Chasing Votes

With apologies to the late Al Capp, this illustration reminded me of Hillary in West Virginia chasing votes.

She is expected to win both West Virginia and Kentucky. They are Clinton strongholds. Largely white and working class. Miners. Hard scrabble work. Good people. Older. That's the key word. The young who can, leave.

Even with a lopsided victory tomorrow, it will do little to help Clinton's effort. The party elite figure as long as she does nothing to hurt Obama's chances, she can go where ever and do what ever she wants. Okay. I'll buy into that.

However, an article in today's Financial Times adds a disturbing dimension to the story. It quotes a retired coal miner, a life long Democrat, who vowed to vote for McCain if Obama is the nominee. Why? "I heard that Obama is a Muslim and his wife's an atheist."

This, after all the Jeremiah Wright flap. Do these folks live in a vacuum? Well they do have the lowest college graduation rate in the country, mainly because they can't afford to send the young to college.

Then again, a school administrator had this to say, "If he is the nominee, the Democrats have no chance of winning West Virginia. He doesn't understand ordinary Americans." Whew! Like I said. A vacuum.

Even one of the younger set had this to say, "I want someone who is a full blooded American as President."

Are the campaigning Clintons doing anything to correct this misthinking? Oh, I don't think so. Not when Bill tells them Hillary represents "people like you, in places like this", to send a message to the "higher type people " who are trying to force her out of the race.

This from a Rhodes Scholar, graduate of Georgetown University and Yale Law School about his Wellesley/Yale Law educated wife. Yep. Just ordinary folks.

If ignoring false impressions and creating false impressions aren't a way of doing harm to Obama's chances I don't know what would be.

Then too, I had to read the Financial Times to find this. The London Financial Times.