 year old with the parents' blessing. West Virginia was founded on a desire to not become engaged in a bloody Civil War; Maryland was constrained by Abraham Lincoln from seceding (a long, convoluted story, but that's the short fact of the matter). The list goes on.
My point is that anything can happen in West Virginia, and it generally does. So no matter what happens there on Tuesday it will not surprise me and, further, it will likely not have much of an effect on the traditional Democratic win there in November. They've had enough of Bush, like everyone else has. And they are thinking over there behind the ridge. Madden has made the case for the yahoo stereotype of the western half of what was once Virginia, and there are yahoos to be found there. And in Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky and just about everywhere else in the US.
I feel certain Ms. Clinton will win it tomorrow, but whoever is the candidate in the fall will win West Virginia. I'd put cash money on it.