Clinton's West Virginia voters still are believers
By Sasha Issenberg, Globe Staff
MONTGOMERY, W. Va. -- The West Virginians who showed up to vote for Hillary Clinton at the Montgomery City Hall dutifully cited her campaign’s talking points -- experience, health care, and a return to the good old days -- but it was her opponent’s mantra that appeared most to motivate them: hope.
“I don’t believe it’s over,” said Bob Kirk, a 58-year old retiree who had worked a DuPont chemical plant. “It seems like an uphill fight, but why should it be over before everybody gets to vote?”
Across West Virginia, Clinton’s supporters turned out in record numbers to vote for a candidate they had been told ould emerge from their state with a hollow victory: no matter how large a landslide they delivered for Clinton here, most of her supporters conceded, she was unlikely to win the nomination.
“I don’t see how she can. There’s too many delegates the other way,” said Charlie Davis, 49, a director of residential living at West Virginia University Institute of Technology. “It’s fine to tell her that, but it’s also fine to say: stay in the race and let’s acknowledge Obama to make sure he’s the right person.”
Supporters at her election-night headquarters chanted “It’s not over!” when television networks declared her the victor in the state that her husband won twice but a pair of Democrats have failed to carry since. “There’s that whole mystique about the Clintons -- they can pull anything out, so it’s not over,” said Susan Kincaid, 52, a high-school English teacher.
In her closing days in West Virginia, Clinton tried to not only exploit that mystique, but make voters complicit in her struggle. “In Washington, some people say…that your voice doesn’t really count,” said a Clinton radio ad. “Tuesday, we can show ‘em.”
Exit polls showed that West Virginia Democrats responded, with 78 percent of those in favor of Clinton staying in the race.
Montgomery is a small town 30 miles southeast of Charleston on the Kanawha River, bisected by a railroad line along which freight trains interrupt pedestrians’ conversations during the day and newcomers’ sleep patterns at night. For voters here, the candidate who began her campaign declaring she was “in it to win it” became a defiant symbol of refusing to concede defeat.
“I really don’t think it’s over til it’s over,” said Lee Thompson, 49, a truck driver. ''If you’re telling everybody that West Virginia votes don’t count, you’re defeating yourself.”
Even a Republican who voted for John McCain accused the press of unfairly targeting Clinton by “trying to put her under before her time,” as Wilma Robbins put it. “I think she still has a chance and I hope she can,” said Robbins, a 59-year old pastor at the town’s United Methodist church who described Clinton with the same favorable adjective she applied to McCain -- “solid” -- and said she would consider voting for the New York senator in the general election.
“I believe it’s a shoo-in for McCain because Obama supporters are not going to vote for Hillary and Hillary supporters are not going to vote for Obama,” said Kirk. “At first, he seemed like a neat person, but then the flag pin and the pastor -- it didn’t ring a bell. Well, it did -- an alarm bell.”
In a state where nearly everyone still seems to carry a party registration handed down since the New Deal -- “Oh, God, Democrat! You’d get smacked around here if…” one woman exclaimed when an exit pollster asked for her party -- some of those cheering Clinton to keep on going said they did so because an Obama victory would force them to vote Republican.
“If he wins, I’m definitely going McCain,” said William Kimberly, 40, who said he does “odd things here and there” for a living. “I don’t know -- just because of her husband. He did a pretty good job -- except for a little personal thing.”
Aware they were participating in a contest likely to bear symbolic power than electoral influence, voters kept their eyes on the general election. Backers of both Clinton and Obama said they were fond of the idea of a ticket combining the two -- “a great team, if they can settle their differences,” said coal-industry employee Greg Ingram -- while one said she liked both candidates but picked Clinton with an eye to the general election.
“I feel she has a better chance in November than Obama. I think there’s still a lot of racism in this country and I think that would hinder him,” said Kincaid.
Those Clinton supporters who did not preach raw defiance or cool strategic detachment could resort only to zen. “That’s part of the process,” Davis said of the primary calendar. “You go to the convention and see what happens.”
About Political Intelligence
Glen Johnson is Politics Editor at boston.com and lead blogger for "Political Intelligence." He moved to Massachusetts in the fourth grade, and has covered local, state, and national politics for over 25 years. E-mail him at johnson@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globeglen. |
