Washington - Hillary Clinton's campaign for the Democratic
presidential nomination may have been all but declared dead by
national political pundits, but voters in West Virginia still see her
as their champion.
And Clinton, locked in an uphill battle against rival Barack
Obama, has cast her own hopes for a revival of her fortunes on the
Appalachian state whose voters prefer her by wide margins.
Pressure has been mounting for Clinton to quit the Democratic
presidential race and give Obama time to unite the party ahead of a
general election fight in November, after he beat her handily in
North Carolina's primary and she narrowly won in Indiana.
Obama leads in the key tally of delegates to the party's
nominating convention in August, but Clinton has argued that her wins
in populous, industrial states means she would make a stronger
candidate against Republican John McCain.
The former first lady has vowed to keep going until the series of
state-by-state nominating contests are completed on June 3.
Her appeal among working-class, white voters momentarily gave her
campaign renewed life after a win in Pennsylvania last month, but the
handful of small contests left give her little chance to catch up.
Still, her attraction has not faded, with many of her supporters
reluctant to back Obama in the primary even though he will likely be
the party's candidate.
'Why do I keep going? Because you keep going,' she has told
supporters on the campaign trail.
Indeed, West Virginia, home to 1.8 million mostly white residents,
is a Clinton stronghold.
She has sought to portray herself there as a champion for blue-
collar workers in the mountainous coal-mining state, the type of
voters she has said Obama alienated with remarks last month about
'bitter' people who 'cling to guns or religion' in the face of
unfavourable political policies.
The state was long a Democratic stronghold, but twice went for
George W Bush on issues, such as abortion and gun-ownership, that
appealed to social conservatives.
A television ad running in West Virginia features her proclaiming,
'Standing up for people who weren't getting a fair shake, that's been
the purpose of my life. And it will be the purpose of my presidency.'
An opinion poll released Friday by the American Research Group
showed her with a more than 40 percentage point lead over Obama - 66
per cent of likely voters said they supported Clinton to 23 per cent
for Obama.
She has continued to portray herself as a 'fighter' that has
emerged from many uphill battles in politics throughout her life.
'Some in Washington wanted us to end our campaign - and then we
won in New Hampshire,' Clinton said in West Virginia earlier this
week. 'Then we had huge victories on Super Tuesday and then we won
Ohio and Texas and Pennsylvania and I was never supposed to win
Indiana. Well, I want to be president of all 50 states.'
Only 28 delegates are up for grabs in West Virginia on Tuesday and
not enough contests remain for her to catch Obama in pledged
delegates awarded by voters. But she hopes a win there can show the
so-called super delegates - party leaders who vote independently for
the nominee - that she can still persevere.
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