JE doesn't matter, WV does

Big surprises this week, that media coverage has been upside down on two stories, downplaying the important one, while hyper inflating the one that really is utterly meaningless.

First, we have seen John Edwards come out this week and endorse Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination, now that Obama is 95% assured of victory (I'm still not ready to count Hillary out completely). This story means nothing, and yet it was hard to escape this week. The first reason why it means nothing is simply what I stated above, it's pretty late in the derby to be picking a horse. It doesn't take much guts to wait until you are certain of the victor to pick one. This is just an attempt to stay relevant. On top of that, Edwards was a one term Senator who couldn't even win re-election in his home state, and has already been a failed Vice-Presidential candidate, and still couldn't muster a realistic shot at being the nominee this time around. Basically it comes down to, who cares who he endorses? They don't come much more irrelevant than this guy.

The second story is the West Virginia Primary. Most of the coverage of this simply states that Clinton beat Obama, and usually they are sure to point out that this is a state of uneducated, unsophisticated white people, who just don't know any better, or are racists for not voting for Obama. That's not all clearly said, but it's implied almost everywhere you look. Of course, that is not the story. Clinton did not just defeat Obama, and the margins were not slim. The fact is that Clinton crushed Obama in a landslide, and the spread was over 40 points. And this was not a racist issue at all. The fact is that regular rank and file Democrats, the normal people, not the elite far left ideologues, found Obama too elite and too radical for them, and that is why they went overwhelmingly for Clinton.

You have to understand that West Virginia is made up of mostly regular folks who work for a living, in real jobs. Most of these people are Democrats because they haven't realized that the party left them years ago, as is the case with many Democrats around the country. It was not the color of Barack Obama's skin that kept them from voting for him, it was the content of his Character.