Obama Still Ahead Despite Spanking in West Virginia

By Anastacia Mott Austin

Yep, it’s still over.

Despite Hillary Clinton’s resounding win in West Virginia’s primary this week, she still can’t win the nomination.

She has not dropped out, or even conceded, but finally it appears that Clinton has heeded warnings from top Democratic officials to tone down the attacks on Obama.

Recent polls have shown that a majority of Clinton’s supporters say they would not vote for Obama in November, and a smaller number of Obama supporters say they’d not support Clinton.

Clinton said this week on CNN’s "The Situation Room" that it would be a "grave error" for her supporters to not choose Obama should he be the Democratic nominee. "Anybody who has ever voted for me or voted for Barack has much more in common in terms of what we want to see happen in our country and in the world with the other than they do with John McCain," said Clinton.

She reiterated that she is not planning to leave the race any time soon, insisting also that all Michigan and Florida delegates need to be seated. "I'm not going anywhere," said Clinton. "Except to Kentucky and Oregon and Montana and South Dakota and Puerto Rico."

With six primary contests remaining and only 189 pledged delegates to go, the party is over for Clinton, despite what she says. It bears repeating that even in her very best case scenario, even if she won those primaries by astounding odds, even if all of the delegates she wants were awarded from Michigan and Florida, she still could not win. Is it sinking in yet?

It doesn’t seem to be for Clinton. "There is no winner yet," she said, saying to reporters, "This is the closest election we've ever had, that anyone can remember. People have been trying to end it, but the voters just won't let it happen."

Clinton dismissed her comments earlier in the week that she was winning among "…hard-working Americans, white Americans," agreeing with congressman Charles Rangel of New York that it was "probably the dumbest thing she could have said."

"He’s probably right," agreed Clinton, not one to typically apologize. She said she wished the focus of the nomination battle would not be so much on race (ironic considering her earlier comments), adding, "I think people vote for me because they think I'd be the better president, and I think they vote for Barack because they think he’d make a better president."

She also addressed the polls saying that her supporters would not vote for Obama if he were to win the Democratic nomination.

Clinton said that she herself would support and campaign for Obama should he win the nomination. "I'm going to work my heart out for whoever our nominee is," she told CNN reporters. "Obviously, I'm still hoping to be that nominee, but I'm going to do everything I can to make sure that anyone who supported me ... understands what a grave error it would be not to vote for Sen. Obama."

Some say that the recent conciliatory tone indicates that Clinton either has seen the writing on the wall and knows she is fighting a losing battle, or that she may be hoping to be offered the veep slot. When asked about the possibility of an Obama-Clinton "dream ticket," her response was that it’d be "premature" to start talking about that now.