Posted on 05/03/2008 11:13:30 AM PDT by The_Republican
Barack Obama met with reporters Friday in Indianapolis and admitted the obvious: "We've had a rough couple of weeks. I won't deny that."
The next couple of weeks will show just how rough.
The roiling controversies -- over his remarks about rural voters and his ties to his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. -- have cast new doubts over the Illinois senator's ability to win over white working-class Democrats.
Tuesday's two primaries will offer fresh data on his appeal. Sen. Obama is strongly favored in North Carolina, while Indiana is seen as a toss-up. If Hillary Clinton gets a narrow loss in the former, and a victory in the latter, she'll be able to make the case that her rival is losing steam with that constituency.
Then the test becomes even greater for Sen. Obama, with the voting turning to West Virginia and Kentucky.
The demographics of those states -- with high numbers of rural, white, older and low-income voters -- pose particular challenges for Sen. Obama, who has struggled in Appalachian counties of Ohio, Virginia and Pennsylvania. Kentucky has been described as "Pennsylvania without Philadelphia," because Sen. Obama's nine-point loss in the Keystone State would have been worse without his high vote margin in big urban areas.
Both candidates have already made stops in West Virginia, where 28 delegates are at stake on May 13. The state was a key swing state in the 2000 and 2004 elections, and polls show Sen. Clinton leading by a 2-to-1 margin.
Sen. Clinton has made several campaign stops in Kentucky, where 51 delegates are at stake on May 20, and which Sen. Obama has yet to visit this year.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Maybe we’ll see Hillary go into the creeks and hollows of West Virginia and Kentucky and talk about how Grandpa Rodham taught her to shoot. Maybe she will embellish the story that Grandpa Rodham taught her to make moonshine.
On a serious note, her green friends won’t be happy to hear her talk about the “clean coal” technology in those big coal states.
But I hope Hillary goes in a bar and has a shot and a beer again. She’s just regular folks. Obama is the one who is a member of the cultural/political elite in this country, not good ol’ Hillary.
She doesn't have to. Obama has almost no support there for obvious reasons. In nearby Southwest Virginia (where I'm originally from), Hillary scored 90% of the Democratic vote, which presents a BIG problem for Virginia's 9th District Congressman Rick Boucher, who came out early in support of Obama. Local Democrat leaders back home are already calling for his head.
Anytime she talks about "clean coal," McCain and Obama both ought to respond with three words: "Grande Escalante Staircase"
If Obama gets elected, every aged white person in a “home” will be kicked to the gutter, perhaps literally. Scary as hell.
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