Back in February on Super Tuesday, Doug McKinney and West Virginia's Republican Party took a lot of criticism for the decision to go ahead with a party convention instead of the customary primary vote. The party was accused of disenfranchising voters even though much of the problems lay in a misunderstanding of how the convention worked. In reality, active Republicans as never before got to join together, listen to the candidates, and choose. Huckabee's win of West Virginia served as the headline of the day. The state met its goals of garnering attention, getting people out to participate who had never been active before, and being a player in the campaigns.
West Virginia Democrats had to wait until May to make their choice. Hillary Clinton still has a chance to win the nomination, mathematically anyway. Obviously counts upon a huge win in West Virginia to rekindle momentum. It is true that superdelegate pledges mean as much as soft verbals in college football recruiting (they can always change their mind.) Also polls show that Clinton has a better chance at winning in November than Obama. Her supporters cling to an ever shrinking margin of hope.
It did not have to be this way. Imagine if Democrats had followed the Republican example and arranged to make their selection much earlier. A lopsided West Virginia win for Clinton certainly would have shown Obama's tenuous hold on rural and union Democrats. Right now if you ranked the preference of West Virginia Democrats, Clinton would come in first, then McCain, and Obama far behind these two. This would have changed the dynamic of the Democratic campaign.
Not that we want Clinton to win the presidency, far from it. However this example reflects the wisdom of state Republicans in moving back the date upon which they chose for the presidency.
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