West Virginia Primary Results and Ruminations

First, the Democrats:

1. 67.0% Clinton 239,062
2. 25.7% Obama 91,652
3. 07.3% Edwards 26,076

And, the GOP:

1. 76.0% McCain 89,683
2. 10.3% Huckster12,175
3. 05.0% Paul 5,914
4. 04.4% Romney 5,188
5. 02.4% Rudy 2,831
6. 01.2% Keyes 1,426
7. 00.6% Others 727

Source: New York Slimes


Observations

Edwards, the man who dropped out months ago, got nearly 1/3 the vote that Obama did, and nearly 75% of West Virginians voted against the presumptive Democratic nominee. What a protest vote, indeed!

On the other hand, 24% of Republicans voted against the GOP nominee. Not quite the showing the Democrats engaged in, to be sure. Also, there were two Republicans still on the ballot, and ordinarily one would expect the protest vote to coalesce around the minority candidate, however, this year that minority man is Ron Paul..an unacceptable man to the majority of right-thinking Republicans. He received a mere 5%, while the Huckster received more than twice his vote (10.3%) and another 9.6% also said no to Ron Paul, McCain, and the Huckster.

This has been one of the very few benefits to the Ron Paul Supporters (I call them Pauleroids) joining the GOP...it dampens any breakout power that they, or their candidate could have. They have been reduced to formulating resolutions, and planning temper tantrums that will further damage their standing in the party. Just imagine the damage a Ron Paul/Bob Barr ticket could have done to us in the General Election. By himself, Bob Barr is just sad humorless, sarcastic man. With Ron Paul, those two men could have been Ross Perot, redux. With a weak candidate like John McCain, we cannot afford that. God has already given us the gift of Obama, who is about the weakest candidate the Democrats could have put up. He hasn't decided to give us over to the fire just yet...we have been given another go at it.