Her campaign is rescued from the dead. As the Clinton campaign sagely points out “no Democrat has won the White House without winning West Virginia since 1916″ and therefore Obama’s primary loss shows that despite his large lead in the polls over John McCain, he can’t possible win the election.
What’s even more interesting is that no Democrat has won the White House without carrying Minnesota since 1912 (it went for Teddy Roosevelt’s Bull Moose party) so given that Obama won Minnesota and Clinton won West Virginia, McCain is guaranteed to win the general election unless the eventual nominee can somehow completely replicate the social and political conditions prevailing in pre-WWI America. The outlook, in short, is very grim.
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