Does West Virginia mean much?

My prediction that Senator Clinton would win WV by a blow-out margin turned out to not even be close - she won it by a margin even bigger than that, taking 67% of the vote to Senator Obama's 26% (John Edwards took the other 7%, a fact which I find truly bizarre, but is neither here nor there). Does this huge win change anything for her campaign? In my earlier post, I suggested that it doesn't, and I stick by that statment with one caveat. The win means little, especially considering that it only meant a 12 delegate pick up for Clinton (she gained 20 delegates, Obama gained 8). However, the polling data continues to be disturbing for the Obama camp. He consistently fails in state after state to secure the blue collar demographic - Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Public of the "hard-working white Americans" controversy from a few days ago. As I pointed out then, although Clinton's comments were largely excoriated, she wasn't really wrong. Those blue collar Americans - many of whom, for whatever reason, happen to be white - are not voting for Obama is droves and have been relatively consistently not voting for him even as Clinton's campaign has been repeatedly eulogized in the media.

On his own, I do not think this is a demographic that Obama can win back, making his veep choice that much more important in the November election. Although I said just the other day that Bill Richardson might be a candidate, I think now that he simply wouldn't deliver the demographics that Obama really needs. Instead, I think that he's going to have to pick a white veep with some Nascar cred and a working class background.

It's either that, or choose a veep that he already knows blue collar voters will pull a lever for. Hillary Clinton