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Edited on Sat May-17-08 08:42 AM by onenote
I posted these thoughts in another thread, but decided they deserved a thread of their own:
One of the arguments that is tossed around by those questioning Obama's "electability" is that he lost the W VA primary and that no Democrat has been elected president without winning W.VA since 1916. Now, the inherent assumptions behind this argument are that HRC will win W.VA in the GE, but Obama can't. The problem with those assumptions, of course, is that no one can predict the outcome of the GE at this point -- there is much that hasn't happened that can and almost certainly will impact the outcome, including the selection of running mates, the debates, and the unpredictability of future events in the world.
However, leaving all of that aside, the argument itself is simply nonsensical because comparing prior elections with the current one on the basis of one state is, in the most basic sense of the term, illogical. Relying on how Democrats have done in the past in W.Va as some sort of predictor of the outcome of the 2008 GE is about as meaningful as those comparisons you sometimes hear about some college team not having beaten some other college team in 40 years. Guess what? The folks playing today aren't the same as the folks playing 40 years ago.
Take a look at the electoral college map for Jimmy Carter. He lost California. Do you think a Democrat today stands a snowball's chance in hell in winning the GE w/o California? If Carter had won California, he could've lost West Virginia, Pennsylvania AND Ohio and still have easily won the election. Of course, Carter swept the entire south and even won Texas.
West Virginia has no special magic. Stevenson won it it 1952 and was creamed overall by Ike. Humphrey won it in 1968, but lost to Nixon. In 1968, Humphrey lost Calfironia -- if he had won it the election would've been thrown into the House of Representatives (which the Democrats controlled) regardless of the outcome in W.Va.
And if Clinton hadn't won W.VA in 1992 would he have lost the election? Of course not.
So spare me the arguments based on a single state's history. They're totally bogus.
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