Obama Loses West Virginia Delegates To Prison Inmate

[kpete]

Obama Loses West Virginia Delegates To Prison Inmate
The vote highlights the President's unpopularity in the Appalachian heartland. In 2008, white voters there cited race as a factor.



An obscure federal prison inmate gave President Obama an unexpected run for his money in the West Virginia Democratic Primary Tuesday, highlighting the deep dislike for the president in the Appalachian heartland.

With 88% of the precincts reporting Tuesday night, Keith Judd was holding steady at 40% of the vote and had won six counties.

Judd is also known as federal prison inmate Number 11593-051 at the Beaumont Federal Correctional Institution in Beaumont, Texas, where Judd is serving a 210-month sentence for extortion and
making threats at the University of New Mexico in 1999.

According to both state and national Democratic Party rules, Keith Russell Judd is entitled to receive at least one delegate from West Virginia for the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C. because he received 15% of the vote.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/obama-loses-west-virginia-delegates-to-prison-inma

[IamK]

1. He does have nice hair.... n/t

[ForgoTheConsequence]

4. I didn't know it was hair.

I thought it was one of those raccoon hats at first.

[rfranklin]

7. Now that's a mullet!

I think most in WV voted for the mullet.

[Fumesucker]

15. Joe Dirt..

[Scuba]

2. There's more to this story.

[FarLeftFist]

3. Yeah, its coal mining country and Obama is looking for alt. energy

[obamanut2012]

5. How can an incarcerated felon run for office?

[badtoworse]

8. The NJ Constitution used to say that "idiots and insane people" can't vote.

It didn't say they couldn't run for office.

[obamanut2012]

17. lol

[AngryAmish]

9. Anyone, even ineligible people, can run

If this guy is over 35 and a natural born US citizen then he can be President.

[sinkingfeeling]

6. I read in another news story that nobody had filed to be a Judd delegate.

[lukkadairish]

10. Yep I live here

and I put up with it every day. The counties in WV that carried this fed inmate are coal counties. Do not get me wrong. There are some good, kind, issue educated people everywhere, including these places. But. There is a strong race aversion involved. The decline of coal over the decades here is crystalized around the race aversion because of denial of the coal decline.

This article by Jeff Goodell of Rolling Stone is a great read....and yes that photo of mountaintop removal is real and undoctored.....http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/the-coming-decline-and-fall-of-big-coal-20110928

They love coal because the short term means getting a job out of high school and getting paid for the here and now. Their vision isn't collectively long enough to see that their health, their environment, and their futures are tied to an industry that keeps its profits away from the community it extracts from. The overall health of these folks includes early onset diabetes, lung and breathing problems, crippling injuries from mine accidents, and cancers that come from heavy metals and byproducts from coal.


As far as race, WV will be stuck in the Confederate days until.........? Alot of the younger people here do not see the big deal with a man of mixed race holding the highest office in the land. The older, white scripturists that keep their guns in the living room while the kids watch cartoons on the couch drinking Mountain Dew aren't gonna change no matter what. Their welfare, Social Security dollars, their SSI assistance, and their Medicare Disability will keep coming on in along with that huge mental smokescreen that tells them that this administration had nothing to do with any of it. (sigh)

[EC]

14. What I don't get

is all my relatives there who worked in the mines had wished there were OTHER employment, not just the mines. So it makes me wonder just who are those people that want more mines? The actual workers or land owners out to make a mint selling off their property? Don't the workers (like my relatives) actually want different kinds of labor oppurtunities - like some other industry?

[sadbear]

11. These are Democrats voting for this guy?

Or is it shenanigans? (Which I don't condemn because I've voted in the other primary before.)

[ileus]

13. In WV most everyone registers Democrat...that 40% are RDINO's

RDINO's Registered Democrats in Name Only.

If you plan on having any say in your state and local elections you pretty much have to register democrat. Lot's of offices don't even have a republican challenger, and the R's and I's that do run are nutbags.

So most everyone registers Democrat....

That 40% reflects the Republican in WV that would never vote Obama anyway.

[Quantess]

12. Weird.

I would vote for the squirrel sitting on the back of his head.

[OKNancy]

16. He isn't going to get any delegates... really poor headline

There were no delegates submitted for this fellow, so no delegates.

[razorman]

18. It appears that this is one story on which we can't blame Republicans.

This was all West Virginia Dems. But, the R's are no doubt laughing their asses off right now about it. How in the world did this manage to come to pass? Did the Democratic leaders in WV not have a clue that this might happen when they accepted a convict into the race?
Was there a way to avoid it? Hopefully, some DU'er out there has more info they can share about this.