The Daily Background

The final margin out of West Virginia last night was 67% to 26%. (Edwards got the other 7% of the vote.)

Which is kind of surprising, considering Clinton surrogates had been predicting a much, much bigger win.

Consider the following expectation-setting:

REPORTER: Have you pretty much written off West Virginia as far as a primary goes?

OBAMA: Well I think there is no doubt that Senator Clinton is favored to win. What’s the latest poll?

I think President Clinton said that they are going to get 80% of the vote. We”ll take him at his word.

REPORTER: What is a good showing for you?

OBAMA: I guess better than 20% according to President Clinton’s math.

More expectation-setting:

Political campaigns usually look to lower expectations – but one of Hillary Clinton’s supporters took the opposite tack Monday, setting the bar for a West Virginia primary win at an unprecedented high at an enthusiastic campaign event.

“You think this crowd’s noisy?” said West Virginia Senate Majority Leader Harry Truman Chafin. “Just wait ‘til we win like 80-20.”

“We’ve got to give her a vote tomorrow of 80-20 or 90-10,” he added moments later.

Clinton’s letter to supporters this morning predictably reads:

After tonight’s tremendous victory here in West Virginia, it’s clear that the pundits declaring this race over have it all wrong. The voters in West Virginia spoke loud and clear — they want this contest to go on.

I’m listening to the voters — and to you.

With your help, I’m going to carry the energy of tonight’s victory into the next contests in Kentucky and Oregon. And just as always, I’ll be depending on you to share every step of this journey with me. You have worked your heart out, put yourself on the line for what you believe in, and given generously. And I’m not about to turn my back on you.

We’ve proved conventional wisdom wrong time and again in this race. We did it again tonight in West Virginia. Let’s keep going.

Reminder: the state is only worth 28 pledged delegates and even if she had won all 28 of them (which she didn’t, thanks to the Democrats’ proportional voting system) it wouldn’t have changed anything mathematically. Clinton’s net gain was about ten delegates.

Filed under: Z-TDB Blog